Reading Lesson Overview

The first student that I will be working with is Stacy (pseudonym). Stacy is an ESL student with less than two years of English language instruction. She reads at a second grade level and is in the fourth grade. Stacy needs the most help with absorbing and learning new vocabulary words. Because she gets limited practice with English at home, she is not being exposed to a variety of different words that would help her to read with fluency and comprehend different texts. Both of my lessons will be beneficial for Stacy. In my fluency lesson I plan on using reader’s theater as a tool for identifying high frequency words and using different strategies to quickly decode more challenging words. Stacy can use this lesson in the future to help her pronounce words that she comes across in the future. My second lesson will help Stacy gain exposure to homophones, words that are often difficult for English language learners. My completing the homophone activity Stacy will learn new vocabulary words that will benefit her reading fluency. She will also be able to decipher the differences between two words that sound the same. If she comes across these words in a different text later she will be able to better comprehend the text because of this lesson.

One of the other students that I will be working with is Igor (pseudonym). Igor is not an ESL student, but he has many of the same learning needs as Stacy. Igor’s literacy learning is not fully supported at home. He was not read to often and does not have much experience will a wide variety of different texts. One of Igor’s main struggles is his inability to decode and sound out challenging words on his own. For this reason, I feel that the fluency lesson will be especially beneficial because it will teach Igor strategies that will allow him to independently improve his reading vocabulary and fluency. I feel that if Igor commits to practicing these strategies his fluency will increase. The word knowledge lesson will also be positive for Igor. One of the main objectives of the homophone lesson is to get students on track with learning new vocabulary by having them intensely study one pair of homophones. When Igor completes this activity and comes across these words in a future text he will feel much more confident with the material. This lesson will be the kick-start that Igor needs to keep adding new vocabulary to his repertoire. More vocabulary for Igor will mean increased levels of fluency and comprehension.