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.