Bailey Lesson Plan 1

Reading Lesson Plan # 1   Rationale: Both of my focus students are a little more advanced than second grade readers.  They enjoy reading books that are at third and fourth grade levels, but sometimes have problems understanding words in the story.  The students need practice with word they have heard and can pronounce, but do not really know the meaning of the word or know a meaning that is not the one in the book. Objective for this lesson: The learner will practice using word-learning strategies while reading the book So You Want to be President in order to help them understand the content of the book better. Materials & supplies needed: Book: So you Want to be President by Judith St. George and illustrated by David Small

Procedures and approximate time allocated for each event    • Introduction to the lesson    1.     “Together we are going to read a book and learn the meaning to some words you may have heard before. We are only going to read half of the book today, but on Monday we will read the other half of the book and do a different activity.” 2.     “Before reading, I would like to know if either of you know or have heard any of these words before: frock coat, trousers, carnation, quipped, adversaries, reunited, and crooked.” 3.     Give them both times to respond about the words in the book from pages 7-21. 4.     “It is great to hear all your wonderful ideas and learn what words you know.”    (5 minutes)    • OUTLINE of key events during the lesson   1.     “Can either of you think of a way to find out what a word means?” 2.     Give them time to respond. 3.     “Great ideas!  You can also look at the words around the word to see if that will help you understand the meaning to the new word.  Like this” (Model a word in the book) 4.     “You could also refer to pictures” (Model: “like for the word ‘trousers’ there is a picture of a man wearing trousers or ‘frock coat’ there is a man wearing one”). 5.     “Or you can analyze word parts) (Model: “like in the word ‘reunited,’ re- means to do again) 6.      “If all of those strategies do not work, you could use a dictionary or thesaurus.” 7.     “Now, I will read the book aloud so you can hear the new words that are used in the book.  I will pause at each word so you can have time to work together to use one of the strategies to find the meaning of the word.  When I read, I expect you both to be quiet and paying attention to when these words come up: frock coat, trousers, carnation, quipped, adversaries, reunited, and crooked.  Then you can have a level one voice to discuss the meaning and ask me any questions.” 8.     Read and give them time to work. Observe their strategies.   (15 minutes)   • Closing summary for the lesson   1.     “Which strategy do you like best and why?” 2.     Give each of them time to explain and discuss the strategies. 3.     “So keep these strategies in mind when you are reading and do not know the meaning of a word.  If one strategy does not work, they you can try another one.”   (5 minutes)   Ongoing-Assessment: I will know the students are progressing toward my objective by watching them work together using the word-learning strategies to find the meaning of words in the book.  They will have time to explain why they agree or disagree with what the other says, so both students are participating.  I will observe which strategies they use often or if they use multiple strategies to find the meaning of a word.

Adaptations: Based on what you know about your focus students, what Academic, Social and/or Linguistic Support will be needed during the lesson?   I will read the book aloud so they can hear me model word-learning strategies.  I will model each strategy and allow them time to practice each strategy.  They will have the regular class expectations for reading time and I will remind them of the expectations.  If they need help pronouncing words, then I will assist them in order for them to find the meaning of the word.

Bailey Reading Lesson Overview

Reading Lesson Overview: Write a brief description of 2 or more focus students (using pseudonyms) you want to work with for your reading lessons, and be as specific as possible in describing their learning needs:

I have chosen to work with Sarah and Luke (pseudonyms for confidentiality purposes).  The main reason I chose to work with these two students is because I have seen them work well together and I know they will be willing to work with me on reading strategies.  They both enjoy reading and share with me about what they have recently read and what other books they would like to read.  My MT told me that it would be easier to work with them also because they are high achievers in both language arts and math.  That is why we have planned for me to pull the students out during math time. 

I do not know too much about their past reading experiences because I work with my MT’s reading group, which is considered one of the lower level reading groups, while these two students are in a different teachers classroom with the higher level group.  I have gone into their class only a couple times to observe what the higher level reading group works on.   I have seen Sarah and Luke work together to do fluency tests and find how many words per minute they can read, so I know they are comfortable working together and reading aloud to each other.  I have also seen them choose books to read in the library to help give me better ideas of their interests.

I chose to use the book So You Want to be President by Judith St. George and illustrated by David Small to use during both lessons.  The first lesson we will be focusing on how to use word-learning strategies and the next lesson we will practice how to use a story map.  I chose this book because in their reading group, the students read short biographies and had to make a little pamphlet about each person they read about.  Sarah and Luke enjoyed this assignment and told me what they had learned about a couple of the past presidents, and other significant people in U.S. history.  This book will provide words that they do not know the meaning of and can make a graphic organizer for, so that is one reason we will focus on word-learning strategies and story mapping.

Both these students need help with understanding the words they may have heard before, but do not know what they mean.  Once, they learn the word meanings they will be able to comprehend the ideas in the story.  This will make it easier for them to fill out a graphic organizer that asks for the book title, author, and four main ideas and details of the book. This will give them more practice in comprehending the story, by retelling/writing what the main ideas are in the book. 

Shaler Reflection 1

·         What did you notice about your students’ participation and learning in relation to your objectives?

 

During my lesson, my students participated in working towards my lesson’s objective by trying to find groups of words in the same word family.  They were each dealt cards.  When they got their cards, they each first looked in their hand to see if they had any words in the same word family.  If they did, then they paired those cards together.  This showed me that they could look at words and know which words were a part of the same word family.  For example, Lindsey was dealt the cards “shop” and “mop.”  As soon as she was dealt these two cards, she paired them together because she could see they are a part of the same word family.  Also, throughout the game, my students participated in working towards my objective by asking each other for words in the same word family.  For example, on one of his turns, Jordon asked Maggie if she had any cards that rhymed with “jar.”  She looked in her hand and saw the card “far” rhymed with “jar,” so she handed this card to Jordon.  Not only did the person asking for cards need to know which word family they were looking for, but the person being asked also had to know which word family to look for.  At the end of the game, I had each student share the word family cards they found during the game.  This helped my students learn about a variety of different word families.  In fact, later on during class, Jordon was working on a worksheet that had some word families on it, and he excitedly pointed out to me which word families he found.

 

·         What were the strengths and limitations of your lesson for supporting your students’ learning?

 

One of the strengths of my lesson was that it was a familiar game to my students.  Before playing the game, I asked them if they had played Go Fish before, and all of them had.  Therefore, the game was easy for the students to play because they were already familiar with the rules.  However, I used this familiarity to teach them new content through this game (word families).  Another strength of my lesson was it was engaging for the students.  Instead of having my students sit and listen to me talk about word families, they got to actually engage in finding word families for themselves.  A final strength of my lesson was the students were able to explore many different word families.  Instead of just teaching them about one word family, I included 8 different word families into my cards.  However, my lesson also had a limitation.  I made 32 cards for my game (8 different word families with 4 cards per family).  We did not have enough time to go through all of the cards.  Therefore, my students did not get to see as many different words as I would have liked.  But, the students got to see words in several different word families, so they were exploring more than just one word family.

 

·         What did you notice about yourself as a teacher?  What questions do you have?

 

After teaching this lesson, I noticed something about myself as a teacher: I am able to make on-the-spot changes to my lessons to make them more successful.  For example, I originally planned on dealing each student 6 cards.  However, the cards were so big in their hands that I changed my mind as I began dealing the cards, and I only gave each student 4 cards.  This made it easier for the students to hold the cards in their hands.  If I had given them any more cards, the students would most likely not have been able to hold onto all of the cards.  Another change I made to the game was to have students collect 2 cards of the same word family to create a group.  Originally, I planned on having the students make groups of 4 cards.  As I was making the cards, I made word families with 4 words in each word family.  However, after the students were playing the game for a couple of minutes, I realized there were a lot of cards in the center of the table, and the students were not finding groups as fast as I thought they would.  In response to this, I told the students they only needed 2 cards in the same word family to create a group, not 4 cards.  This made the lesson more successful because each student was able to find more word family groups than they would have if they needed 4 cards in each group.  At the end of the game, there were 7 different groups created between all 3 students.  Thus, I made a couple of decisions during my lesson that helped make the lesson more successful for the students.  My only question, after teaching this lesson, is: How much did my students retain from my lesson?  Since my assessment for this lesson is just an ongoing assessment, then I have no data to see if my students still remember what a word family is, which word families we learned about, and how to use word families to decode while reading.  I will be interested to continue observing them in class to see if they use any of these skills.

Holly Bailey's Letter to Parent

Sunday, April 14^th, 2013

Holt Public Schools

To the Parents of Nick (Pseudonym):

          Nick often shows that he understands the material we are going over in class by completing his work.  When he does not finish morning work, he almost always finishes it later in the day so he does not miss recess time.  My concern is that he does not finish his morning work because he becomes off task by talking and distracts other students while working.  Then, later in the day, he feels rushed to finish it so he can go to recess.  This will result in him only giving partial of his best work and preventing others from finishing as well.

          I have noticed that he often wants to talk about what he writes in his daily journal.  The students have time every morning to write a journal entry and they choose what to write about (usually it is what they did the night before or over the weekend that was fun).  I have talked to him about keeping the ideas in his head while writing and have given them time afterward to talk about what they wrote with the student sitting next to them.  Next, I tried having them share ideas before writing instead, so he would not feel as tempted to talk during the writing time. 

I am glad he is able to continue to add more detail and share his experiences, because this is important to have him think through what he wants to write, but needs to take the time to record all his great thoughts.  These journals also work as practice for students to use correct capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and sentence structure.  Reading his journal, I see that he often misses punctuation, mostly periods at the end of sentences on the days he is very talkative.

Since these journals are good writing practice, I have made a system to help keep him on task.  At his desk he has a sheet of paper with six blank boxes on it.  If he can get a smiley face stamp in every box by Wednesday, then he is rewarded.  We agreed that the reward would be to have lunch with me (the intern) in our class on Friday.  In order to receive a stamp he is to be following the expectations all the time, so in the morning he finishes the journal with quality writing without talking to others.  Also, he knows that he will not get a stamp every time he is doing what he is supposed to because it is expected of him, and all the students to follow expectations.

This system seems to be working well for Nick, because when he stays focused on his journal, he tends to use punctuation and different types (like periods or exclamation points at the end of sentences). To reinforce this good behavior a similar system could be set up at home.  If you would like, I can send you a copy of a chart to put on the refrigerator or on Nick’s bedroom wall that you can draw stars on for following expectations at home.   A reward that Nick has agreed to for reaching a certain amount of stars would help encourage him.  This is an option that would help Nick stay on task and have a goal to achieve.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.   

Thank you for your cooperation,

Holly Bailey
allemanh@msu.edu
(517) 581-8978

Shaler Lesson Plan 2

Reading Lesson Plan # 2 Context Clues Rationale: All of the students have trouble reading words within context.  When a running record was conducted (by my MT) with a reading passage: Jordon and Maggie scored 88% with word reading accuracy, and Lindsey scored 79% with word reading accuracy. Objective for this lesson: The learner will discuss words in context while reading Zoomer’s Summer Snowstorm by giving 1 possible name for a covered up word and explaining that word choice with either pictures or surrounding words. Materials & supplies needed: Zoomer’s Summer Snowstorm book and post-its

• Introduction to the lesson 1.      “When you are reading, do you ever get stuck on a word that you don’t know how to read?  Well, today, we are going to talk about a strategy that you can each use to help you become expert readers!” 2.      “This strategy is called using context clues.  Can everyone say, ‘context clues’?  Context means the words and pictures in a story.  If you come across a word you do not know, when reading, you can use the other words or pictures on the page to help you figure out what the word is.  This strategy is important for you to know because it can help you read words that you do not know while you are reading.” 3.      “Today, I am going to read you a really funny story.  When I am reading this book, there are going to be some words covered up.  This means you each get to be a reading detective to figure out what the covered up words are.” (2 minutes)   • OUTLINE of key events during the lesson 1.      “Before we read the story, I am going to talk to you about context clues.  This reading strategy is when you use the words or pictures by a word to help you read that word.  When you are reading, if you do not know how to read a word, you can try using context clues to help you read the word.  You can look at the words around the word that you do know how to read to help you figure out what the word is.  Or, you can look at the pictures on that page to help you figure out what the word is.  While we’re reading this book, you can get some experience with using context clues to help you figure out what a word is.” 2.      “When I am reading the story, your voices should be at zero, your eyes should be on the book, and you should be listening to what I am reading.” 3.      “In the book, I covered up some words.  When I come across a green post-it, I am going to stop reading and you will become word detectives.  Only the first sound of the hidden words is showing.  When we get to a word that is hiding, I am going to call on each of you to make a guess as to what the word is and why you think it is that word.  If it is not your turn to speak, your voice should be at zero, your eyes should be on the speaker, and you should be listening to their ideas.  Are there any questions?” 4.      Read the book (10 minutes)   • Closing summary for the lesson 1.      “You were all hard-working word detectives!  You each used words or pictures around a hiding word to help you guess what the word is.” 2.      “When you were using context clues, was it easier to use pictures or words to help you read the hidden word and why?” 3.      Allow each student to share their thoughts with the group 4.      “So, when you are reading in the future, how might you use context clues to help you read a word you do not know how to read?” 5.      Allow each student to share their thoughts with the group (5 minutes)   Ongoing-Assessment: I will know the students are progressing toward my objective by observing how they guess what a hidden word is.  I will be listening for them to defend their choice by using either surrounding words or pictures on the page.  I will observe which type of context each student uses the most in their word choices (either pictures or surrounding words).  For the context that each student uses the least, I would focus future instruction on developing skills at using this type of context in reading with context clues.

Adaptations: Based on what you know about your focus students, what Academic, Social and/or Linguistic Support will be needed during the lesson? Students will be given simple rules, I will remind them of the rules while reading (if necessary), students are given clear behavior expectations, and reading the book will be engaging because they have to be word detectives

Shaler Lesson Plan 1

Reading Lesson Plan # 1 Word Families Rationale:  All of my focus students have issues with discovering patterns within words.  Also, all of my students need practice with word reading accuracy.  When reading a list of high frequency words (conducted by my MT), Jordon had 89% accuracy, Lindsey had 78% accuracy, and Maggie had 60% accuracy. Objective for this lesson:  The learner will practice using word families while playing a Word Family Go Fish game by creating at least one group of word family words. Materials & supplies needed: Word Family Go Fish cards, index cards with “snail” and “tail”

• Introduction to the lesson 1.      “Does everybody remember a couple of weeks ago when you worked with rhyming words in the Dr. Seuss packet?  Who remembers what is means for words to rhyme?” 2.      Allow for student responses 3.      “That’s right!  Rhyming words end with the same sounds.” 4.      “Well today, we are going to work with special types of rhyming words.  These special types of words are called word families.  Can everybody say, ‘word families’?  Word families are groups of words that rhyme and have the exact same ending.  If you look for the first vowel in a word, that vowel to the end of the word will be the same for words in the same word family.  For example, snail and tail are word families because if we take off the beginning sounds, they both in the /ail/ sound, or the letters a, i, l.” 5.      Show children snail and tail with index cards 6.      “The reason we are talking about word families today is because they will help you read certain words easier.  If you know how the ending of a word sounds, then all you have to do is focus on the beginning sounds.  So, this activity will help you all become experts at spotting words in a certain word family.” 7.      “To become experts with these words, we are going to play a game!  This game is called Word Family Go Fish!  If you’ve played Go Fish before, touch your nose.”   (3 minutes)   • OUTLINE of key events during the lesson 1.      Before we play the game, we are going to talk about word families, and how you know when to use your knowledge about them.  Like I said a few minutes ago, word families are groups of words that rhyme and end in the same letters, like ‘snail’ and ‘tail’ (show students these cards again).  This knowledge about word families can help you read other words in the same word family that you do not know how to read.” 2.      “So, if I know how read the word “tail,” I can use this knowledge to help me read other words in the ‘–ail’ word family.  Let’s say I come across the word ‘snail’ when reading, and I do not know how to read it.  I can remember that I know how to read ‘tail,’ and that is in the same word family as ‘snail.’  Then, I can take off the /t/ sound in ‘tail,’ and I know ‘snail’ also has to end in /ail/.  This means, all that I have to do is segment the new beginning sounds, which are /s/ and /n/.  Then, I can blend these sounds to make /sn/.  Finally, I put /sn/ with /ail/, and I now know how to read “snail.” 3.      “You can use your word family knowledge when you are reading and you see a word that you do not know, but you do know a word that has the same ending.  For example, I used my word family knowledge when I used ‘tail’ to help me read ‘snail.’” 4.      “Now, to give you practice with figuring out word families, let’s play our game!” 5.      Give students the rules of the game (same as Go Fish) 6.      “During the game, your voices should be at a level 2 and you should only be talking if it is your turn or another player is asking you a question.  Your cards should stay in your hands, unless you have a group to set on the table.” 7.      Deal cards (6 to each child) 8.      After game, have the students share their groups of words aloud (12 minutes)   • Closing summary for the lesson 1.      “Wow!  You found a lot of word families in our game!” 2.      “What was the easiest word family for each of you?” 3.      Go around the table and have each student share his/her easiest word family aloud 4.      “In the future, when you are reading, how will you use the word family you just mentioned to help you read a word that you don’t know?” 5.      Go around the table and have each student share his/her ideas aloud (5 minutes)   Ongoing-Assessment: I will know the students are progressing toward my objective because they will be asking one another for words within a word family.  Also, I will see them forming groups with words that are in the same word family.  I will observe which word families the students struggle with identifying in their cards to help me see which specific word families they may need extra practice on.

Adaptations: Based on what you know about your focus students, what Academic, Social and/or Linguistic Support will be needed during the lesson? Students will be given simple rules, I will remind them of the rules during the game (if necessary), students are given clear behavior expectations, the game is engaging, I will help a student segment and blend a word if it is not one of their high frequency words

Allison's Reading Lesson Overview

·         The first student I chose to work with is Jordon.  He is a mixed 6-year-old male student.  For Language Arts, he is a lower-achieving student.  His main issues in Language Arts stem from his struggle with reading words.  He especially has a difficult time finding patterns within words.  Outside of Language Arts, he is a middle-achieving student in all other subjects.  In general, he struggles with focusing on a task for an extended period of time.  Often times, he can be found daydreaming or playing with the pencils on his desk instead of working on the task at hand.

·         The second student I chose to work with is Lindsey.  She is a Caucasian 7-year-old female student.  For Language Arts, she is a lower-achieving student.  She struggles in Language Arts because she has a difficult time reading words in a given text.  Specifically, she struggles with attending to an entire word as she is reading.  She will often times look at the first, and sometimes second, letter of a word, and then read the word based on that letter.  However, many of her word choices do not match the given word, and do not make sense within the context of the text.  Additionally, she has a hard time finding patterns within words.  Outside of Language Arts, she is a middle-achieving student in all other subjects.  In general, she has a challenging time paying attention to directions.  Frequently, she will say she does not know what she is supposed to do for a given task, even though the directions have just been given to the class.

·         The third student I chose to work with is Maggie.  She is a Caucasian 6-year-old female student.  For Language Arts, she is a lower-achieving student.  She struggles in Language Arts because she has problems with reading words.  In particular, she has a difficult time finding patterns within words.  Outside of Language Arts, she is also a lower-achieving student in all other subjects.  In general, she is a very talkative child, both inside and outside of class.  However, she is unconfident in her own abilities to complete a given task.  Often times, she asks a teacher to help her accomplish an activity.

·         The first target area I have chosen to teach is word families.  Identifying words within a word family will help my students be better able to decode by analogy.  For example, if they come across the word “spill” and do not recognize it, they can use their knowledge of another word in the word family (e.g., “mill”) to decode “spill.”  However, if my students do not know about this strategy, then they will have a more difficult time decoding words that are unfamiliar to them.  Therefore, this target area is appropriate for my chosen students because all of them have a difficult time discovering patterns within words.  Word families involve finding the end patterns within words, so this target area will help my students identify the patterns within words.

·         The second target area I have chosen to teach is context clues.  Often times, a student can discover what a difficult word in a sentence is if they use context clues (surrounding words or illustrations).  This target area is appropriate for my chosen students because they all have a difficult time reading words within the context of a reading (e.g., story).  They either are unable to identify the unknown word, or they identify the word incorrectly and it does not make sense within the context it is used in.  Therefore, if they know how to use the surrounding words that they know (in the text) or the illustrations, then they will be better at accurately identifying an unknown word within context.