Students work

The writing that the youngest boy did.

The writing that the girl did.

Reading Lesson Reflection #2

To go along with my reading lesson reflection #1, while I was reading the traditional The Three Little Pigs’ story, student got immediately impatient and asking me why did I brought the story again to read, they wanted new stories. Even though I have explained that we have a new story coming up after this story and I want them to compare the two stories, they couldn’t focus while I was reading the first one. The part I really liked was when I asked them to sound out the words that we did for my reading lesson #1, they still remember the words and they sound it out after sound out every letter phonetically. I was glad that they seem have mastered the skill, at least for those six words. When I asked the comprehension questions on the very end of the book such as “What happened when the wolf went down the chimney?” They were able to answer those questions correctly. While I was reading the second book, students get interested but confused at the same time. Because the second story has the exact same three little pigs in it but it tells a whole different new story about how the fourth sister helped them to get over the fear of the big bad wolf and finally they are able to walk outside of the brick house and go out to have fun. Both of my two students couldn’t understand why there is a fourth sister and the fact that there is a big bad wolf but he didn’t come out in the story to scare the pigs. The youngest boy even said that the fourth sister is the big bad wolf because she blew down the house. As I try to explain that she blew down the house to get her brothers outside to play, he said, “the big bad wolf in the first story blew down the house, she blew down the house, she is the big bad wolf.” I think this also is a part that I have missed as I have mentioned in the first lesson reflection that to think about what the students will think of the story and what are the possible answers the students would come up with is an important part while planning a lesson. I didn’t think of this so when students compared the book in the way that I haven’t think of and the answer wasn’t the one I wanted to get out from them, I didn’t know what to act. I went on leading them with the text-to-text comparison, both of them can come up with the answer that the second one has a girl sister in there and there is no big bad wolf in the second one. I think when I was planning the lesson; I have put my expectations higher than what the students could do. Also because I haven’t give instructions clear enough, students didn’t know what is the answer I am looking for. I did plan some questions like what do you think is still the same to the first story, but most of the questions were not specific enough for the students to come up with a valid answer and a powerful comparison between the two texts. However, the self relating part went well, both of them can relate to the real life situations and said that the brick house is the most strongest one so they are safe in there, and how we shouldn’t open doors for strangers. When I ask their opinions or attitudes towards the fourth little pig, both of them didn’t like her because of she blew down their house. I think I didn’t lead the lesson to where I want it to be but students did some relating and comparison, which was really challenging for them to do. I think from this lesson, I learned that when prepare a lesson, I really need to focus on giving clear instructions and choose books. The second book is good and meaningful and cute, but it is a little hard for students at kindergarten level to read and pull out the meaning behind it. I think I also need to focus on planning question asking. I asked lots of open-ended questions, but those questions needed to be more specific and directing to my lesson goal. I also think I should give more examples of how I think is different or similar in the two books. I learned that to keep the lesson outline, as the same as planed in the lesson plan is very important, so no matter how panic you are, the lesson shouldn’t go out of control. Again, this involves more careful preparation for the lesson and try to think of the possible answers and reactions the students will have is very important for me to remember when preparing my next lesson. 

Reading Lesson Reflection #1

Lesson Reflection #1

While doing this lesson, I realize I haven’t thought of the reactions that the students would have towards a traditional children’s book that they are well familiar with. As I was trying to read the story to them as I originally planed, the students were trying to guess the next line that I was going to read and they keep on telling me what is going to happen and I couldn’t let them focus on me. I pointed out the words that I want them to read and ask them to sound it out for me, for some reason they sounded every word correctly. Then I couldn’t make sure if they have guessed it all right according to the illustrations or they really do have the phonemic awareness to help them did the job right. I asked each of them to explain to me, most of the time they just repeated the word and didn’t know what is important to state in their explanation. They were more worried than the correctness of the words they have sounded out than the process of how did they sounded out. I realize I didn’t do a good job at modeling and then I modeled again when it come to the word sticks, so I sounded every letter out phonemically and then combine the sounds together to sound the word out. I thought the students have been doing tasks like this for a long while this semester so I didn’t focus on the modeling part, but I think no matter what they have been doing in their classroom, when teaching a new lesson, teachers have to model as specific, as detailed as possible for students, epically for students at a young age to understand what the teacher is looking for and how are they going to perform or what are they expected to produce. After I modeled again and scaffold the students while they are trying to sound the words out letter by letter, they did a better job and they seems to be focused more at the letters than the content of the story that they are familiar with. They even tried to read the story with me. I really think teachers should point to the words when reading to the students in small groups, I feel half of the reason why they followed me and actually tried to read along with me is because I pointed at every word while I was reading. Although this seems is such a small thing, but I think this do help keep the students focus and engage them in the process of reading. During this part, I also think I should give students the time to look at the pictures while I am reading and after I am reading, give them the chance to retell the story even though the lesson is not about retelling could help them focus and engage too. I think as an adult reader I do not realize how illustrations help students while they are reading and trying to make sense of the words. I think as we, teachers trying to focus on teaching one strategy to students to read, it is helpful to appreciate and cooperate the students’ own learning styles and strategies to our lessons to help them learn in a efficient way. I do admit the clapping hand activity is a little hard for students to manage. I feel when giving instructions, because English is not my native language, I have difficulties to give clear instructions to get what I want from the students. I went through the book with the students together but end up being I always clap my hand before they do. Sometimes they get it but it was really hard to keep them engaging to the story, they were really excited about getting a chance to clap their hands. There are way too many words that have the sound of “s” in there and they lost focus on the six important words we were learning. However, the result came out good. I asked them to read the words in the word bank that is on the back of the book, and with pictures on top of the words, they read them out fluently. The part went really well was that they can actually sound the letters out to spell the word phonetically for the six words in the word bank. It is in my expectation that when trying to read or find the word I have read and wanted them to find was a little challenging, but since we have practiced with the six words for a long time, and they already got a grasp of those words, they did a very good job. In this lesson, I think I really learned that while planning a lesson, I should focus on the students’ reaction more. Figuring out and planning what I am supposed to do or to say is of course very important, but more importantly in order to make sure the students would be engaged and learning effectively, while planning a lesson, students’ possible reactions should definitely be considered. 

Reading Lesson Plan #2

Reading Lesson Plan # _2_ Rationale (What evidence do you have that your focus students need to learn this skill/strategy?): My mentor teacher is encouraging students to answer questions after she reads a story and she think to let students make connections to the stories will really help them to move on to summarizing the story. So I picked two stories that are very easy to relate to students’ life to teach them text-to-text connections. Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria): Both of the students will be able to compare the difference between the two stories and will be able to answer the questions on the back of the story. Students also will be able to try to compare the texts and relate to themselves then explain their answer use reasoning logical sentences. Materials & supplies needed: The Three Little Pigs by Sue Graves, The Fourth Little Pig by Teresa Celsi

Procedures and approximate time allocated for each event  • Introduction to the lesson (_3_ minutes)     I will give a brief introduction on what I will do and what I want the students to do in this class. I will tell them that I will read two stories two them and I will ask them some questions after reading the stories. I will introduce the books to the students, one of the book is The Three Little Pigs, this is a traditional book that they are familiar with, and the other one is The Fourth Little Pig which includes the same characters in the traditional three little pig story, but a completely new different story. I will have them to have an idea that I want them to compare what is different in the second story to the first one. • OUTLINE of key events during the lesson (_25_ minutes)    Students will be listening to me reading the stories. There will be no question asked during the reading of the first book since it is a story that students are familiar with. I will ask them the questions that printed on the very back of the book such as “Which little pig made a house of straw? Who wanted to eat the three little pigs? What happened when the wolf went down the chimney?” When reading the second book, because it is a book involves unfamiliar words to the students and it is a new story with the same characters as the old story, students are very easy to get confused, so there will be questions asked along reading the second book like “who is the fourth little pig? What’s her name?” “What did she do here?” to make sure students understand what is going on in the new story. After reading the two stories, students will be answering questions of what are the differences and similarities between the two stories, and how do they feel about the two stories, which one do they like better and why. Students are expected to express and explain their answers in a clear and logical way. • Closing summary for the lesson (_10_ minutes) After students have compared the two stories and answered the questions on the back of the books, I will lead students to talk about how these stories can be connected to their lives. I will ask them did the two stories make them think of things happened in their life and if so, what is that thing. I will help them to make reasonable connections and ask open-ended questions to encourage them to relate more to the stories with their personal experiences. I will give them my answers and reasoning to share. Students are expected to talk about parts in the stories and relate them logically and reasonable to their own experiences. They are also expected to be able to express their feelings towards the stories and characters and being able to give reasons why to explain that they have felt that way. Ongoing-Assessment: I will let students to find out the parts in the second book that they think are different from the first book in the second book without reading the story again to them. They will be expected to be able to find the page that contains differences and then explain why they think it is different and what makes it different from the original story.

Adaptations: Based on what you know about your focus students, what Academic, Social and/or Linguistic Support will be needed during the lesson? Based on what I know about my focus students, they are really smart but they have short attention spans. They are good storytellers and they enjoy listening to stories, so I think this activity will help them focus and stay interested. They are active when they are doing story reading and telling with my mentor teachers, and they always come up with valid answers and reasonable ideas. I think good questions needs to be asked in this lesson because they are very active thinkers and the second story could be really confusing if the teacher couldn’t give clear instructions on what she wants the students to look for in the story. I think when reading the book, it is very important to give explanations to new to the students to help them to get a better understanding of the story.

Reading Lesson Plan #1

Reading Lesson Plan # _1_ Rationale (What evidence do you have that your focus students need to learn this skill/strategy?): The girl I am teaching the lesson to seems advanced on phonetic awareness but she struggles on spelling and reading. The boy is the youngest in the class and he is behind when writing his stories because of it is hard for him to retell his stories again since he struggles on spelling. Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria): Both of the students will be able to read the words in the word bank and explain how did they read the words step by step phonetically. Materials & supplies needed: The Three Little Pigs by Sue Graves

Procedures and approximate time allocated for each event  • Introduction to the lesson (_3_ minutes)      I will tell them that I am going to read a story to them and they will learn some words from the story. I will give them an example of how are they going to explain to me after reading the words like “After reading, I will ask you guys to read some words, if you don’t know how to read it, try to use the ‘stretch’ way that we have learned to sound the word out, for example if the word pig is in the word bank, you guys need to tell me you know it is pronounced as pig because it sounds p, i, g (sound out phonetically)”. I will make sure they know what I am talking about and then start reading the book. • OUTLINE of key events during the lesson  (_25_ minutes)    I will read the story to the students, and whenever it comes to the word in the word bank, pig, wolf, house, bricks, straw, sticks, I will let the kids to try to read it and I will ask them “what is this word?” and point to the words that I want to let them to read. If the students cannot read the words, I will scaffold them to sound out each part of the word phonetically and then figure out the words. Since this is a story that students are already familiar with, and the words in the word bank is appropriate for the kindergarteners and easy to stretch out in parts, students are expected to be able to read these words on their own. I will give help and instructions for them to sound the words out, and the words will repeat several times through out the book so that they will get multiple chances to practice the same thing to anchor the knowledge and the skill of sounding out words step by step phonetically. • Closing summary for the lesson (_10_ minutes) I will read the story again, and ask students to clap their hand whenever they hear the “s” sound, I will give them some examples as “straw, sticks, house, pigs, bricks”, and model a paragraph while reading and clapping my hands when I read to a word that has the “s” sound in it. Then I will read the whole story and have my student do it with me. Then I will focus and emphasis on the words that are in the word bank the most, then we will go over the words in the word bank on the back of the book, students are able to look at the illustrations on top of the word and sound out the words and give me explanations on how did they sound out the words. Ongoing-Assessment: I will cover the pictures on top of the words in the word bank page and have them read out loud the words again. Also have the words printed and cut out and mixed up in front of them and I will say a word and have them to find the word out from the pile of words. Since there are only six words in the word bank and they are the words that they already familiar with and practiced for several times, I expect them to be able to complete the task correctly.

Adaptations: Based on what you know about your focus students, what Academic, Social and/or Linguistic Support will be needed during the lesson? Based on what I know about my two students, the illustration of the book will help them a lot while figuring out the words. I also think it is necessary for me to do the task of finding out the words with the sound “s” in it with them even after I have modeled it for them. It will be a hard task for them to do and I think given specific explanations and clear instructions on what do I want them to do is really important. I think to praise them appropriately is very important too because for kindergarteners, this lesson contains challenging tasks and requires logical thinking and explanation, so keep them focused and interested in the topic is very important for me to pay attention with.

Reading Lesson Overview

The two kindergarten students that I want to work with from my field placement class are the two students that I have worked most with through out my field placement. The boy is the youngest in the class; the girl is very demanding and a little more advanced in the class. I have worked with both of them at their center, in my lessons, in my interviews before, and I want to work with them on their phonemic awareness and connecting. The reason why I want to work with them on these two areas is because that they are kindergarteners, they have just began to learn alphabet this year and they have been slowly introducing to the world of language art by introducing the concepts about print, words or alphabet and phonemic awareness while working at their Literacy Centers and the story telling section in their class. At this time of the year, they have already had a very good understanding of the concepts about print, words or alphabet while doing all kinds of worksheets that the teacher has designed at their literacy centers, but they are still struggling about the phonemic awareness on how to spell and read new words when they are working in groups or with the helpers. The story telling section is divided into two parts, one is the teacher telling a story and asking questions while reading, the other part is student telling their own stories to each other and writes their story down on their special handouts that has a space for them to draw too. My MT encourages me to teach the two books that I have prepared for them, I choose two books for my 2 lessons, and one is The Three Little Pigs by Sue Graves, and the other one is The Fourth Little Pig by Teresa Celsi. The first book is very good to use to teach phonemic awareness because not only does it uses simple easy understanding words, it also has a word bank at the very back of the book which has illustrations as visual aids on top of the words. Since my students are at beginning reading level according to the Tompkins book that children at this level are able to “identify letter names and sounds, use beginning, middle, and ending sounds to decode words, point to words when reading” (Tompkins, P118) and etc. I am aiming to teach the students the words that in the word bank and have them tell me how did they read the words. For my second lesson I want to teach them making Text-to-Text Connections between the two stories. Although the reading says that “text-to-text connections go beyond comparing characters” (Miller, D. P65), my goal is to have them compare these two stories and make connections while I am leading them and asking questions.