Reflection #2

As I conducted this lesson, I noticed many different strong and weak aspects, regarding: participation, students’ learning and my teaching.  Throughout the entire lesson, I found my students very eager to participate and help with the lesson.  When they had to contribute to clapping out the letter of each word, I found the students very excited and motivated to complete this task.  The physicality of the task allowed students to explore a different type of learning, rather than just listening, reading or writing.  Another strength I saw throughout this lesson was the students’ willingness to share their sentences.  Each student was blurting and openly offering their work.  I was very excited about the motivation my students were presenting throughout my lesson.  In regards to the support of the students’ learning, I thought students overused their ability to stretch.  Students were getting up every couple minutes to stretch and move around.  I had to tell students they had to sit down after a certain period of time.  If I were to redo this lesson again, I would tell the students that they were only allowed to get up and stretch two times.  This way, students will not be a distraction to other students trying to learn.  As a teacher, I felt as though I was able to manage the students better.  The smaller group of students allowed me to focus all of my attention on each student individually, rather than the entire class.  When I was reading each student’s sentences, they seemed to understand each concept thoroughly.  However, I am nervous that they will forget the concepts we went over the next day or throughout the week.  I know I have an ongoing assessment, but if they do forget, is it okay to re-teach this type of lesson with a different book to the same kids?  Would it be too repetitive to have the students recognize the same words and create sentences?  This will be something that I am excited to test out next year!

Reading Lesson #2

Reading Lesson Plan #2- Fluency


Date lesson was taught:  4/23/12   Number of Students:  4

1) Rationale:


In the middle of the academic year, Jane, Joe, Andrew, and Cale’s fluency of second grade words was below second grade level.  These students could sound out the words with direction, but were unable to say each word correctly by themselves.  In order to help these students master second grade fluency, I decided to create a lesson that challenged their fluency skills.


2) List which reading skill/strategy is the main focus of your lesson (select ONE area):


Fluency: Word Recognition

3) Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria):


When reading, Encounter, students will demonstrate word recognition skills by chanting high-frequency words and writing these words in sentences.


4) Materials & supplies needed:

• Book- Encounter
• Pencil
• Paper

5) OUTLINE OF LESSON PLAN (Provide a bulleted list of ideas):

• Introduction to the lesson  (List what you will say to help children understand the purpose of the lesson?  How will you help them make connections to prior lessons or experiences?  How will you motivate them to become engaged in the lesson?) (5 minutes)

• “Good morning students!  Today we’re going to read Encounter by Jane Yolen and analyze some of the words used throughout the story.”
• “What are the high-frequency words for this week?”
• “many, their, gave, would”
• “That’s exactly right!  People use these words in everyday conversations, so it’s important that we understand how to say and use these words.”
• “As we read Encounter, each time you hear one of these words, I want you to wait until I finish reading the entire page, then I want you to raise your hand and tell me if you hear one of the words.  After we hear the words were going to clap out each letter.  Let’s practice with the word, dog.  Okay, here we go. D-O-G.  Nice job everybody!”
• “Now before I start reading, let’s go over the classroom pledge.  What are the three rules?
• Listen carefully.
• Follow directions
• Work and play safely!
• “Good, now let’s get started”

• OUTLINE of key events (15 minutes)

• Teacher will read the story to the students and students will raise their hands when they hear a word from the lesson.  Teacher will then have the students clap out the letter in the word and write the word on the board to show the students which word they found.  
• “That was some great word recognition!  Now can someone help me figure out the meaning of each word?
• “What’s the meaning of many, gave, their, and would?” (Each question would be asked individually)
• “Okay, now that we know the meanings of each word, we’re going to write two sentences for each word.  Let’s practice before we do this activity on our own.  If I was going to write a sentence for “many”, I might say: Samantha was holding many pencils.  Does anybody else have an example?”
• “Now that we went through a couple of examples.  I want you to write a sentence for each word.  I’ll be sitting here if you have any questions.  Does anyone have any questions before we begin?  Okay, then get started!”

• Closing summary for the lesson (5 minutes)

• “Before we end today’s lesson, would anybody like to share with the group a sentence for …?” (... implies each word the students wrote about).  Those were all great examples.  I’m glad we were able to help each other understand these words!”

6) Ongoing-Assessment:

          For the remainder of the year, I would try and have students incorporate many high frequency words throughout their written.  I plan on monitoring these students to see if they are able to read the second grade Dolch words on target.

7) Based on what you know about your focus students, what Academic, Social and/or Linguistic Support will be needed during the lesson?

           

            In this particular group, some of the students struggle with sitting still and listening to stories being read to them.  I plan on having students get up and stretch after each word (many, their, gave, would) if they need to.  I understand sitting for a long time can be taxing on certain students, so giving them the option to stand up and stretch will give students a chance to refocus and learn.

Reflection #1

            For the duration of my lesson, I found these students paid close attention to the story read out loud to them, which made their story maps complete with great detail.  One of the most enjoyable parts of this lesson was observing the students create their own story maps.  They were excited at the opportunity to draw details, rather than write every word out.  I found a strong point in this lesson to be the time aspect.  Students were occupied and attentive throughout the entire lesson and hardly noticed the length of the lesson.  Another factor that I thought the students enjoyed, which made my lesson successful, was the small group size.  These students felt special and able to as questions in such a small group, which made their participation increase immensely.  Raising your hand in a large classroom to ask a question can be very intimidating, especially for second graders!  They are always wondering what so-and-so’s thinking and if they have the right answer or not.  This comprehension lesson also allowed students to answer questions related to the text through writing and drawing, rather than verbally communicating the answers.  Everyday in this classroom, students are to learn from scripted lessons called Reading Street, where they answer questions related to a story through verbal communication.  However, I noticed a few weaknesses in my lesson.  A disadvantage to having the students work in a group is the ability to take ideas from each other.  I noticed the students looking at each other’s papers to see if they were on the right track or had the right answers.  Due to this, I was unable to recognize whether or not each student was really summarizing the story by himself or herself.  However, I still feel like the students learned a great amount from this activity.  As a teacher, I was really happy with how this lesson went.  Seeing how excited the students were to participate in the lesson made me really excited to teach!  There were just a few questions I had regarding summarizing stories.  After reading the story, I did not create a discussion with the students regarding events that happened in the story.  Should I have had a small discussion with them and then passed out the story map?  I did not want to include a discussion, because I wanted to see how students would fill out the story map without my guidance.  With a few tweaks here and there, I thought my lesson was successful, and I was very happy with the outcomes.

Reading Lesson #1

Reading Lesson Plan #1- Comprehension


Date lesson was taught:  4/16/12   Number of Students: Four

1) Rationale:

Prior to teaching this mini lesson, I had many experiences observing comprehension lessons in my classroom.  I actually taught my ELA lesson on comprehension and was able to get an idea of which students understood summarizing strategies and which students did not.  Joe, Cale, Andrew, and Jane will have practice retelling main events that happened throughout the story.

2) List which reading skill/strategy is the main focus of your lesson (select ONE area):

Content Area Comprehension Instruction: Summaries

3) Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria):

Students will create a story map with words and/or pictures in order to recall and retell major ideas and details of a narrative text.


4) Materials & supplies needed:

• Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
• Story map
• Pencil
• Crayons, colored pencils, markers (if students desire to create a picture)

5) OUTLINE OF LESSON PLAN (Provide a bulleted list of ideas):

• Introduction to the lesson  (5 minutes)

• “Today we are going to do a lesson on a book called, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.
• “We are going to work on our comprehension today.  Can someone tell me what comprehension means? Comprehension is engaging with text, constructing meaning of it, using the reader’s background knowledge.”
• “Comprehension is an important part of your literacy development, and I have observed many lessons in your classroom in which your teacher asked questions requiring you to comprehend the text.”
• “Remember Ms. Hale’s and my Language Arts lesson a couple months ago? I asked many questions throughout that lesson, because I wanted to see if you second graders comprehended the text.  Do you remember that?”
• “Being able to comprehend will help you to be a successful reader!” 

• OUTLINE of key events (20 minutes)

• “Today we are going to learn about summarizing for comprehension.  Has anybody heard of summarizing before?  Well, summarizing is a strategy in which we pick out the most important ideas and relationships between them and restate them (Tompkins, 265).”
• “Summarizing is a great skill to learn because it allows you to reflect back on what you read, and remember the story.”
• “In order for you to learn the summarizing strategy, I will read the first three pages of the book were reading, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and then summarize it for you.  That way, by modeling the strategy you can see it in action!”
• “While I am reading please follow along and be respectful of our no blurting rule.”
• Will read first three pages to students
• “Okay, so the main points I took from these pages was that a family was getting ready to have breakfast and one of the pancakes landed on Henry.  However, all of the pancakes were eaten by the family including the one that landed on Henry’s face!”
• “As you can see, to use summarizing I first read the text carefully and then began to summarize the major events and important ideas.”

• “Now it is your turn to practice summarizing.  I will read the rest of the story out loud to you and afterwards everyone will create a story map summarizing the major events and details of the story.”
• Read the rest of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
• Pass out Story Map worksheet
• “Now we are going to fill out this story map!  You can draw a picture for each main event in the story; including any details you feel were important or you can write a sentence for each event describing what happened.  You can do both if you want too!”
• Students create story maps
• For students who are struggling, I plan on asking them questions to prompt their work, ex. “What happened first?  What do you think was the most important event in the beginning of the story?”

• Closing summary for the lesson (5 minutes)

• “Wow! You second graders did a great job on your story maps!  Let’s take a few minutes to share with the group.  Would anyone like to share their story map first?”
• Point out the main events and important ideas from the text that were included on the story maps.  
• Ask students if they feel comfortable using the strategy again in the future, and answer any questions they may have

6) Ongoing-Assessment:

Take notes, carefully observe students, and collect any written protects created during Reading Street lessons.  Listen for answers to comprehension questions regarding text.

7) Based on what you know about your focus students, what Academic, Social and/or Linguistic Support will be needed during the lesson?

I will use short, simple stories so students will be able to focus and keep their attention during the lesson.  I also created story map templates so students can easily fill them out and get an idea of the number of main events that occurred in the story.  I plan on paying close attention to students who may blurt or act out.  I will remind students of the Classroom Pledge and tell students to stay on task or they will be asked to leave the lesson.

Reading Lesson Overview

For my two mini-lessons, I decided to use four students who struggle with fluency and reading comprehension.  Throughout the year, my MT has had me conduct assessments with all of the students, which allowed me to get an understanding of where each student’s reading level was.  From each assessment I was able to narrow my decision for which students to teach in my lessons.  I decided to pick four students from the second grade classroom, whose names were Andrew, Jane, Cale, and Joe. 

The Students!

           

            Andrew is a second grade student who loves to share his opinion on everything!  He has innovative ideas, but sometimes strays from reality.  When I have observed his comprehension instruction, I notice that he “tip toes” around questions being asked about the text and compares the questions to his life or the world around him.  When I observe Andrew reading, I notice when he struggles with words, he just skips them and moves on to the next word he knows.  I have noticed this multiple times when Andrew attempts to read something or complete a homework task.  Not only do I see this in reading, but I have also noticed this type of behavior in other subjects.  If Andrew finds something to be difficult or he does not understand something, he moves onto something new.  I think Andrew will benefit greatly from the lessons I have planned.  In a smaller setting, the pace of the lesson can be set at each student’s individual need, which will benefit Andrew’s learning style.

            The second student I used for my lessons was Jane.  Jane is one of the spunkiest second graders I have ever met!  One struggle I have had with Jane the entire year is getting her to work on her assignments.  My MT struggles in the classroom management department, leaving her and Jane to an up and down relationship.  However, throughout the year, Jane has grown accustom to the routines set in the classroom and is starting to respect my MT more and more.  As far as comprehension is concerned, I have noticed that Jane struggles with reading and writing.  She can read some sight words, but reading a sentence takes her awhile depending on what words compose the sentence.  After she makes a few mistakes, she usually gives up and says she “can’t” do it.  I think she needs the motivation and “push” to read and work with her other classmates.  Like Andrew, Jane seems to misunderstand comprehension questions.  Having a smaller lesson based on comprehension can give me time to work with Jane on a one-one-on-one basis.

            Cale is a “newer” student who started attending Elliott Elementary School in January.  He is in the “weaker” group of readers and has been ever since he has been placed in the second grade classroom.  When I observe Cale in the classroom, I notice that he talks out of turn many times throughout the day.  However, I have not had many interactions with this student except one time when I was working on a worksheet about comprehension.  When I talked to him about the worksheet, he seemed to know what he was talking about and seemed to answer all of the questions correctly.  To better understand Cale’s ability, I wanted to include him in my lesson and see if his ability is truly represented by his place in the classroom.

            The last student included in my lesson is Joe, who is the popular student in the classroom.  Joe is usually involved in classroom disputes and always tells my MT, “I didn’t do nothing.”  I have observed my MT constantly telling Joe to stop behaving in a particular way and to get back to work.  Joe’s participation in discussions about texts can be closely related to Andrew’s participation.  He usually avoids comprehensions questions about text by coming up with answers related to his life.  I think Joe will benefit a great amount from the comprehension and fluency lessons.  He has struggle reading and takes many attempts to read certain words correctly.  He will benefit from the lessons a great amount.

            In this classroom, one of the assessments I was able to proctor was the running record with high frequency words for second graders.  As I was assessing these students, I noticed that they had trouble moving on from the first three words.  After I had assessed them, I was able to conclude that these particular students were below grade level regarding fluency.  As the year progressed, I was able to pay close attention to the student’s comprehension skills and really hone in on what the students needed work on.   Throughout my MT’s comprehension lessons, I noticed that Andrew, Jane, Cale, and Joe were not participating in the discussions as much as other students.  When these students did participate, their answers seemed unrelated to the question being asked.    After observing these students in the classroom environment, I decided to see how they were involved with my discussion lesson.  I noticed that of these students, Andrew participated the most, but gave answers that were unrelated to the questions being asked.  He seems to answer questions about the text with questions about real life or his life.  After analyzing the video a little bit more, I decided to create a lesson around comprehension and I thought these students would be great for the lessons.

Blog #6- Writing a Letter to Parents

Note:  All of the below mentioned activities have been derived from chapter eleven of Literacy for the 21^st Century, by Gail Tompkins.  There were some really great activities I could not help but use in my letter!  I hope this letter is detailed enough for the parents of a second grade reader who struggles with comprehending strategies. Billy has made great strides in the academic year, yet still struggles with comprehending stories.  This letter is designed to let Billy’s parents know of a few group and individual activities provided for Billy to be as successful in the classroom as possible.

Dear Parents,

            As we wind down the school year, I want to make you are aware of a few activities our classroom will be engaging in for the remainder of the year.  Billy’s reading and writing skills have come a far way since the beginning of the year, and I am very proud of all the improvement he has made!  There are a few more skills he will master in the classroom before the end of the year, and I plan on outlining these skills in this letter.  I want to make sure Billy is ready for third grade, and by completing these tasks; I believe he will be more than ready.  The following skills will be accomplished in the following way:

            The first skill I want Billy to try and master is his comprehension strategies.  I have noticed that Billy struggles with answering questions following a reading of a story.  I plan on trying to enhance Billy’s understanding of the stories given to him.  For the remainder of the year, I plan on using guided reading strategies throughout some of classroom time.  Guided reading allows small groups of students to work together and read at various levels.  Students, who are at about the same reading level, will read with other students at similar levels.  This allows students to read at their desired pace and learn from their other peers.  I think Billy will really benefit from learning from his peers, because he will be able to share ideas and experiences with them.  I think this would be a great way for Billy to not only work on comprehending the story, but also with his word fluency!  He will be reading out loud with his group, and answering discussion questions along the way.

            After reading a story, which incorporates guided reading, I plan on having Billy and his group work on writing skills using interactive writing activities.  The writing activity will be completed within each reading group and will be related to the story that was read during the guided reading activity.  Students will take turns answering questions and filling out a chart related to the story.  The questions will involve comprehensive questions where the students will have to go back and search for the answers in the book.  Each student will have to fill out their own chart and recall knowledge from the story they just read.  Students will be allowed to work together and create answers from each other’s thoughts.  Billy will really benefit from this activity, because he will not only work on his comprehending skills, but also his writing.  I think Billy will have a great time learning from his peers and sharing knowledge as well. 

            As the intern of the classroom, I plan on working with Billy’s group and will help lead the group’s activities.  I want to make sure students understand what they need to complete in order to participate to their best of abilities.  I am excited to see what Billy and his group can accomplish as a team, and I hope his skills improve as he furthers in the year.  Again, I want to stress that Billy is doing great in the classroom and I am so proud of the work he has shown throughout the year.  

Thanks for your time,

            Lindsay 

Blog #5- Reading Fluency

           There are many approaches that are effective in assessing the three components of fluency, which are accuracy, reading speed, and prosody.  In assessing fluency, I think testing high frequency words is very important.  There are many ways to assess students’ awareness of high frequency words. Giving students a list of words to read off as efficiently as possible is an important assessment to use within in the classroom, because often, high-frequency words are known as sight words.  This means that students will see these words often in different activities they do throughout their lives.  “Through repeated reading and writing experiences, students develop automaticity, the ability to quickly to quickly recognize words they read…” (Tompkins, pg. 189)  This is a great description explained by Tompkins in the text when talking about high frequency words.

            Another effective approach for assessing fluency would be improving reader’s reading speed.  If students are able to read the same excerpt or reading selection multiple times through at a fast pace, then they may be able to recognize words used in other texts.  Tompkins also mentions the ability to chunk sentences into meaningful units, guided reading, and choral reading as a few ways to help students with reading fluency.  There are many ways to enhance students’ reading fluency.  As teachers, we need to be aware of these many methods, so we can try and improve each and every student’s fluency.

            In my field placement, I have noticed my teacher uses a high frequency word assessment.  She has the students read to her a list of high frequency words, and either checks if the students know the word in a quick fashion or a slash if the students had to sound out the word/did not read the word right away/skips the word.  My teacher said this assessment gives her an idea of who happens to be on track with the curriculum and who may need more reading instruction.  From the beginning of the year until now, I have seen a big change in my student’s ability to recognize high frequency words.  In order to scaffold students to get to this certain point, my teacher has used different techniques in the classroom.  Many of the techniques come from scripted units called Reading Street.  My teacher reads from a script and creates lessons based on what the book calls for.  Some of the activities included in the book are guided reading, read out loud, spelling tests, etc.  Some of these activities seem to be working to get students to recognize a variety of words in text.

            A mini-lesson that could be used to teach fluency regarding The Bread Winner would be having the students create their own glossary of words that are not normally read in everyday reading.  Students will have sustained silent reading for approximately 20-30 minutes, and will compile a list of words they do not understand.  Students will include the page number from the word they did not understand and the passage the word was found from.  The teacher will bring the students back together and talk about what words they had trouble decoding and reading in context.  Words, such as: militia, burqas, chador, and looters, could be words students found in the first two chapters to discuss further.  Students would write the word down and what they think the word might mean.  They will use contextual clues in order to try and find out a definition.  As students read off the words they had trouble reading and understanding, the teacher will have them read the passage included with the word.  Students will have a discussion related to what the word might mean, then will research the words and find out the actual definitions.  The teacher will post the definitions in the classroom somewhere, so while students are reading the rest of the book, they will be able to continually be as fluent as possible.  This type of mini-lesson can happen throughout the entire book to make sure students understand what they are reading!

^^ This would be a good place for children to do their reading, so they can be as comfy as possible :)