Downer:reading lesson plan 1

Reading Lesson Plan # 1 Rationale: The students are reading teaching spirit bear by Ben Mikaelsen, after listening to two of my students reading the book they kept on running into difficult words and skipping over them because they were unable to sound out the words. I decided to use these two students and my mentor teacher suggested another two students that also struggle with sounding out words. It is a very important lesson to learn how to sound out difficult words so that when reading and one comes to a difficult word they are able to sound out the word so that the sentence makes sense. Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria): students will learn how to break up words into syllables using the syllable rules provided in the Tompkins book. Materials & supplies needed: list of words, syllabication rules (Tompkins), paper, Words I am going to use:            Accompanied                innocent            Pretended                     punishment            Banishment                  abandoned

Procedures and approximate time allocated for each event  • Introduction to the lesson (5 minutes)      Growing up I always struggled with sounding out difficult words and being able to break long words up into syllables so that it would be easier for me to sound out the words. I was taught some simple rules to help me and I am going to share those with you today. This way you all will be able to read any book you want and be able to sound out difficult words. Have any of you been taught how to break a big word up into smaller syllables? • OUTLINE of key events during the lesson 10 minutes)     I am going to give you six words and I would like you to draw a line between the different syllables, I just want to know what you all already know. Try your best, this will not be graded and will just help me see where everyone is at.    (I will quickly look at the work as the students are dividing up the words, I plan on the students having difficulty since I do not believe they have been taught rules on how to break apart words)    Thank you everyone for breaking up those words, was it difficult or easy for you to know where to put a line to create a syllable -        hard because I just guessed I didn't know where to correctly place a line        well that is great because that is what I am going to teach you today, I have five short rules that you can follow        when trying to break a word into different syllables. -        rule one: when two consonants come between two vowels in a word, divide syllables between the consonants.   Example: cof-fee, bor-der -        rule two: when there are more than two consonants together in a word, divide the syllables keeping the blends together. Example  bank-rupt, mon-ster -        rule three: when there is one consonant between two vowels in a word, divide the syllables after the first vowel. Example bo-nus, gla-cier -        rule four: if following the previous rule doesn’t make a recognizable word, divide the syllables after the consonant that comes between vowels. Example meth-od, doz-en -        rule five: when there are two vowels together that don’t represent a long vowel sound or a dipthong, divide the syllables between the vowels. Cli-ent, qui-et       lets look at the list of words that I have provided to you earlier to work on and lets take another look using these rules. • Closing summary for the lesson (5 minutes) great job everyone on correcting your mistakes and using the rules to help you break up difficult words. Did you all think it was easier to break up the words using the rules? Why is it important to break up long words into syllables? Next week we are going to continue on working on this, until then I want everyone to remember the rules and use them when ever you have a long word that needs to be broken up. Ongoing-Assessment: I will make sure to hear these students read throughout the week so that I can hear if they are sounding out words and breaking words into syllables so it is easier for them to sound it out or if they are just skipping over the difficult 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 need to make sure that my students understand the words that I have provided, it will be important that I provided a definition to the words so that they are able to connect a meaning to the word. I will also need to provide time for the students to talk and work with each other, the students struggle with just sitting and listening to instructions so I plan on having the students talking and working with each other and always being involved.

Downer: reading lesson overview

There are a couple students in my classroom that struggle with sounding out large words. The students have difficulty breaking words apart and sounding out different syllables in words. Two of the students are English language learners; they struggle with understanding English and being able to sound out difficult words.  English is not spoken at home so the students have great difficulty receiving the help they need to become stronger English readers. Since English is not spoken at home they are not provided with extra practice in reading English books at home. The two students often read difficult books in school but do not understand what they are reading. This causes them to have great difficulty when they have to sound out a difficult word because they are not able to use text clues to help them sound out the word.

 The other two students have low reading levels, the students also struggle with being able to read selected text and understand the information they are reading to help them decode difficult words. The students often read books of lower level when provided time to read for fun. This provides the students to never have to work on their decoding skills because they do not push themselves to read more difficult books. When they need to read difficult books for school they are often behind on their reading and not able to provide an explanation of what they have read. It is clear that the students reading fluency is very low with them reading word by word, this has lead to a decrease in their ability to comprehend the information. 

With these four students I plan on focusing on providing them the tools in breaking apart difficult words by sounding out the different syllables. Helping students understand how to appropriately break up different syllables in a word is very important, for example there is one vowel sound in each syllable (Tompkins, page 200). I plan on helping students understand the different syllabication rules that Tompkins has provided to help the students understand where different syllables are in a word. This will help the four students to be able to sound out difficult words when they are aware of how to appropriately break apart words. The first lesson I plan on is providing students with a list of words where the students will have to break up the words into syllables. This will show me where the students are at and what information they already know. I am predicting that the students will not know how to break up syllables because I have not seen the students use they strategy when approached with a difficult word. After the students have completed the short task I will work with the students in learning the rules and understanding where to correctly break words up. The next lesson I will continue working with the four students on knowing where to break up difficult words. I will provide games for the students to play to help them continually learn how to break words up correctly. At the end of the second lesson I will have the four students take turns reading a book out loud. I will make sure this book is a little difficult with ample amount of words that they will have to sound out. After reading I will provide the students with another sheet of words to see what the students have learned and what the students still struggle with when breaking words into syllables.

Week 14: Focus Student Letter Post

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Jones (pseudonym),

I am delighted that I have the opportunity to continue working with Julia (pseudonym) and the rest of Mrs. Smith’s (pseudonym) 4^th graders on their literacy learning for the remainder of my internship. I have had the opportunity to observe and assess Julia on her literacy learning during the beginning of the school year. I am very impressed with her progress considering that your family has only been in the United States for a little over a year. I contribute much of Julia’s success to your strong involvement in her education. With this letter it is my goal to keep you informed of Julia’s development, what aspects of her literacy still need improvement, and how I plan on implementing specific practices that will help Julia continue to progress.

Because Julia is an English language learner, she has specific literacy learning needs. Julia is currently reading at a second grade level due to her lack of vocabulary comprehension while reading. Julia often reads texts word by word and without expression or pause for punctuation. There are many content specific words and ideas within the texts she is reading that she is unfamiliar with. Because of this vocabulary, Julia is often unable to fully comprehend the main idea of texts that she has read, thoroughly understand and answer questions about the texts, or fluently read the texts. When writing, Julia struggles with organizing her thoughts into coherent sentences that are properly sequenced. Fortunately, these components of her literacy development that need improvement are completely normal issues for an English language learner. Her vocabulary, comprehension, and organizational skills can be addressed and improved by making specific changes to her literacy instruction.

For the remainder of the school year I have chosen some specific books that I feel Julia will be enthusiastic about. These books will challenge her, but will also help improve her vocabulary and comprehension skills while being age appropriate. In order to increase Julia’s vocabulary these books will be varied in topic. Julia will be participating in whole class discussions, partner work, independent study, and private instruction with myself and another English language literacy instructor. Her instructor and I will be focused on using mini-lessons and activities that will help broaden Julia’s prior and background knowledge about different topics. We will create many different opportunities for Julia to read aloud and listen to us read aloud. This technique will help her become exposed to different types of texts and vocabulary. We will provide instruction about idioms and phrases, synonyms and antonyms, and ways to help learn new words. We will also teach the key vocabulary and subject matter before we begin each book so that Julia will have background knowledge about the different texts. If Julia is better prepared for what she is going to be reading, I expect she will begin to read more fluently and be able to comprehend more of what she is reading.

In addition to vocabulary and prior knowledge instruction, Julia and the entire class will work on skills that will help them to comprehend and sequence what they are reading as well as their own arguments and ideas. As a class, we will discuss and practice the proper way to retell a story. I will provide activities that require students to practice sequencing an event of their own, as well as sequencing an event that happened in a story that they read. These activities will help Julia organize her thoughts so that she can better comprehend the things she has read, and accurately transfer them to paper. These activities will translate nicely into her writing and should help improve her organizational skills. I will spend time with Julia helping her to identify the main idea and details of a story. I will also teach the entire class how creating a graphic organizer or idea web is a great tool for organizing what you would like to write, and different transitional vocabulary words that are beneficial to know when sequencing events.

By implementing the above activities in the classroom, I believe we will see more progress in Julia’s literacy learning, and she will be ready to progress to the fifth grade next year. If you would like to discuss any of these ideas in greater detail please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you for taking such an interest in your child’s education, and I look forward to discussing Julia’s progress with you in the future.

Sincerely,

Hope Dokho

Parker: Reading Lesson #1 - Phonemic Awareness and Initial "S" Blends

Reading Lesson Plan #1: Phonemic Awareness and Initial “S” Blends Rationale: It is extremely important for students to examine initial “s” blends, as they arise in all aspects of the learning the English language: reading, writing, speaking, and listening.  Objective for this lesson: Students will study the sl-, sn-, sp-, and sw- blends by matching pictures of objects and the names of those objects with the correct blend in a t-chart.  Materials & supplies needed: 1.       Blank four-column t-chart 2.       Bags containing twenty picture cards 3.       Each of the four “s” blends in bolded font 4.       Vocabulary sheet with the names of each object 5.       Scissors 6.       Glue sticks

Procedures and Approximate Times • Introduction to the lesson:  (2 minutes) ·         First, I will explain the topic of the lesson to the four students. “Today we are going to be working on s-blends.  An s-blend is a part of a word that combines the letter s and another consonant to make a sound.   These are all over the place and in a ton of words!” ·         I will give each student a blank four-column t-chart with spaces made at the top for each of the four s-blends.  Each student will also get a bag of picture cards and a vocabulary sheet. “I’m giving you a t-chart with four columns, which you will use to sort the pictures and words I will also give you.  I have a bag of pictures for each of you!” (Distribute materials). ·         From there, I will introduce each of the blends to the students by asking students to identify them among the items in their bags.  Students will then read the sound each blend makes along with me. “Thumbs up if you remember working with t-charts with Mrs. Kennedy?” (Students show a thumbs-up).  “Awesome! I knew you would remember!  Let’s dump out what’s in our bag and see if we can find four cards with s-blends on them.” (Students find cards).  Let’s read those s-blends together.” (Students say s-l, s-w, s-p, s-n).  “Great, now let’s say the sounds they make.” (Students say the four sounds).  “Awesome job, guys.  ·         Finally, I will describe the task of the lesson. “We’re going to look at each picture that was in our bag and match it with the sound that the object’s name starts with.  Then, we’re going to cut out each object’s name and match it with its picture.” (Hold up vocabulary sheet).  “Thumbs up if you’re ready!” • OUTLINE of key events during the lesson: (20-25 minutes) ·         Once I have introduced the task, I will describe the behavioral expectations of the lesson and the proper procedures for using materials. “Even though we have dumped out our bags, let’s make sure that we keep all of our picture cards together so that we don’t get them mixed up with the person next to us.  We don’t need our scissors quite yet, so you can leave those alone for now.  We just need our glue sticks at the moment.  Remember that when we use the glue sticks, we only need a dot in each corner.  So, you should have a total of four dots of glue on the back of your picture cards.” ·         I will model how each blend is used with one card in that category. “Find this picture in your pile, friends” (Hold up a card).  “This is a [object].  What s-blend do you think this has in it?” (Students respond correctly.)  “Good!  Glue that card under [s-blend].  See if you can find the other objects whose names have the [s-blend] and glue them onto your chart.”  This type of modeling will be done four times, once for each blend. ·         Once students have glued each picture card onto their chart, they will cut and paste the names of the objects under the matching illustrations. “Now that we have all of our pictures glued on, let’s match the names of the objects to the pictures.  Cut the names out and paste them right under each picture” (Model with one students’ chart). ·         If students are stuck categorizing picture cards or reading the names of objects, I will model how to use phonemic segmentation in order for students to easily identify the s-blend used in each object or name. • Closing summary for the lesson: (2 minutes) ·         Once students have finished making their t-charts, I will engage them in a unison reading of the names of each object to reinforce the four different s-blends they examined the activity. ·         Next, I will explain the importance of knowing each of the four blends. “Good job, guys!  If we count, we learned twenty different words today!  Let’s try our best to remember these blends.  If we remember them, it will be a lot easier to spell and read all different types of words.  For example, if we want to spell the word “swan”, we know that it begins with the sw- sound, so we can write the letters “s” and “w” first!  And, if come across the word “swan” when we’re reading, we can stretch the word out and say the sounds sw-, a-, n-.  What do you think?  How do you think you could use s-blends in reading and writing?” (Engage students in a discussion). ·         Students will switch to the next literacy center.

Ongoing-Assessment: To plan for follow-up instruction, I will observe the four students in their literacy centers and during writing instruction and check for their understanding of the blends studied.  If students come across words that include any one of these blends in either reading or writing, I will look specifically for their use of phonemic segmentation and stretching out the sounds of the word.

Adaptations: Because two of my students are English Second Language Learners, I have provided pictures, as well as the word for each object.  Not only will I do this, but also recite each blend with the students so that they can easily generate and identify the names of the objects.  All four students struggle with spelling, therefore, pairing at least three picture cards with each blend will hopefully allow students to see a pattern among the names of the objects.  More specifically, I hope that students will mentally pair the sound of each blend with its correct spelling.  These, in the long run, are adaptations that will help them in reading and writing words.

Parker: Reading Lesson Overview

Reading Lesson Overview:

For my two reading lessons, I am focusing on a group of four first grade students that my mentor teacher considers “mid-level” in terms of the language arts standards for their grade.  These four students have been assigned to work together in literacy centers because of their common strengths and weaknesses in multiple aspects of literacy development.  Two of these students, Alex and Nate, are considered English Second Language Learners, but can speak English fairly well.  In addition to being an ESL student, Alex has also spends time with the school speech teacher because of various speech impediments.  The third student, Xavier, often displays non-compliant and off-task behavior, thus, has fallen behind in many aspects of literacy.  Gus, the fourth student, often misses school and therefore, has also fallen behind in many aspects. 

After discussing with my mentor teacher, I have chosen to focus my first lesson on phonemic awareness, and my second lesson on fluency.  Unfortunately, my mentor teacher was only able to provide me with assessment data on these students’ skills in phonemic awareness.  However, these assessments were given in September and October, at the beginning of the year.  Below is a list of the average scores of the four students on each assessment given:

·         Phonemic Segmentation: 4.5 out of 8

·         Onset and Rime: 7 out of 8

·         Phoneme Blending: 6.5 out of 8

·         Rhyme Choice: 6 out of 8

·         Rhyme Supply: 4.25 out of 8

Given that these assessments were done at the beginning of the year, these particular skills of the students have much improved.  In fact, my students have moved on to more complex aspects of phonemic awareness such as the examination of digraphs and blends.  However, because the students scored the lowest on segmentation and rhyme supply and with consideration of the current time in the school year, my mentor teacher recommended that I design a lesson that combines initial consonant blends and phonemic segmentation.  More specifically, she recommended that the lesson involve a sorting activity with a t-chart, which is something that students are familiar with doing.  Tompkins (2010) also recommends this in a discussion about sound-matching activities: “In sound matching, children choose one of the several words beginning with a particular sound or say a word that begins with a particular sound…teachers use familiar objects…toys…as well as pictures of familiar objects” (p. 150).  Using pictures or objects and pairing them with sounds especially supports ESL students.

In addition to a lesson on phonemic awareness, I have also chosen to do a lesson on fluency.  As stated before, my mentor teacher could not provide me with printed assessment data, but rather discussed her observations of the four students while reading aloud, particularly when they are in the “Read to Teacher” literacy center.  I have also made many observations of my own, specifically in the prosody levels at which the students read.  Due to low word recognition, some of the texts that the students read sound choppy and broken up; as my mentor teacher says, these students often sound like “robots”. 

Although many other areas of fluency are lacking, I have chosen to only focus on prosody to refrain from overwhelming the students.  I have chosen to use an independent level text of my students so that word recognition will not be a defining factor in the success of the lesson.  As noted by many, the less time students are focusing on word recognition, the more cognitive space is allowed for other aspects of fluency.  In terms of teaching prosody, Tompkins recommends teaching students how to phrase or chunk together parts of sentences in order to read with expression.  She states, “Teachers work with nonfluent readers to break sentences up into chunks and then read the sentences with expression…After chunking, students practice reading the sentence with classmates and individually” (p. 210).  She later recommends using choral reading, echo reading, or unison reading.  In addition, my mentor teacher suggested recording students reading a page of the book and then having students analyze the recording, identifying it as either “fluid” or “like a robot”.  Therefore, I have chosen to combine this type of analysis and echo reading of an independent level text to improve students’ prosody.