Reading Lesson 1

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Siebers Reflection 2

Overview: I worked with the same two children on the same type of reading skill/strategy. 

Reading Lesson Plan # 2

Your Name:  Kelli Siebers   Grade Level:  kindergarten   

Date lesson was taught:  April 17, 2013  Number of Students: 2

1) Rationale (What evidence do you have that your focus students need to learn this skill/strategy?):

• This lesson will be building upon my last lesson regarding blending sounds to identify words, therefore the rationale remains the same:

• Based on assessments from the last 4 months, these children both struggle to blend or put sounds together after sounding out each letter’s sound. 
• In order to continue progressing towards reading, these children need to learn how to blend letter sounds together to figure out the words they are reading.

2) List the reading skill/strategy that is the main focus of your lesson (select ONE area):

- Blending (phonemic awareness)

3) Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria):

• Children will blend the sounds and identify the word I am thinking of after giving them some characteristics of the item and saying the sounds of the letters slowly and separately. 
• Children will then sound out the same words and check to see if their guess matches the word they sounded out. 
• Children will pick a word to describe and sound out to myself and their classmate and have us guess what their word was. 

4) Materials & supplies needed:

- Pictures of the words the children were guessing on one side and with a picture of the words on the other. 

5) OUTLINE OF LESSON PLAN (Provide a bulleted list of ideas):

PRE-READING: Make participation norms explicit, elicit background knowledge, develop interest, and set purpose (2 minutes).

• Make participation norms explicit:

• While we are in the hallway, we need to remember the school expectations of being respectful, responsible, and safe. 
• We are going to do an activity today where you take turns. When it is not your turn I expect you to be figuring out the answer in your head. This will be important because if the other person needs help I will ask you to help your classmate instead of me helping.
• When helping your classmate, I don’t want you to just give them the answer but to help them figure it out by talking through what you did to figure out what the answer was.

• Introduce the text  

• Today we are going to play another game, but this time the game is called “What am I thinking of?”
• For this game I am going to describe the word I am thinking of and then sound the word out for you. 
• When it is your turn, I want you to say the word I am thinking of based on the clues I gave you and the sounds I gave you.
• After one person guesses the word, we will check with the other person to see if they agree. 
• Then I will show you the word written out and we will sound out the word together to see if we got the right word. 
• Lastly, we will flip the card over and see if the picture matches your guess. 
• This game is going to help you with your reading as it is a different way to practice sounding out words. 

DURING READING:(10 minutes)

• Ivan, you will go first, and Bob I want you to listen and decide if you agree or disagree with Ivan.

• Here is your clue:

• I’m thinking of an animal that sometimes lives in people’s homes. It is called a /c/ /a/ /t/. What is it?

• Bob, it’s your turn. Ivan, you should be listening and deciding if you agree or disagree with Bob. 

• Here is your clue:

• I’m thinking of an animal that sleeps during the day. At night, it flies in the sky and it is called a /b/ /a/ /t/. What is it?

• Continue using these clues:

• I’m thinking of a piece of clothing that you wear over your body in the winter to stay warm. Is it called a /k/ /o-/ /t/. What is it?
• I’m thinking of a piece of clothing you wear on your head in the winter to keep your body warm. It is called a /h/ /a/ /t/. What is it?
• I’m thinking of a small animal that lives in the pond when it is young. When it is an adult, it lives on land and it is called a /f/ /r/ /o/ /g/. What is it?
• I’m thinking of an animal that lives in water its whole life, it is called a /f/ /i/ /sh/. What is it?
• I’m thinking of a container that is a cube and can hold lots of different materials. It is called a /b/ /o/ /x/. What is it?
• I’m thinking of a piece of clothing that you wear on your feet. They are called /s/ /o/ /x/. What is it?

POST-READING ACTIVITIES AND DISCUSSION: Provide scaffolding for guided practice and/or application activity (2 minutes)

• Have each child pick a word in their head, come up with a way to describe the word and then both I and the other child will guess the word as they describe and segment it. 

ONGOING-ASSESSMENT: What will you pay attention to in order to evaluate the extent to which your students met the stated objectives for the lesson (during the activity- no extra time).

• Are the students able to listen to my context clues and to the segmented words and then put them together to guess the word?
• Did you need to say the segmented sounds more than once?
• Did you need to say the segmented sounds faster and faster to scaffold their blending of the sounds?

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

• These students may need reminders of what the expectations are while they are at school. They also may need support focusing on the task, as they can easily get off track. 

• Reminders that, while they are at school, they are to be respectful, responsible and safe. 

• If they cannot handle being in the hallway to do this task, I will give them warnings that if they do not act as they should in the hallway, they will be sent back into class and they will need to sit at their desk with their head down.

• Reminders that this activity is important as it will help them to become better readers. 

Reflection 2:

After reflecting on what occurred during this lesson, I feel this lesson went very well. For the majority of the words when I described and sounded out the letters slowly both Bob and Ivan were able to correctly identify the words. Bob and Ivan successfully took turns guessing the words and remembering to check with the other person before looking at the card to see if they guessed the right word. Once they agreed on what the word was, they took turns sounding out the words on the cards and finally flipping the cards over to see the picture and check their guesses. The children both seemed to enjoy coming up with words to sound out so this was what we spent more time doing. Each child picked four words to segment and then had their classmate guess the word they were saying. Although some words were quite easy to figure out, there were others that the child would forget a sound or not say the ending sound and their classmate would be unable to guess the correct answer. I was surprised at how much fun the children seemed have segmenting words and guessing what the other child was saying. 

Overall, this lesson allowed the children to practice both blending sounds and segmenting sounds, and therefore it was good practice for them. Some limitations of this lesson were that it is very difficult to have children try and blend very long words. However it seemed as though these children would have been able handle the challenge. If I were to teach this again, I would use some longer, higher level words so that I could insure all the children were challenged but not overwhelmed. 

Something I wondered about after teaching this lesson was how we teach the sounds that letters make to children in kindergarten. While Bob was segmenting a word for Ivan to guess, he picked “do” and said /d/ /oo/. Ivan seemed confused at first but after a few seconds came up with the word “do”. If teachers talked about the different sounds letters can make in kindergarten, I wondered if children would have easier times segmenting words based on their actual sounds, rather than sticking to the sound he had been taught the letters in that word made. 

Siebers Reading Lesson 1

Reading Lesson Overview

Overview: 

For these two reading lessons, I chose to focus on two students in my classroom,  Ivan and Bob. After looking at assessments from the past few months on several of the struggling students in my classroom, I noticed that these two children seemed to struggle with very similar aspects of reading. In February, Bob was given four sentences of five or six words each to read. He was unable to read any of the words in these sentences, however the teacher made a note saying, “able to tell me the sounds, but not able to tell the word (p/o/p -> mop)”. On the same reading assessment given to Ivan in March, he was able to read a few very common words which are part of their word wall, but there was a similar note about Ivan not being able to put sounds together after sounding out each letter in unfamiliar words. Based on these results, I chose to focus both my lessons on helping these children to blend the sounds of the letters in words in order to identify the word as a whole. By looking at their reading assessments, I know this was something both these children had been struggling with and, based on the teacher’s knowledge of the children, she felt these two children were still struggling with blending sounds to make words. 

Reading Lesson Plan # 1

Your Name: Kelli Siebers  

Grade Level: Kindergarten

Date lesson was taught:  April 15, 2013 Number of Students: 2

1) Rationale (What evidence do you have that your focus students need to learn this skill/strategy?):

• Based on assessments from the last 4 months, these children both struggle blending or putting sounds together after sounding out each letters’ sound to recognize the word. 
• In order to continue progressing towards reading, these children need to learn how to blend letter sounds together in order to figure out the words they are reading.

2) List the reading skill/strategy that is the main focus of your lesson (select ONE area):

- Blending (phonemic awareness)

3) Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria):

- Children will be able to identify and blend words that are stretched out into their component sounds.

1. Materials & supplies needed:

- Note cards with pictures and words that the children should recognize (sun, flag, tree, book, cup, plane, car)

1. OUTLINE OF LESSON PLAN (Provide a bulleted list of ideas):

PRE-READING: Make participation norms explicit, elicit background knowledge, develop interest, and set purpose (2 minutes).

• Make participation norms explicit:

• While we are in the hallway, we need to remember the school expectations of being respectful, responsible and safe. 
• We are going to do an activity today where you take turns. When it is not your turn I expect you to figure out the answer in your head. This will be important because if one of you needs help I will ask your to help instead of me. 
• When helping your classmate, I don’t want you to just give them the answer but I want you to help them figure it out by talking through what you did in your head to figure out what the answer was.

• Introduce the text

• Today we are going to play a game called guess-the-word.
• For this game I have a bunch of cards with pictures on them. I am going to say a word using “snail talk” which means I will say the words really slow. When it is your turn, I want  you to guess the word I am saying and pick up the card with the picture of what the word is. 
• For example if I said, “ccccccuuuuuuupppppp” you would pick up the picture of a cup. 
• When it is not your turn you will be listening and deciding if you agree with your classmate’s choice of the card with the cup on it. 
• After one person picks a card and the other says if they agree, we will all practice saying the word in snail talk and then saying it like we usually would. So we would say “cccccccuuuuuuuuuuppppppp, cup”
• This game is going to help you with your reading as it is a way to sound out words. 

DURING READING: (10 minutes)

• Bob, you will go first, and Ivan I want you to listen and decide if you agree or disagree with Bob.
• Ivan, it’s your turn, and Bob I want you to listen and decide if you agree or disagree with Ivan.

• What word did you pick?
• Do you agree with what (the other student) picked?

• No: I will say it again in snail talk and see if you hear something different this time or if you agree with your first pick.

• Still not agreeing: Have the child whose turn it is sound out each letter. Then I will say the word in snail talk, then a little quicker and continue until I say the word like normal.

• So what word was it?

• Let’s say it together in snail talk then say it like normal.

POST-READING ACTIVITIES AND DISCUSSION: Provide scaffolding for guided practice and/or application activity (2 minutes)

• Have each child pick a word in their head and then I and the other child will guess the word as they say it in snail talk.

ONGOING-ASSESSMENT: What will you pay attention to in order to evaluate the extent to which your students met the stated objectives for the lesson (during the activity- 0 extra minutes).

• Are the students able to hear and figure out what words I am saying in snail talk? (correctly say or find the card with the picture of the word.)
• Did I need to say the sounds faster and faster for the students to be able to blend the sounds?
• Was the child able to come up with a word and break it up into its component sounds in order to “test” myself and the other child? 

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

• These students may need reminders of what the expectations are while they are at school. They also may need support focusing on the task as they can easily get off track. 

• Reminders that, while they are at school, they are to be respectful, responsible and safe. 

• If they cannot handle being in the hallway to do this task, I will give them warnings that if they do not act as they should in the hallway, they will be sent back into class to sit at their desk with their head down.

• Reminders that this activity is important as it will help them to become better readers. 

Reflection 1:

After thinking about how this lesson went I would say that overall it was a success. Throughout the lesson both Bob and Ivan participated and took turns picking out the word I was saying in “snail talk” and then they talked to each other to see if they agreed with each other’s responses. My objective for the lesson was for the children to be able to identify and blend words that are stretched out into their component sounds. I would say both Ivan and Bob were able to meet this objective as they almost always were able to correctly identify the which word I said in “snail talk” from their pile of options, and there was only one time where they did not agree on what word I was saying. After hearing me say words in “snail talk”, the children were then able to attempt to say the component sounds of some familiar words in “snail talk” and then say the words at a more regular pace. 

I felt that doing this lesson using “snail talk” or slowed down speech, instead of saying broken up sounds, was an effective way to get these children thinking about how individual sounds make words and that sounds go together in a meaningful and structured way. As a future teacher of young children, I think this type of lesson is a good starting point to having children say letter’s sounds and then having them blend these sounds together.  Talking slow made them think through the sounds without struggling through trying to remember individual sounds and their order. 

One question I have about teaching blending is wondering why teacher’s start with individual sounds and then attempt to have the children stick them all together in a meaningful way? I can see how listening to three or more individual sounds and then being asked to stick them together would be a difficult task for young children. I think starting with stretching out words but still saying the sounds all together would be more beneficial to students when they are first learning about blending sounds. 

Reading Lesson Plan 2: Overview, Lesson Plan, and Reflection

TE 402 READING LESSON PLAN

Reading Lesson Plan # 1

Your Name:  _Laura Tollis__   Grade Level:  __4^th _  

Date lesson was taught:  _3/16/2013____  Number of Students: _2_

Overview:

            The students I chose to work with during this lesson on figurative language were two students from my teachers highest reading group. She has them sectioned into groups based on reading level that she does reading work based on their current abilities. These students are reading above grade level. The can read difficult texts, but can improve on some of their writing skills and including figurative language so that it is interesting for another reader to read their work. They often do poetry as a class and see these figurative language styles.

            The students I will be working with for this lesson are Anna and Megan. Anna is outgoing and Megan is much more shy, but they are both very bright young girls. According to Miller, his text explained how to encourage students to make meaningful connections with the reading. I wanted to use figurative language in order for students to make connections between a story they wrote about their own lives and their writing. Having the students read their own writing will help them to see their story and allow for the other student to hear another students writing and see how it can be difficult for a reader to visualize what the other person wrote about. I wanted for the students to use figurative language so that they could help the students reading comprehend what their story was about.

1) Rationale (What evidence do you have that your focus students need to learn this skill/strategy?):

Students often read poetry and recite poetry in class. They see a lot of figurative language being used in the classroom. They often write in a notebook where they write short stories and practice writing strategies. The poetry that they see uses a lot of figurative language and the examples of their writing uses more basic language. I would like to use this lesson to encourage students to use figurative language that they see in poetry in their own writing.

2) List the reading skill/strategy that is the main focus of your lesson (select ONE area):

Figurative Language

3) Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria):

Students will be able to read a passage from their own writing and include at least two types of figurative language into the passage.

4) Materials & supplies needed:

Students writing journal

Pencil

Paper

Figurative language definitions and examples

Poetry book

5) OUTLINE OF LESSON PLAN (Provide a bulleted list of ideas):

PRE-READING: make participation norms explicit, elicit background knowledge, develop interest, set purpose (_5__minutes)

• Make participation norms explicit How will you prepare the children to participate according to your lesson objectives? List ways you will help them understand behavior and participation expectations during the lesson. Be explicit about any changes in expectations if these are different from patterns they are used to (e.g., raising hands, asking their own questions, talking with each other rather than the teacher).

·         There are many ways to make writing more interesting for the person reading it. There are many different types of ways that you can do this, and they are together called figurative language.

·         Figurative language helps the reader to make that movie in their head of what is going on in the story you wrote.

·         Remember as a writer you have to remember that the person who will read your story probably wasn’t there, so you have to be descriptive so they know exactly what you are trying to say.

·         This is an open discussion so we can share our thoughts and help each other revise their papers to include figurative language.

•  Introduce the text  List what you will say/ask to activate children’s background knowledge (e.g., brainstorming, quick write, KWL). How will you help students understand the purpose of the lesson? List what you will say to motivate them to become engaged in the lesson. 

·         First they will share their writing piece

·         What words/phrases did they use to help their reader visualize?

·         Begin thinking of places where you could include some figurative language to help the reader understand your story better

DURING READING: Model how to engage with the text (e.g., use of reading strategies and analytic thinking process, inserting vocabulary support, comments and questions to support and extend comprehension and interpretation) (_5_ minutes)

We will read the handout of figurative language strategies. Then discuss other examples.

POST-READING ACTIVITIES AND DISCUSSION: Provide scaffolding for guided practice and/or application activity (_10_ minutes)

Students will then re-read their story and think of at least 2 spots to include figurative language. We will then discuss how they would like to revise their writing. We can brainstorm as a team some ideas of where would be could spots to add in figurative language and what kind would be best there. Then students will re-write their story including the figurative language.

ONGOING-ASSESSMENT: what will you pay attention to in order to evaluate the extent to which your students met the stated objectives for the lesson (_-_ minutes)

I will collect student work and determine if they meet the learning goals. The learning goal will be met if the student includes at least 2 figurative language strategies into their writing piece correctly.

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

Neither of the students are English language learners nor do they have any special needs. Students will be expected to listen to myself and their peers during the lesson. They will be expected to treat all materials with respect and to stay focused during the lesson.

REFLECTION

            After this lesson, I had mixed results from my students based on my objectives. Anna met all of the objectives. In the story that she read and edited she added in a lot of similes, but no other types of figurative language. She did give examples of other types of figurative language when we read the handout that included figurative language definitions. Megan on the other hand, did not meet my objectives. She refused to share her story with myself and the other student. She was also very resistant to discussing examples or ideas of figurative language she could include in her story. She did not show me her work at the end of the lesson, so I was unable to asses any of her skills based on the writing she did and the objectives of my lesson.

            I think that the strengths of my lesson was allowing students to use their creativity and build off something they had already seen in the classroom. Since they were familiar with some of the figurative language techniques from their poetry unit, they already had some background knowledge of how they could be used in the story. I think the negative part of my lesson was the group that I chose to do my lesson with. Anna is very outgoing and can get quite outspoken. She required a lot of attention and can get very excited when the attention is on her. This proposed a odd group dynamic because Megan is shy. Although I did not expect her to be as shy and unwilling to participate as she was, I think that Anna intimidated her. I am not sure if Megan felt intimidated my Anna, was not used to me teaching and was intimidated by me, or if she was embarrassed about her writing, but whatever the reason was the group dynamic did not help her open up.

            If I had any questions, I would say that I would want to know more of how to encourage students to stay involved in a lesson. I want to encourage a safe learning environment where everyone is proud of their own work and is not afraid to share it with others for fear of being ridiculed. I would also like to learn how to manage a student that is overly excited and overbearing in a lesson, in order to encourage the student to calm down so the other student(s) can participate. 

Reading Lesson 1: Overview, Lesson Plan, and Reflection

TE 402 READING LESSON PLAN

Reading Lesson Plan # 2

Reading Lesson Overview:

            The students I will be completing this lesson with are students that are in the classes lowest reading group. The teacher has their centers organized by reading level, and she has a center where she works with students doing RTI work based on their reading levels. When discussing with my mentor teacher, she explained to me that these students have a hard time with comprehension. This also hinders their ability to write or tell a summary at the end of a piece. I have seen many examples of students summaries and I felt that it was an important skill for the students to practice so that they can improve their comprehension skills. The students I worked with are Kevin and Ian. They both are in the lowest reading group and they often struggle with getting work done on time.

            As Neufeld explained in the readings, in order to teach comprehension it is important that students are able to quickly understand the meaning of words in a text and what is important in the text. This is why I have chosen to use highlighting while I read aloud the article to the students. This will allow me to point out interesting parts of the article and important parts, just like I would for a read aloud with a book. This will allow them to ask questions about the text and for me to ask questions about the text so they remain engaged during the reading.

Your Name:  _Laura Tollis____   Grade Level:  __4__  

Date lesson was taught:  _4/16/2013__  Number of Students: _2_

1) Rationale (What evidence do you have that your focus students need to learn this skill/strategy?):

The evidence I have for students needing to learn this skill of making summaries is from my mentor teacher. She explained to me that the students have trouble sorting through the content of a text and deciding what are key points in order to create a meaningful summary.

2) List the reading skill/strategy that is the main focus of your lesson (select ONE area):

Summary

3) Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria):

Students will be able to highlight text for key points, then write a summary based off of the key highlighted points.

4) Materials & supplies needed:

Highlighters

Articles for each student

Lined paper and pencil

5) OUTLINE OF LESSON PLAN (Provide a bulleted list of ideas):

PRE-READING: make participation norms explicit, elicit background knowledge, develop interest, set purpose (_5_minutes)

• Make participation norms explicit How will you prepare the children to participate according to your lesson objectives? List ways you will help them understand behavior and participation expectations during the lesson. Be explicit about any changes in expectations if these are different from patterns they are used to (e.g., raising hands, asking their own questions, talking with each other rather than the teacher).

·         I will explain to students that we are going to practice making a summary

·         I will ask them what they think a summary is and what they think is important in a summary

·         Tell students to ask any questions along the way and that they don’t need to raise hands during the lesson, if they have a question they may just ask it. It will be more of a conversation than talking at the teacher.

•  Introduce the text  List what you will say/ask to activate children’s background knowledge (e.g., brainstorming, quick write, KWL). How will you help students understand the purpose of the lesson? List what you will say to motivate them to become engaged in the lesson. 

·         Unearthing Ancient Africa article

·         What do you know about the African continent?

·         What do you know about ancient civilizations? Can you think of any others?

·         What do you think this article will tell you about ancient Africa?

·         I am going to read this article to you as you follow along with me. After each paragraph we are going to stop and do some highlighting and stop for questions.

DURING READING: Model how to engage with the text (e.g., use of reading strategies and analytic thinking process, inserting vocabulary support, comments and questions to support and extend comprehension and interpretation) (10 minutes)

• After each paragraph we will discuss what we think is important and needs to be highlighted
• I will talk about how you only highlight key phrases and sometimes sentences, but never whole paragraphs
• If needed we may also make notes of questions we have, or comments, in the margins of the article to help us write our summary afterward

POST-READING ACTIVITIES AND DISCUSSION: Provide scaffolding for guided practice and/or application activity (_10_ minutes)

            I will assist the students in writing a summary based on the highlighted portions of the article that we previously marked. I will model the first sentence and then ask them to finish their summary.

ONGOING-ASSESSMENT: what will you pay attention to in order to evaluate the extent to which your students met the stated objectives for the lesson (_-_ minutes)

            After the lesson, I will read the summaries that they wrote and compare them to what they highlighted. Students will meet the objective if they properly highlighted, and that the summary includes the key points that we discussed.

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

Students will be held to the same classroom social and academic norms. They will be expected to do their best and to stay on task.

REFLECTION:

            In relation to my objectives my students did fairly well with the lesson. The students throughout the article asked questions about what certain things were and made connections throughout the piece. They did not do as well as I hoped when we went back to highlight the key pieces and writing the summary. During the highlighting portion, both Kevin and Ian had trouble with determining what part of each paragraph was most important and should be highlighted. Then afterwards, when writing the summary they both often waited for me to tell them what they should write, instead of going back into the text themselves in order to remind themselves what had happened. I did my best to encourage the students to work independently without my help, but Kevin and Ian would not continue unless I helped them come up with a sentence starter.

            Highlighting was a new technique for these students, and I think that turned out to be an advantage during this lesson. Kevin and Ian were excited to try a new technique and explained to me afterwards that it helped them. I think that the weaker part of my lesson was the article that I chose for them to read. If I was going to do this lesson again with the same students I would have chosen an article that was not as difficult. I think this article was too difficult for the students, and hindered their comprehension, more than it taught them something new.

            For myself as a teacher, I think I did really well encouraging the students to find the important parts of the article in order to be highlighted. I think I explained how to highlight well, and made the skill meaningful to the students. I think I could improve on ways to encourage students to continue working, without me just telling them what to write. The students in my MT’s classroom are very used to having someone just tell them the answer if they did not get it. I felt like I was in a dilemma because I wanted to try to help the students, but I caught myself giving them answers. I would like to learn more strategies to helping students in a positive way that helps them to think critically and problem solve. 

4/16 blog

4/16 Blog 

In my classroom, I have seen the use of classroom-based reading instruction and high-stakes testing. In order to determine the student’s reading level, they have a system of doing three tests throughout the year in order to group the children into reading levels- some sort of high-stakes testing. In the classroom, the children have literacy groups where they are also separated by these levels. During their literacy centers, my mentor teacher have a read with teacher center where she reads through leveled books that she chooses based on the children’s groups. 

I do a portfolio for my preschool children and I find it very helpful. Even though there are only 12 children in my preschool class, all the assessment or activities that could involve assessments get mixed together if I don’t write their responses down. By then organizing my portfolios by domain I can quickly go back, figure out how they did on the last few assessments in an area, then use this to provide them developmentally appropriate activities. 

Online Class Blog Post

I haven’t been able to see a lot of Language Arts in my classroom, but when I have, it has been mostly Classroom-Based Reading Assessments.  For example, during Centers I saw my teacher control one center with a group of 4 students.  In this center, she picked a specific book for each group of students since the groups are divided by academic achievement level.  For the more challenged students, she first had students go through the book and and predict what it was about based on the pictures.  Then, she had students take turns reading the story page by page.  This showed me that the books were at the student’s independent reading level.  Also, while they did this, she would ask them questions throughout to assess their comprehension.

A portfolio seems like an excellent assessment for a teacher to use in the classroom.  Not only for my own placement’s classroom, but for any classroom.  I really like how they’re student oriented so students can pick which work is shown rather than the teacher.  This could get the students very excited for language arts and motivate them to excel.  Also, a portfolio demonstrates a student’s strengths in language arts rather than any weaknesses.  This could really help the student’s confidence when looking back on their portfolio which would prevent any frustration or loss of motivation to sincerely try.

Book Club 3

After finishing this book, I thought about how the story was told through Kenny's point of view. That got me to thinking about how the book would be different if the point of view was from his older brother By. By is a trouble maker throughout the story and I think it would have been interesting to read it through his eyes. I think that I would have aquired more sympathy for him and I would have been able to understand why he continued to get in trouble. I would ask myself; Is there something that knowone else knows that is why By acts out like he does? Is he interested in a girl that is causing him to act irrationally? Did something happen in his past?

By always acted as a tough cool guy throughout the book, so I would have liked to see if it was a front that he put on for his family and friends. I would have liked to understand how scared he really was to move down to Alabama and how his view changed towards his little brother after the whirlpool and church incident. Did he have an epiphany where he lightened up? Did he come back to Flint knowing that we was a changed boy and didnt want to get in trouble any more? I would have liked to learn about the lessons that he had during the story and how the events impacted him and his personality.

Online Class Blog Post

Reading Lessons:

            My focus students were two students from the upper level reading group and two students from the lower level reading group. My MT explained to me that the students in the lower level reading group needed more instruction with summaries and comprehension, where the upper level students needed help with creative writing strategies. She explained to me, that when students would try to write a summary they would copy word for word, or include too many or not enough details. She also explained to me how the students had seen creative writing strategies, like figurative language in poetry, but they have not have much chance to use them.

Assessment appoaches used in my classroom: 

Classroom-based  reading assessment

•  observations
• on the spot conferences
• book discussion conferences
• editing conferences
• student work samples (writing journals) 
• running reccords

Portfolio Assessment

• readings logs (march is reading month)
• writing journals

High-stakes testing

• MEAP
• Insights testing
• test taking strategies
• preparing for standardized test

Additional appraoches that could ahve been useful in guilding my instruction during my mini reading lessons would have been mini-conferences prior to the lesson.  Having mini conferences with my focus studnets prior to the lesson would have helped me to decide what to focus on most. I would have gained a better understanding of where my students were at in each subject and what materials they already had. It also would have helped the studnets because I could have let them know that I will be pulling them out to work on a lesson about summaries/figurative language. I had one student in each group that was really shy and nervous, and I think if I would have met with them first, they would have opened up more during hte lesson because they would have known what to expect. 

Book Club Post 2

Up to this point of the book Mr. and Mrs. Watson have received a phone call from Mrs. Watson's mom from Atlanta. Ever since the phone call Mr. Watson has been buying new parts to fix up the Brown Bomber. He even bought a radio for the car that by the reactions of the family members seemed to be a big deal in their time. From this I pose some questions for my book club group:

Why do you think Mr. Watson is fixing up the car? Do you think they are planning on going back to Georgia?

In the previous chapter it talked about the family being on welfare at one point. How do you think the family is able to spend money on the Brown Bomber and give extra food to Rufus and his brother at lunch?

Why do you think Byron acts all tough and mean to his younger brother and the other kids at school? He clearly has a sensitive side (puking after killing the bird and taking care of his younger sister), why do you think he tries to hide this?

The title of the story is The Watson's go to Birmingham, do you think Birmingham is in Michigan or do you think it is down south by Mrs. Watson's family?

Up to this point, who is your favorite character and who is your least favorite character? Why?

Last Book post

My short summaries of all the chapters after chapter 6

7:
- Byron does something permanent to his hair to give it a "Mexican Style"
- Dad: the man of the house type, the one to punish
- dad comes home, takes Byron into the bathroom and shaves his head
- talked to Grandma Sands (lives in Alabama)

8:
- Dad worked on the car, got the "Brown Bomber"
- Dad keeps his toothbrush hidden- knows what little boys to others toothbrushes
- Added a record player to the car
- sending Byron to Alabama to stay with G'ma Sands

9:
- South talk
- Talk to Kenny about being an adult
- Mrs. Davison (neighbor): Gave Joey an angel (white)
- Byron planned to not talk the whole trip...didn't happen

10:
- Outhouse at the pit-shop (what G'ma Sands house has)
- Dad wants to drive straight through (15 hours)
- stopped at night in the Appalachians
- Dad hummed like a vacuum to put them to sleep

11:
- G'mas: and old and fraile women
- Mr. Roberts (at G'mas house)

12:
- Toddy: old coon dog
- G'pa: died 20+ years ago

13:
- Collier landing: drop off that has killed 6
- Kenny goes by himself
- gets in water and is pulled under by "Wool Pooh"
- Byron saved him then cried

14:
- loud noise- bomb went off at Joey's church
- Kenny seeing the "Wool Pooh"
- Kenny goes to the church, then runs home
- Joey is at Gma's house

15:
- Back in Flint
- 2 white men set the bomb- killed 4
- Kenny disappearing to behind the couch (the magic pet hospital where sick pets go)
- Byron found Kenny (told his parents)
- Kenny didn't like Joey because she whines
- Kenny and Byron hanging out
- Byron sleeping on the couch by Kenny
- Kenny breaks down on Byron- Kenny depressed he didn't save Joey
- Byron talks Kenny through it

Book Club Post 2

Favorite and Least Favorite Character:

Favorite Character: Joetta

My favorite character is Joetta because she provides a lot of comedic relief in the family and she brings out the softer side of a lot of characters. She is in kindergarten so a lot of times she mispronounces something. For example, she said she would be the "laughing sock of the whole school." She brings out the best of Kenny on many ocasions causing him to be a little more light hearted and help her get out of all of her layers of winter clothes every morning at school. She also made his cry and realize the seriousness of the situation when Byron was getting in trouble for lighting matches. She often stops a lot of bad things from happening within the family. When Momma was going to burn Byron for lighting matches, she comes up and blows the match out every time. She helps momma to like the new record player in the car, too. She is a big help in keeping the story light hearted and brings out the softer side in her family. 

Least Favorite Character: Momma

My least favorite character is momma because I feel like she is always in a bad mood. She has some interesting ways of punishing her kids, especially Byron for lighting matches. She also always complains about how cold Michigan is and is not very understanding of her kids. It kind of seems like the kids are not heard in the family and she is not very willing to listen to them. Often in the book, they kids talk about how its not okay to ask momma twice about something or she will get very angry at them. I also think that she takes life really seriously and often isnt willing to have a good time. For example, when the dad got a new record player for the car for their trip to Alabama, she stormed out of the car and was angry that he did not consult her before buying such an expensive thing for the house. I find myself wishing that she would just lighten up and laugh at things before she would get so angry. 

Comparisons Mini Lesson

Genre: Descriptive Writing

Grade Level: 1st

Objectives: 1.) Still will be able to compare the characteristics of two different objects (in as much detail as possible.) 2.) Students will be able to write two different sentences about each object based on brainstorm.

Instructional Steps:
-Show the two objects to the class
-Explain what a characteristic is and have them brainstorm different characteristics of the objects
-The teacher can make a ven diagram and the class will fill it out together as she takes volunteers' answers
-The teacher gives an example of how she would make a characteristic into a proper sentence
-Teacher passes out paper and has students write two sentences based on any characteristics that they choose
-Students can share with the class what they wrote

Book Club Post One

The story so far is about an African American family who lives in Flint, Michigan. The mother and father do not seem to get a long as they fight in the first chapter about the mother being angry about moving to this freezing state instead of staying in Alabama where she is from. After finding out they can stay at their aunts warm house for the night, the dad send the two boy Byron and Kenny out to scrap the car windows. Soon Byron's lips get stuck to the car mirror and Kenny begins to think what his brother would do if the roles were reversed. Byron is a juvenile delinquent and bullies his brother around. Knowing that his brother would do something mean to him he still ran inside to get help from his parents.
You then get to see what their life at school is like for Kenny. Kenny is a very smart kid in school and often gets teased by others and does not have any friends. By on the other hand has been held back a couple of times, making him the oldest and biggest kid in the school. Kenny refers to him as "god" because he is the school bully and everyone looks up to him. Kenny one day thinks a "savor" is sent to him and as a southern boy comes to school. Everyone straight away is mean to him, giving Kenny less harssment from others. Soon the two become friends and Kenny begins enjoying his time with his new friend. In the story it is evident his friend does not have a lot of money, because of his ragged clothes and he never brings lunch to school. Kenny notices this and tried helping his friend out as much as possible.
In the last pages I read, Byron had been lighting things on fire after his mom specifically told him numerous times not to. This time she held to her promise and got out matches to burn her son. Joetta, their younger sister, frightened by the whole thing jumped in front of her brother trying to save him. Before I stopped reading, it did not seem their mother was too keen on the idea.

Week 3 Book Club

I'm a little confused about the last portion of the book.  I understand that a bomb was thrown at the church, but I'm confused about what exactly happened with Joey and Kenneth.  I think Joey claims that she saw Kenneth outside of the church, so she waved and ran after him.  This essentially saved her life because she left before the bomb went off.  But, when hearing Kenneth's perspective, it sounded to me like he didnt get to church until the bomb went off.  Once he got there, he went outside and grabbed Joey's shoe, but then ran away?  Both versions of the story aren't lining up for me.  Didn't the story say that Joey had both of her black shoes on after the incident?  If so, whos shoe did Kenneth have?  And when exactly did Kenneth get to the church the day of the incident? 

Another small aspect that confused me was the "Wooh Pooh".  I know this was supposed to just be a whirlpool, but why does Kenneth keep saying that he actually saw something in the water?  Was he just imagining things at the time of the accident because of the state he was in?  Also, why did he claim to see the Wooh Pooh again when he was at the church?  Is this supposed to represent something specific?

4/2 Post

Tier 1: run, closed, pants, touch
Tier 2: frozen, gap, snatched, leather
Tier 3: snatched, blizzard, frostbite, whine

I think that the most important words to focus on are the words in Tier 2 and 3. I think that these words are most important because the students do not use these words as much in everyday language as they do Tier 1 words. Since the Tier 2 words are words that they may know the meaning of, but cannot recognize in a book or be able to spell or write it, it would be good for them to study the words so they can recognize them in the text. Learning to recognize these words and be able to match the definitions of these words when reading the book will help students to comprehend the book at a deeper level. The students will be able to visualize the text while reading these words based on their definitions that they are now able to match as a part of studying these words. The Tier 3 words are important to touch on so they do not confuse the students. They may not be used in other contexts for students, but are crucial to the book. These words will help them to understand what is going on in the book, but it would be a waste of time to spend a majority of the time on them because they will not likely be used again elsewhere.

I would have students create a word web for the Tier 2 words. They will create a word web for each of the words. In the middle they will put the vocabulary word (ex: frozen). Then they will put words around it that help them remember what the word means. They can add a bubble with the definition, examples, non-examples, synonyms, etc. For example for frozen, they will put, cold, hard, ice, snow, solid state of matter, and not liquid. They will be asked to look up each word in the dictionary, but also draw a picture on the web that helps them to remember what the word is. They will also write the sentence that this word is included in the book along with 3 sentences where they use the word. This will help them to add this to their vocabulary so they can use it in writing and speech daily.

Week 2 Book Club

Now that I've described all the characters in my first Book Club blog post, I'll summarize what has happened in the story so far.  Basically in the beginning, readers take a look at the Watsons' every day life.  Most of the time the story takes place at school and it describes how Kenneth and Rufus' friendship evolves, the constant troubles Byron is always getting into, and the sibling rivalry between Kenneth and Byron.  It is obvious that Kenneth wants Byron's approval more than anything, but Byron is very mean to Kenneth most of the time.  After about 1/3 of the way through, the book takes a drastic turn.  Byron comes home and has attempted to straighten his hair without his parents permission.  Because of this being "the last straw" for Byron, his parents decide that he is going to have to live with his grandma for the summer in Birmingham Alabama.  When the father talks to Kenneth about this decision, he explains that Byron needs to see the "real world" so he realizes all that is happening and isn't constantly getting into trouble.  His father fears that as he is getting older, his troubles are only going to get worse and he is going to end up down the wrong path.  He thinks sending Byron to South where there is more action happening will be a nice wake-up call for him.  So, the part of the story I'm at right now is when the family has just left to begin their road trip.  They plan on it taking 3 days to get to Alabama because they decide to make stops along the way.  The mom is very organized and has the entire trip planned to the detail in her notebook.  She figured out all financial aspects, looked up facts about each place they were going, and found games and puzzles to keep the kids entertained on the road.

Week 1 Book Club

After reading the first 5 chapters of The Watson's go to Birmingham, I have began to get basis of what the book is about and the characters. It takes place in 1963 in Flint, MI. A fourth grade boy, Kenneth, and his family (older brother, little sister, mother and father.) They are living in what seams like a predominately African American community and seem to be making ends meet and are not struggling financially, unlike some of there neighbors and friends. The mother is from Birmingham, Alabama and is not used to the brutal Michigan winters and bundles up the kids excessively when they leave for school. Kenneth is always afraid of getting bullied and is often picked on in school. He is very smart, unlike his older brother Byron, who is the tough popular boy. I was surprised in the book when a new student in the school, moving here from a southern state, is immediately outcasted because of his southern accent and ratty clothing. This boy, Rufus, becomes friends with Kenneth, and he often offers Rufus with food at lunch and mittens at recess because he does not have any.

As I read these first few chapters, I began to make predictions of what will happen in the book. Through the title I know that the Watson's are going to take a trip to Birminham, Alabama. I know that during this time there was a major civil rights movement, especially in the south and I predict they will encounter a lot regarding those issues. I predict that the character Rufus will help give Kenneth some insight on what he is likely to encounter in the south. Many times Rufus is the butt of many southern jokes because of his accent. I predict that the prejudice against him, will be similar to the prejudice that all african americans suffered from in the south. I predict that Kenneth and his family will fall victim to these prejudices on their trip and be able to see first hand what life is like in Birmingham.

4/2 Post

Tier 1: eyes, hat, blanket, walk
Tier 2: automatically, encouraged, negative, future
Tier 3: Alabama, territory, Georgia, Christian

It would be important to understand all of these words in order to comprehend the novel; however, I agree with Tompkins in that it is most important that students focus on Tier 2.  This is because in Tier 1, students already know most of the words because they are basic; therefore, it would be silly to focus a lesson on words that a majority of the students already understand.  Furthermore, Tier 3 words are words that students do not see very often.  They call them "specialized" because they are usually specific to the particular story students are reading at the time.  This leaves Tier 2, where it is words that students do not use regularly use in conversation, but they are likely to use in a school setting.  Because of this, it would make sense that students focus on Tier 2 because it expands their vocabulary one step further from Tier 1.  On top of that, after focusing enough time on the Tier 2 words, they'll understand the words enough to be able to use them on their own like in writing assignments.

A Word Study activity that students could participate in in a Word Poster.  When doing this, students choose a word, write it on a poster, draw a picture that represents the word, and writes a sentence including the word.  This activity is very beneficial because it allows students to analyze words from many different viewpoints.  By drawing a picture of the word, it ensures that students understand what it is visually.  It also allows them to put it in some sort of context.  For example, if a student was doing a Word Poster for "hop", they could draw a picture of a bunny hopping.  Not only would this picture demonstrate that they understand the correct definition, but it also shows that they can relate it to a real-life situation.  Furthermore, by putting the word in a sentence students are allowed to expand on their thinking even more.  On top of that, putting the word in a sentence requires that students not only have a general idea of what the word means, but they understand it completely.

Book Club

The story has actually been really interesting so far.  I read the first 70ish pages or so in one sitting and it went by fairly quickly.  It is about a family who lives in Michigan during (what sounds like) an extremely cold Michigan winter.  They stated that temperatures were getting as low as -20 degrees.  The main family the book is based around consists of a mom, dad, and 3 children-Byron, Kenneth, and Joetta.  The family seems to be more well off compared to other families in the book because Kenneth states how he and Joetta are one of the few kids that have nice gloves on the playground.  In fact, they get two pairs of gloves per year.  This contrasts with the other children who either use cheaper quality gloves or do not have gloves at all.  Kenneth is the middle child and seems to get picked on quite a bit.  He thinks it's because he is good at reading and because he has one lazy eye.  Byron is his older brother who seems unsuccessful in school, but is a "God" socially.  He seems to go by his own rules and disregard what other people want him to do.  He also picks on Kenneth quite a bit.  Joetta is the youngest and she is in kindergarten.  The only things I've really heard about her is that she gets along fairly well with both of her brothers and seems to cry a lot when any sort of "crisis" happens.  Another main character we've been introduced to is Kenneth's friend Rufus.  Rufus seems to be a really nice person but is also picked on because of his southern accent.  Kenneth definitely likes having him around though because he was very lonely before.  One factor I noticed about Rufus is I think his family might be struggling financially.  This is because the book states how Rufus and his younger brother only have 2-3 shirts and have to switch off a pair of blue jeans with each other every other day.  On top of that, Rufus and his brother never have lunches so Kenneth always ends up giving him some of his.  Overall, it has been fun learning about all the different characters in the book.  They are all very different and I'm sure can relate to individual readers in many unique ways.