Yee- Mini Lesson #1

TE 402 READING LESSON PLAN

Reading Lesson Plan #1

Your Name: Courtney Yee                            Grade Level: Fourth   

Date lesson was taught:  April 20, 2011        Number of Students: Four

1) Rationale: After spending time reading every day the students usually write a summary in their journal. After reading these summaries each week I realize that the students don’t understand exactly what a summary is. They need a lot of help in this area and they need to learn what’s included in a summary so they can write better summaries every day.

2) List which reading skill/strategy is the main focus of your lesson: Teaching the students what’s included in a good summary and how to write one.

3) Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria): The students will use an informational article to write a high-quality summary using all of the characteristics in a summary.

4) Materials & supplies needed: Informational article, paper and pencil.

5) OUTLINE OF LESSON PLAN:

• Introduction to the lesson:

“Today we are going to learn how to write better summaries about what we read. I brought in here an informational article for each student (pass these out while I’m talking), and today I want us all to read this and then we’re going to form a summary. The purpose of this mini-lesson is to inform you all of the characteristics included in a summary so we can start writing successful summaries. I have read all of your summaries you write each week and I noticed they are missing a few things”.  

To help the students become motivated I chose an article about dogs, which will also help generate interest. (3 minutes) 

• OUTLINE of key events during the lesson:

 “We will all take turns reading this short article, including myself. Before we do this though, I want to fill you in on the characteristics included in a summary”.

As I talk about these things I will write them in list form on paper. “First thing, is that a summary tells the big ideas. Big ideas are quite easy to find, especially in an informational text. For example, a big idea might be that dogs are called puppies when they’re born. A summary is organized to show connections between the big ideas, so you’ll find another big idea that connects to our first one. A summary has a generalization or a conclusion. A summary is written in a student’s own words, meaning you do not copy sentences from the text. And lastly, a summary is brief, which means its short, and you get straight to the point. That sounds pretty easy doesn’t it? Does anyone have any questions? I will stop at times so we can discuss. Okay, starting with ________ we will begin reading from the front. Please be respectful and listen while your neighbor is reading. Remember to think about the characteristics we just talked about. After we’re done reading we will each form summaries.”

As we are reading I will stop and point out some big ideas in the text so the students understand exactly what is considered a big idea. (15 minutes)

• Closing summary for the lesson

Once we finish the article I will pass out the paper and pencils so the students can begin their summaries.

“Now, remember the characteristics of a summary we talked about earlier”. I will reiterate the characteristics on the list I made earlier.

“Using the big ideas we stopped and talked about, form a brief summary”.

After the students have finished their summaries I will collect them and have a short discussion. We will talk about how these new summaries differ from the previous ones they’ve written. To prepare for future experiences, I will inform the CT of the mini-lesson and ask her to look for a difference in their summaries on the following day, especially looking for an organized summary with big ideas. (10 minutes)

6) Ongoing-Assessment: To make sure my students are progressing towards the identified goal I will read through their summaries to make sure they included all of the characteristics of a good summary. I will compare these to their other summaries in their journals. If the students are missing something I will take note of it to make sure I can help them next time.

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 allow extra time for a student who is a slow reader and writer. I hope my other students are patient when this specific student is reading. Because we’re on a short period of time I could allow him/her to call on someone else to read, but only after they read a couple sentences. While this student is writing, I will allow them to take extra time to write their summary and I might have to reiterate the big ideas for them again.