Monday, April 25, 2011
Reflection for #2
Reflection for #1
Yee- Mini Lesson #2
Yee- Mini Lesson #1
Friday, April 22, 2011
Tuchek Reflection #2
My second lesson went really well and like I suspected, all four focus students had a lot of fun playing the Sound-Letter Knowledge Game while still learning at the same time. At first I was worried that they were going to assume that the game was going to be boring because as soon as students hear the words “game” and “learning” in the same sentence, they automatically write it off but this game turned out really well. J and E were matched up which left C and M together which was worked out perfectly since J and M are best friends and would spend the lesson goofing off instead of listening/learning. Some things that I noticed throughout my lesson, is that the partners bounced ideas off of each other which was one of the things I was looking for, and it was also a really good idea to have the two teams compare their categories/columns after they were down. This comparing between peers allowed the students to catch each other’s mistakes and then have them a) share their reasoning for why they put the word where they did and then b) fix their mistakes based on their peers’ suggests/strategies they personally used. There were only a few times that I had to step in when the teams were comparing their results, and it was when all four of them were stuck on the rhyming task. The three words that they couldn’t agree on were “mom”, “bon”, and “pom” so I had all four students say out loud each letter individually starting with “mom” and then “pom”. When they got to the “m” sound in both “mom” and “pom” I had them say it a few times and asked them to take note of where their tongue positioning was and how their lips were. I then asked them to say “bon” out loud saying each letter individually and to take note of where their tongue positioning was and how their lips were. All five of us then sat there and said the sound associated with “m” and then “n” and the students instantly felt and heard how the two letters sounded differently and took the word “bon” out of the “mom” and “pom” rhyming pair. Overall, as a teacher I learned that learning can be just as effective as a game as it can be as a lecture, presentation, or hands-on activity, just a little more fun! I also learned that in order to get to the core of a students’ problem or weak topic, you sometimes have to start at the very beginning to uncover the root of the issue.
Tuchek Reading Lesson #2
TE 402 READING LESSON PLAN
Reading Lesson Plan # 2
Your Name: Haley Tuchek Grade Level: 4th
Date lesson was taught: April 11th, 2011 Number of Students: 4
1) Rationale (What evidence do you have that your focus students need to learn this skill/strategy?):
My focus students J, C, E, and M have trouble identifying sound-letter relationships and identifying new words. I’ve noticed several times when I’m reading one-on-one with these focus students, that they have trouble sounding out and decoding new words, so instead of giving them an assessment or worksheet to fill out, I thought a fun word game would be good for these four students to work with.
2) List which reading skill/strategy is the main focus of your lesson (select ONE area):
Phonemic Awareness/Phonics (Emergent Literacy, Tompkins chapter 4 & 5)
3) Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria):
Performance: Students will correctly identify letter sounds and relationships.
Conditions: Students will categorize words correctly based on the teacher’s instructions.
Criterion: Students must place any misplaced words in the correct category after the teacher/peers look over their work and identify any mistakes.
4) Materials & supplies needed:
-2 sets of the Sound-Letter Knowledge Game (20 or so slips of paper with 3-letter words written on them in each set)
5) OUTLINE OF LESSON PLAN (Provide a bulleted list of ideas):
• Introduction to the lesson
-“Today we are going to play a fun word game, but before we get started I’m going to tell you the instructions to this game. You guys are going to partner up with the person sitting next to you and between the two of you, you will share this envelope and work together to complete the task I give you which will involve you both looking at sound-letter relationships and word relationships.”
-Students will partner up (2 and 2) and I’ll hand each pair an envelope.
-“These envelopes contain little slips of paper with words that you all should be familiar with. Remember this game isn’t a race, but instead I want you to work together with your teammate and bounce ideas off each other or if you two have a disagreement about the placement of a word then you can explain to the other person your reasoning.”
-“You can now empty the contents of your envelope out onto the table and flip all the slips of paper over so the words are facing up.”
(5 minutes)
• OUTLINE of key events during the lesson
-Once students have all their slips of paper face-up, I’ll begin the lesson.
-“Your first task is to work with your partner and separate the words into two categories…the first column is for the words with short vowel sounds and the second column is for the words with long vowel sounds.”
-The students will work with their partner and separate the words into 2 columns.
-Once the 2 teams are done, I’ll ask them to “compare your two columns with the team next to you and see if they match.”
-They’ll check their work and if they find a word in the wrong category, I’ll ask them to explain why it is there and if they are still unsure where to place the word, I’ll have them sound out each individual letter (have both students sound it out).
-By having both students sound it out, they can see how the two different vowel sounds feel in their mouth and also hear how the two vowel sounds differ coming from someone else.
-“Your next task is to work with your partner and match all the rhyming words together. Remember, you can have more than just two words that rhyme.”
-The students will work with their partner and separate the words based on which ones rhyme.
--Once the 2 teams are done, I’ll ask them to “compare your rhyming words with the team next to you and see if they match.”
-They’ll check their work and if they find a word in the wrong pair, I’ll ask them to explain why it is there and if they are still unsure where to place the word, I’ll have them sound out each individual letter in the first word and then each individual letter in the second word (have both students sound it out).
-“For your last task, we’re all going to work together and find the words that have letters in it that makes your tongue hit the back of your teeth when you say it out loud…makes you exhale when saying it out loud, makes you hum…makes you smack your lips…”
-Introducing linguistics into the lesson will help students become aware of the movement their lips, throat, and tongue make when saying words out loud. Share linguistic stories with them (college level)
-“Now I want you to practice saying some of the words on the slips of paper with your partner and take note of how each letter sounds and looks coming out of their mouth. Switch partners when you’ve gone through some of the words.”
(15-20 minutes)
• Closing summary for the lesson
-“How did you guys like the game? Was it fun? Did the game help you understand sound-letter relationships better? What part of the lesson helped you the most or was a light-bulb moment?”
-These questions will help me see if the game achieved any, most, or all of my objectives.
-“When you were trying to find out what category or place a word should go, what strategy did you and your partner use to figure it out?”
-If the students don’t have any good or clear explanation or strategies, I’ll suggest some that they might be able to use in the future such as sounding out the word letter-by-letter, have a partner/peer say it out loud to see how it sounds coming from someone else, and/or utilizing some of the linguistic strategies we discussed.
-At this time, I’d like to find out if the students enjoyed the game, thought it was too hard/too easy, the strategies they used, and what they found the most difficult.
-“Thank you for all your help! Now you will be able to use some of the strategies we talked about whenever you come across an unfamiliar word that you don’t recognize to help you figure out how to pronounce it.”
(5-10 minutes)
6) Ongoing-Assessment:
-I will observe J, C, E, and M during Reading Workshop time and see what books they decide to silent read; see if they’re challenging themselves or reading at, below, or above their individual reading levels.
-I will read with these focus students one-on-one and take mental notes of what strategies they decide to use when they come across an unfamiliar word(s).
-Lastly, I’ll check in with my CT over the next couple of weeks and see if she sees any improvement in either these students’ reading and if they are utilizing any of the reading strategies I discussed with them (CT may even re-play the Sound-Letter Knowledge Game with them or offer the students the option to play during Reading Workshop).
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 work with both all four focus students at the back table during Reading Workshop so they are away from their classmates and the room will be relatively quiet and busy.
-By administering directions before they empty out the envelopes and making sure I have all of their attention be for giving them the next task, I’ll ensure that the students know exactly what they’re being asked to do.
-By having them partner up, it allows the students to feel comfortable since they’re working with their peers, they can bounce ideas off each other, have some student “teaching” moments, and also strengthen their social skills.
-C sometimes has trouble focuses his attention on school and would rather than just socialize, so before I begin the lesson I’ll make sure that I have his full attention and I’ll gain in through the introduction to the lesson (he’ll be excited that he was chosen to play a game in the back).
-J and M are good friends and goof off with each other sometimes so I’ll make sure that those two aren’t partnered up so that they’ll focus more on the lesson and less on each other.
Tuchek Reflection #1
My first lesson went really well, and I was surprised at how well both C and E participated in the CORE Phonics Survey. At first I was worried that they wouldn’t want to spend their Reading Workshop time doing extra reading exercises, but both of their lessons were very helpful in showing me what areas these two students struggle in. Both C and E got a perfect score (26 out of 26) when it came to identifying uppercase and lowercase letter names in Part A and B, which wasn’t very surprising, but when I asked C and E to tell me the sound each letter makes in Part C, they both struggled. C got a score of 17 out of 21 and E got a score of 18 out of 21. This showed me right away that these two below-average readers’ problems lie in the sound-letter relationship area. Both focus students did well identifying the long and short vowel sounds (long vowel sound came easier than short for both), and my prediction was correct that they would both find the pseudowords the most challenging. C and E could easily identify the familiar, benchmark words such as: “sip”, “quit”, “chop”, “dirt”, “key”, “hawk”, “ghost”, etc. probably because they’ve seen these words numerous times in their books and whatnot, but when it came to the made-up words like: “nop”, “dilt”, “shom”, “murd”, “hine”, “voot”, “bice”, etc. they seemed very lost and weren’t confident with any of their answers. Finally when we got to Part L, E did much better than C did and correctly read 5 out of the 8 words in the first column (missed “competes”, “further”, and “locate”) so he got to move onto the second column, but since he only correctly read 3 out of the 8 words he didn’t move onto the pseudowords. On the other hand, C only got 4 out of 8 words correct in the first column of Part L so he didn’t move on. Overall, as a teacher I learned that a little bit goes a long way; just by setting aside a little extra one-on-one time with a student can reveal things that you didn’t notice before. The things you uncover with this student can change how you approach this student with new material and/or show you what specific areas the student needs some extra practice with.
Tuchek Reading Lesson #1
TE 402 READING LESSON PLAN
Reading Lesson Plan # 1
Your Name: Haley Tuchek Grade Level: 4th
Date lesson was taught: March 28th, 2011 Number of Students: 2
1) Rationale (What evidence do you have that your focus students need to learn this skill/strategy?):
My focus students, C and E, have trouble identifying new words and broadening their vocabulary acquisition. I’ve noticed several times that when I’m reading one-on-one with C and E, that they’ll come to a new word that they don’t recognize and instead of sounding it out like the rest of their peers do, they’ll instead just say a random word that contains some of the same letters. For example, if C came across the unfamiliar word “vendor” he would pause in his reading then quickly say the familiar word “venture” and continue on. Their lack of phonemic awareness and phonics is an area of literacy that should’ve been targeted early on, but for some reason or another, C and E both struggle when it comes to making connections between letter names and sounds which is a very important area to tackle when it comes to literacy.
2) List which reading skill/strategy is the main focus of your lesson (select ONE area):
Phonemic Awareness/Phonics (Emergent Literacy, Tompkins chapter 4 & 5)
3) Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria):
Performance: Students will correctly identify letter names and sounds.
Conditions: Students will recite the correct letter, sound, or word back to me.
Criterion: Students must not miss more than 5 questions in any section.
4) Materials & supplies needed:
-CORE Phonics Survey (Student Material)
-CORE Phonics Survey (Teacher Guide)
-pencil
5) OUTLINE OF LESSON PLAN (Provide a bulleted list of ideas):
• Introduction to the lesson
-“Today we are going to do a quick little survey that’s going to help me see what you know about letters and the sounds that letters make. This is a newer type of survey so you’re one of the first students at Midway to test it out, which means you’re going to have to let me know what you think of it.”
-Show student what the “Student Material” survey looks like, flip through the pages so they get a general idea of what I’m going to ask of them.
-“Some of the questions I’m going to ask you may seem a little silly and easy to answer, but it’s just a fun way to get your brain warmed up!”
(5 minutes)
• OUTLINE of key events during the lesson
-“In these first two sections, I’m going to point to either the uppercase letter or the lowercase letter and all you have to do is tell me the names of the letters.”
-Students will (hopefully) recite back to me the correct letter(s) since these first two sections (Part A and B) are very primary. Record students’ results to letter names (uppercase) and letter names (lowercase) in the Teacher Guide.
-“I told you some of the questions would be silly! Now Part C is a little different and instead of telling me what letter I’m point to, you are going to tell me the sound that the letter makes.”
-Record students’ results to consonant sounds in the Teacher Guide.
-“This next section, Part D, is similar to the one you just did but this time you are going to tell me the sound each vowel makes.”
-Students will most likely either give me the long or short vowel sound (probably not both), so I will ask, “Can you tell me another sound for this letter?” Record students’ results to vowel sounds in the Teacher Guide.
-In order to encourage the students to keep doing their best and give them a little positive feedback, I’ll say, “You’re doing so well! Thanks for helping me out with this survey. Now the next few sections, Parts E through K, have real words in them and made-up words. The made-up words may look at sound a little funny so don’t try to make them sound like real words, but instead just try to sound them out like you would for any other unfamiliar word.”
-Instead of moving my finger across the sections like I did for Parts A-D, I’ll have the student use his own finger and move left to right starting at the top row in case he needs to move at his own pace (I don’t want to rush him).
-If the student is having difficulty with the pseudowords, I’ll make sure to reiterate that he should “sound out the words and not try to make them sound like real words.”
-Record students’ results to: short vowels in CVC words, consonant blends with short vowels, short vowels, digraphs, and –tch trigraphs, r-controlled vowels, long vowel spellings, variant vowels, and low frequency vowel and consonant spellings in the Teacher Guide.
-“We’re almost done! For this last section, Part L, I’m going to have you read aloud down the first column of words which are all real words and have two syllables.”
-I’ll point to the first column so the student isn’t confused on where to begin.
-Record students’ results to multisyllabic words in the Teacher Guide. If the student can read at least 5 out of the 8 words in the first column, then I’ll say, “Great job! Now we’re going to move on to the second column and just like the first column, I’m going to have you read aloud the words which are all real and have two syllables.”
-Record students’ results to multisyllabic words in the Teacher Guide. If the student can read at least 5 out of the 8 words in the second column, then I’ll say, “Perfect! Now we’re going to move on to the last column and just like the first two columns, I’m going to have you read aloud the words except this time the words are made-up so remember to not try and make them sound like real words!”
-Record students’ results to multisyllabic words in the Teacher Guide.
(15-25 minutes)
• Closing summary for the lesson
-“Like I said before, this is a relatively new survey so you are one of the first students at Midway to take it. How did you like it? Was it too easy? Too hard?” What sections or parts were the most difficult for you?” This question will help me see if there is any correlation between the students’ survey results and their attitude(s).
-“When you were stuck on an unfamiliar or made-up word, what strategy did you use to figure out how to say it?”
-If the students don’t have any good or clear explanation or strategies, I’ll suggest some that they might be able to use in the future such as sounding out the word, breaking it apart into smaller fragments, or breaking it apart into familiar words.
-At this time, I’d like to find out if the students enjoyed the survey, thought it was too hard/too easy, the strategies they used, and what they found the most difficult (I’m predicting the pseudowords will be the most challenging because the students won’t be able to locate their pronunciation in their memory).
-“Thank you for all your help! Now you will be able to use some of the strategies we talked about whenever you come across an unfamiliar word that you don’t recognize to help you figure out how to pronounce it.”
(5-10 minutes)
6) Ongoing-Assessment:
-I will observe both C and E during Reading Workshop time and see what books they decide to silent read; see if they’re challenging themselves or reading at, below, or above their individual reading levels.
-I will read with C and E both one-on-one and take mental notes of what strategies they decide to use when they come across an unfamiliar word(s).
-Lastly, I’ll check in with my CT over the next couple of weeks and see if she sees any improvement in either C or E’s reading and if they are utilizing any of the reading strategies I discussed with them (CT may even re-administer the CORE Phonics Survey).
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 make sure to administer the CORE Phonics Survey to C and E individually so that they will both get one-on-one time and not be distracted by their peer’s answer(s).
-I will work with both focus students at the back table during Reading Workshop so they are away from their classmates and the room will be relatively quiet and busy.
-By administering directions before each section, I’ll ensure that the students know exactly what they’re being asked to do and they’ll be able to move at their own pace.
-C sometimes has trouble focuses his attention on school and would rather than just socialize, so before I begin the lesson I’ll make sure that I have his full attention and I’ll gain in through the introduction to the lesson (he’ll be excited that he is one of the lucky few that get to work with me one-on-one)
-E sometimes has trouble opening up and feeling comfortable, so to break him out of his shell I’ll get him excited about the lesson during the introduction and try to show him that it’ll be fun (nothing is graded, just for the benefit of my own learning).
Tuchek Reading Lesson Overview
For my first lesson I’m going to be working with C and E. Before we were given this assignment, I already knew that these two students struggled with their reading and I’ve worked several times with E during Reading Workshop on his fluency skills. I asked my CT if there were any particular students that needed to spend a little extra time on any literacy areas, and she immediately got very excited and informed me about the new CORE Phonics Survey that their school (Midway Elementary School) was testing out. Before I began constructing my lesson, I met with the Midway’s reading specialist and talked to her for a while about CORE’s material and why she thought it was so important to start looking at students’ emerging literacy skills before looking at anything else that would’ve been developed later in their schooling. Her reasoning for this, is that students usually tackle phonics and phonemic awareness in lower elementary, but sometimes there are students who slip by without fully mastering these skills which are the foundation for everything else. Without these skills, students like C and E, struggle through all of elementary school and beyond with literacy, more specifically, letter and sound relationships and reading and decoding.
For my second lesson I’m going to be working with J, C, E, and M who are all boys and are average or below-average readers. Like my first lesson, I asked my CT if there were any particular students that needed to spend a little extra time on any literacy areas, and she let me know of a new “game” that she found out about from the school’s reading specialist that helps students develop their decoding and sound-letter relationships. I decided to use this lesson on these four students because all though they definitely aren’t the lowest level readers in the class, they aren’t the highest either so they don’t benefit from the one-on-one help/attention that some of the other students receive, and they all have difficulty recognizing unfamiliar words and finding relationships between words. With that being said, I think it’s important to teach this lesson to students that might need a little extra help even though they aren’t struggling, but still need the practice to strengthen their skills and see what areas they still need help with after the lesson is over.