Dosch Reflection 2

 

During my second lesson, I had great participation from all but one student. These students are considered on-level and overall did an excellent job during the lesson following directions and participating. As soon as the lesson began, I had one student who refused to participate in a meaningful way, so I gave her one warning, and then when her behavior continued to disrupt the lesson, I asked her to go move her license from green to yellow (red is the worst place your license can be).  I believed that even after the discipline issue I dealt with, all the students in the group achieved the lesson objective. As soon as the student came back to the group, her behavior was much better, and she did her best to catch up to where we were at in the lesson. Just like in my first lesson, the students were engaged because of how short the lesson was. They enjoyed being able to draw pictures that related to their learning. I think the strengths of my lesson was that they got to do something they enjoyed (coloring) but they were still getting practice with words that had the letter u in them. I think the only limitation on the lesson was that I thought it could have been more challenging for them. As a teacher, I noticed (as with the first lesson) that I was much more relaxed and confident during this lesson. I felt it was much easier to deal with discipline issues with a smaller group, and I felt like I could more readily answer questions because there weren’t as many students so I had more of a chance to interact with them on an individual basis. Working with small groups was a great experience that I hope to have more of next year and in the future because I really enjoyed it and felt like I had a lot of success with it.

Dosch Reflection 1

 

The students that I worked with were considered by my MT to be in the advanced literacy group. All of the students except for one seemed interested and motivated by the activities we were doing. They were all paying attention and following my directions to sit on the carpet and not speak while I am speaking. The other student that was not paying attention was doing well until we got to the letter tiles activity. We were sitting on the ABC carpet and she kept trying to place her letter tiles on the letters on the carpet and needed constant re-direction back to the activity we were doing. I believe all of the students learned what the lesson objectives, but some were more obvious about it than others. I think that my students learned a lot from the lesson, and I thought it was pretty engaging because of the game. The game helped segment into the next activity, which was the creating/manipulating word families to make new words with the letter tiles. The lesson was short enough that most of the students had no trouble paying attention. The student that wasn’t paying attention often has behavior problems and will sometimes act like she isn’t paying attention just to test the teacher, but usually if you ask a question relating to the material, she almost always gets the answer right. As a teacher, I noticed that I was much more relaxed while teaching the small group, and I was much better able to handle students who were misbehaving during the lesson. I felt like I was more effective as an instructor and as a disciplinarian. After that lesson I felt much more confident to teach the next lesson.

Dosch Lesson Plan 2

 

Reading Lesson Plan #2 Rationale (What evidence do you have that your focus students need to learn this skill/strategy?): The students just formally learned the letter u and the /u/ sound, so they are fairly new to working with it in reading and writing. They need as much practice and exposure as they can get. Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria): My goal is to give them the opportunity to come up with words that start with and have the letter u in them by themselves Materials & supplies needed: Construction paper, pencils, computer paper, crayons, scissors, glue, Uu picture card

Procedures and approximate time allocated for each event  • Introduction to the lesson   At the beginning of the lesson, I will explain to the students that we will be working with the letter u and words that have the letter u in it. I will tell them that since they just started working with this letter, we will be continuing to practice with it so we become more comfortable with using it in our reading and writing. (1 minute)  • OUTLINE of key events during the lesson  In the first activity, I will show the students the Uu picture card, and ask them if they know what the picture is of (an umbrella). I will then ask if the students know what sound the letter u makes, and have them repeat it with me a few times. Then I will ask them to make the shape of an umbrella every timet hey hear a word with a /u/ sound in it. Then I will read a few words aloud to the students: under, dog, up, umbrella, sun, pin, bus, pausing if any of the students miss a word. For the next activity, I will pass out the computer paper and pencils and have the students draw a few pictures: sun, umbrella, mug, and bug. Then I will pass out construction paper, ask them to put their name on it, and label the border of the paper with “Uu”. I will then have the students cut out and paste their drawings onto their construction paper and have them display them on a board in the classroom. (12 minutes) • Closing summary for the lesson  I will end the lesson by thanking the students for their hard work, and tell them they did a beautiful job. Then I will tell them that knowing your letters and your letter sounds is really important to be a good reader and writer, so we will continue to practice working with this throughout the rest of the school year. (2 minutes) Ongoing-Assessment:  At the end of each unit there is a test which assesses fluency, sight words, and phonemic awareness. This assessment would be helpful in gauging a student’s progress with their letter and letter sounds. Also, the students do many worksheets that give them practice with letters and letter sounds, so those could act as assessments as well. If the student seems to be struggling with these worksheets and/or the assessment at the end of the unit, I would do a follow-up activity with them in another small group setting and continue to work with them until they showed improvement.

Adaptations: Based on what you know about your focus students, what Academic, Social and/or Linguistic Support will be needed during the lesson?

Dosch Lesson Plan 1

 

Reading Lesson Plan # 1 Rationale (What evidence do you have that your focus students need to learn this skill/strategy?): These students do not have experience working with the /u/ sound because it will be formally introduced to them 2 days before I teach my mini lesson so they need as much practice as they can get. Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria): For this lesson, I want the students to be able to recognize the /u/ sound in the beginning and middle of words, discriminate between /u/ and /i/ sounds in words, and come up with words that start with the letter u with ease. Materials & supplies needed: /u/ sound button, letter tiles, Uu letter card

Procedures and approximate time allocated for each event  • Introduction to the lesson  For the introduction, I will tell the students that the purpose of the lesson is to get practice with the /u/ sound by learning how to differentiate it with the /i/ sound and also how to listen for the /u/ sound when it is in the middle of a word. Then I will tell them that to do this, we will first play a game. (1 minute)  • OUTLINE of key events during the lesson  I will have the students sit in a circle and one student will have the /u/ sound button, and that person is “it”. The game is similar to Duck Duck Goose, where the “it” child walks around the circle and picks the new Goose. To pick the next person to be “it”, the student must have the button placed behind them. Before they stand up, they have to come up with a word that has either the /u/ sound in it or the /i/ sound in it, depending on which side is facing up when they pick it up behind them. Once each child gets a chance to do a word and be “it”, I will move on to the next activity. After this game we will do word work with the letter tiles. I will have the students first give me a thumbs up on thumbs down if they hear the /u/ sound in a few words, such as uncle, down, up, ditch, under. Then, we will use the letter tiles to make the word “hug”. We will sound it out together by first sounding it out and then blending it. Then we will spell other words in that family, such as mug, tug, jug.  (12 minutes) • Closing summary for the lesson) I will bring closure to the lesson by congratulating the students on their hard work, and tell them that they will be working with the /u/ sound much more in their reading and writing, so the more they practice the better! I will also tell them that knowing their letters and their letter sounds will help them become super readers and writers. (2 minutes) Ongoing-Assessment: At the end of every two-week unit, the students are tested on their sight words, fluency, and phonemic awareness. This will be a perfect assessment to tell whether or not the students learned anything from my mini-lesson. Also, my MT reviews letters and letter sounds with the students at least once a day, so that will give them added practice as well.

Adaptations: Based on what you know about your focus students, what Academic, Social and/or Linguistic Support will be needed during the lesson?

Reading Lesson Overview

My first focus student Heather was a part of my first lesson, and she is considered one of the advanced literacy students in the classroom. Every time I pull her out for her literacy unit testing, she aces the test without much struggle at all. The only thing that holds her back is her behavior. When something doesn’t interest her, she makes that very clear. I often observe her swinging her head back and forth or rolling around on the ground during class time while the rest of the class are sitting Indian style at group. The target area I chose for my first lesson was phonemic awareness, and it was for sounds that they were going to be learning the week I was going to teach my lesson, so the sounds they will be working with will still be relatively new to them and challenging to a degree. I believe this is appropriate for Heather because she doesn’t have any experience with the /u/ sound and the mini lesson involved lots of practice with the sound that could help her master it. She picks up on things quickly, so I am confident in her ability to participate successfully in the mini-lesson.

My second focus student Laura was a part of my second lesson, and she is considered one of the on-level students when it comes to literacy in my classroom. She generally scores well on her weekly unit literacy tests, but it takes her much more time and concentration than some of the other students in the class. I have noticed a great improvement in the time it takes her to answer questions in the past few weeks however, which is very exciting to see. The target area I chose for my second lesson was words/alphabet because the students have just been introduced to and began working with the letter u and the sound /u/, so this would be further exposure and practice for the students. I think the nature of my mini-lesson will help them practice with words that they might never have thought started with u or that had the letter u in them, and also practice with the /u/ sound which will help them when they are sounding out words. She is a very organized student who has great listening skills and lots of motivation, so I am excited to be working with her especially because I don’t get to work with her in small groups or individually very often.

Number the Stars Mini-Lesson

After reviewing Chapter 10 in Number the Stars, these were the words I sorted out for the three Tiers:
 

Tier 1: wide, hall, tired, sadness, friendship, kitchen, curtains, outside, nightmare, familiar, respect, candlelight, odd, soldier, listen, forget, brave, breeze, stars

Tier 2: beside, clasped, surge, bond, elderly, suddenly, prepared, replied, finally, rocking chair, curled, dozed, sudden, sweep, sheer, slammed, tensed, recurring, weep, accented, explanation, custom, gleamed, gaze, steadily, harshly, directing, realized, certain, condescending, dangerous, swift, officer, staggered, spattered, glanced, extinguished, wound, gradually, ancient, speckled

Tier 3: staccato, casket, typhus, Nazi, mantel, psalm, Jerusalem, Israel

The most important words for my students to learn would be the Tier 2 words because they’re words that are used frequently in the book to describe things or actions, they are used a lot in books, and they’re used in the classroom as well. Not only are they good for understanding what’s going on in Number the Stars, there are also a lot of descriptive words in the Tier 2 selection that would be helpful for writing exercises for the rest of the unit as well as the school year.

The chapter I pulled words from was Chapter 10, so the students will begin their lesson by doing a read aloud of the chapter, and then we’ll read it again and pull out words that people want to learn more about (even if they might know the definition, they might want to learn the root or the history of the word). Then, we will take a look at our KWL chart that we’ve been developing throughout reading the book and see if we can add anything to it. Maybe this particular chapter got students thinking about new questions they have about the Holocaust or maybe the chapter helped them learn something new they want to share with the rest of the class. For each chapter the students read, I will do a different vocabulary activity with them. For this chapter, I decided to have each student pick a vocabulary word from the Tier 2 selection and do a Word Investigation of it. In the Investigation, students must include:

·     The word and its definition,

·     the root word,

·     the suffix,

·     the morphemic analysis,

·     the word history,

·     related words,

·     and figurative use.

Students could use a dictionary and thesaurus, and online resources to investigate their words. When everyone finishes their Word Investigations, I will have the students use their word in a sentence as their post-assessment while I hang up their investigations around the room. After they are finished, they will turn in their sentences and they will have time to explore the room to find the definitions to the rest of the vocabulary words. They will remain up for the rest of the unit. After that unit they will be kept in an easily accessible place so students can reference the words for the remainder of the year.

I thought this chapter from Tompkins was really useful for help with planning lessons to develop vocabulary. Not only did it give you examples, but it broke down different types of lessons you should do with your students, the students that generally need the most vocabulary help, and how socioeconomic status is a factor that affects vocabulary development. It makes me want to start a Word Wizard club when I get my own classroom. Also, I love that at the beginning of each chapter, Tompkins includes an example of an exceptional teacher to give the reader an idea of what it means to teach effectively. I felt like I learned a lot from reading this chapter and I know I will definitely be referencing this next year during my student teaching for ideas!

New Literacy Noteblog

Before this class, I thought literacy was how people read books. I now realize that literacy is so much more than just books. It affects literally every aspect of our lives and up until this year I had no idea. The way we interact with others, how we process emotions, our understanding of other’s cultures, and even how we think about mathematics are all forms of literacy that we deal with at some point in our lives if not on a daily basis. My research on Social Literacy has helped me think about the ways it can affect students and teachers in a classroom setting. It has forced me to think about the tools I can use to develop social literacy in my students and the best ways of interacting with them using a new technology. I learned that technology isn’t as scary as I have always thought it was because working with Prezi was honestly a great experience. I would love to incorporate it into my future classroom and experiment with other new technologies to incorporate as well. After doing this project, I am now more aware of how different types of literacies affect the classroom environment in a variety of ways. A lack of social literacy in the classroom, for example, can have a very negative effect not only on classroom management and the classroom environment but also on student learning.

Effective literacy instruction begins with the teacher being fully literate in all areas of literacy such as visual, environmental, political, emotional, etc because that knowledge will serve as a model for the students. Enthusiasm in these literacies will also go a long way to helping diverse students become more literate. Having diverse students is an advantage because different perspectives can provide meaningful learning experiences for all students in regards to literacy. Students from various backgrounds can teach others about their cultures, which promotes cultural literacy. The research that I have gathered from this project has helped me find realistic ways to promote all types of literacy in my classroom. Looking at other people’s projects gave me lots of ideas and made me feel more comfortable about teaching different types of literacy.

If I were to assign a similar  (but simplified) project to my kindergarteners, I think they would definitely need some scaffolding, but they could definitely pull it off. The students I work with already know a lot about different types of literacy, whether they realize it or not. Where my students would need the most help would be digital literacy, because most of the students do not have access to technology on a regular basis and would probably be pretty lost if I asked them to make me a video or a Powerpoint presentation. In the school that I volunteered at over spring break, each classroom had an iPad that they could use for various things, and I think if there were iPads at my school, I would definitely utilize them for this project. There’s an application that you can buy for the iPads called “ShowMe” where you can record your voice, take pictures, and draw during the presentation and the students that I worked with were very capable of using this technology. I believe my kindergartners would have great success with this type of assignment using the iPads because most children (from what I have observed) seem to have a grasp for iPads and if they don’t, they can pick up the skills they need fairly quickly.

For the lesson plan, I would have the students read a book about a different culture. Then, in pairs, they could record a summary of the book in the “ShowMe” application on the iPad, and then they could talk about something they learned about the new culture. They could take pictures of the cover of the book and maybe a few pages that they found interesting. Before they do it by themselves however, I would model what they were supposed to do by making my own presentation on “ShowMe” so that they students had an idea of how to use it. For this lesson, we might start slowly and just ask that they take a picture of the cover of the book and record their summary of the book. In following lessons, they could go further and draw pictures and talk about what they learned and really explore what the “ShowMe” application has to offer on the iPad. I believe that if I modeled slowly and spread out the learning throughout several lessons, my students would have great success with this project and they would learn not only about a specific literacy but they would also be simultaneously learning about a new technology.

Rationale: Students need to become more aware of the world around them, and cultural literacy through reading is one way towards that awareness. Also, iPads are becoming more common in classrooms, and students will need to know how to use them in order to be successful in the future because they will likely come across them many more times in their lives.

Objectives: Students will become comfortable using the iPad as well as the application “ShowMe”.

Students will learn about a new culture through reading a book.

Materials/Supplies: iPads, the book “Mama, Do You Love Me?”

Key events:

• I will read the book aloud to students
• We will discuss what we learned about the culture
• I will model my summary of the story on “ShowMe” (In a previous lesson I will have gone over the basics of how to use “ShowMe” so students feel comfortable using it)
• I will have the students split into pairs and work on their presentations together

Closing summary: I will have students present their work to other groups and have each group share what they liked about the other group’s presentation

Ongoing assessment: The assessment will be a presentation on “ShowMe” that talks about what they learned about the new culture. If they show during their presentation that they did more than just record their voice and they successfully demonstrate their understanding of something they learned about a new culture, they will pass the assessment.