Lesson Plan:

1. Choose a story that the student will read to you. Have the student read the title and then tell the student what the story will be about. Have the student predict what else might happen in the story. Tell the student to visualize what is happening in the story as he/she reads.
2. The student will begin to read the story and after a few sentences or page, stop him/her to check for understanding. Ask the student what he/she is picturing in his/her mind that happened so far. Ask a few open ended questions about the story. If the student doesn't know, tell him/her and have him/her reread the section that wasn't internalized.
3. If the student missed a word that didn't fit into the meaning or structure of the sentence, have the student go back and repeat the sentence until he/she can fit in a word that goes along with the meaning. (If the word is still wrong but fits into the meaning, praise the student for trying and then correct him/her.)

The student that read this story, "Whales and Fish", was a good reader. She mostly tried to read the words based on how they looked - the visual. When she saw a word that she didn't know, she would look at the letters and said a word that started with the same beginning letters that she saw. She never said that she didn't know what a word was; she always tried to get it right. Although she always tried to read the words, she didn't try to make the words fit into the meaning or structure of the sentence. She needs to have more practice reading for meaning instead of just reading to have the words read correctly. She needs more practice reading words that end in ough, because when she read a “ough” word, she ended it incorrectly.

Assessment Driven Instruction

1. Shared Reading

• How does this activity engage students who are at different levels of literacy development?
  This activity is beneficial for many reading levels because students that can already read fluently will learn how to read with the correct inflection, the students that need the teachers help will read along with her, and the students that feel they can't read will listen and learn.

• During her explicit phonics lesson, how does Ms. Perez support students' problem-solving skills?
  She encourages the students to think about how to figure out what the word says. She says, “ I know what you're thinking” and “I love how you're trying”. She validates their thinking process.

• Based on what you saw in the video, what are the different ways that shared reading can be used to promote literacy?
  
  Ms. Perez uses poems that she knows the students will like, so they are interested in reading and discussing it. The poems have high frequency and rhyming words.

2. Guided Reading

• Why does she think it's important for students to verbalize their strategies?
  
  She wants the students to hear it for themselves so that they will internalize it and remember the strategy for another occasion. Also, by saying the strategy out loud it's beneficial to other students who didn't know how to read the word either.
• What else do you notice about how she helps students build meaning in text?
  
  She stops in the middle of the story and asks questions about the story to check for understanding.

3. Differentiated Instruction

• How does Ms. Perez organize her classroom to support a wide range of learners?
  
  She knows where every student is holding and therefore can provide each student with what they need. Students that are advanced aren't bored reading the same books as lower level readers; they are given work appropriate for their level.

• How are reading and writing connected in classroom activities?
  
  She uses the topic that they are reading about for writing assignments. The children can better internalize what they have read when they write about it.

4. Assessment
   

• How does Ms. Perez use ongoing individual assessment to guide her instruction?
  
  She has the students working on different activities based on their level of skills.
• How can the class profile be used to help group students and differentiate instruction?
  
  Students that are on the same level can work together and when students are above or below average, she can work accordingly. She knows what to teach and how to teach it based on the assessment.

• How can ongoing assessment be integrated into your own classroom practice?
  
  I am not currently teaching, but I would imagine that by performing ongoing assessment, I would have a clear idea of where my students were holding and I would be able to teach accordingly.

Critique of Lesson Plan

The lesson plan for teaching students about found poetry is a great way to get students involved in their reading. Instead of reading a story and moving on, the students delve into it and the students create their own work based off the story, One thing that I thought that was out of place about the lesson was inviting family and friends for a class performance. I think the teacher could achieve the same goals by having the students perform in front of a parallel class or some administrators. If each student had only one line to memorize and practice and his family would come to watch, they would not appreciate having been invited . I think a performance that people are invited to should be saved for a bigger accomplishment and a more comprehensive effort on the part of the students.

Reflection from the Video 

 

I had a new impression of how to teach children to read after watching the video, “Becoming Readers and Writers”. When I was in Kindergarten, we knew how to read when we could sound out each word in the sentence. The teacher in the video, Sheila Owen, made her students feel that they were learners from the very first day that they entered her classroom. They didn't need to know how to sound out each word in order to know how to read. Sounding out was just one method of figuring out what a word was. They also used pictures and context clues. Ms. Owen had the students constantly engaged with reading. By listening to her read, reading with her, and then reading with guidance, they were able to read on their own. I thought that making time for each type of reading everyday was a great way to facilitate independent reading. The students were encouraged to write sentences using words that they saw around the classroom because the room was full of words and pictures. So even if they didn't know how to spell on their own, they were able to create sentences. The fact that children may not know how books work was a new idea for me. I realized that I cannot assume that children will know concepts that to me seem obvious. When Ms. Owen paused to explain the book and asked them questions of how the book applied to their own lives, this made sure that the children understood the story. It was interesting to learn that ELLs should use their first language because that would help them learn to read; I would have thought otherwise. It was good that the teacher spoke some words in the language that the students are more familiar with it because it will make those students feel more comfortable in the classroom.

Reflection of ELA Instruction

ELA instruction includes many different components. Learning to read isn't as simple as what I remember when I learned to read. Many processes are happening in the brain when children learn to read. As such, all areas of reading, writing and communication need to be addressed. Our ability to comprehend and communicate that we, as adults, may take for granted needs to actually be taught to children. Teaching all of the components of ELA is essential because each part is crucial for their comprehension and ease of use and academic success. The standards work as the guide for the teacher to ensure that every student is taught what they need in order to be successful in their life. The teachers' goal should be to give the students the opportunity to acquire the language skills they will need in the real world.

Hello, my name is Chana Feldman. My favorite thing to do is to take care of my family, which includes my husband, one and a half year old daughter and two month old daughter. I also enjoy cooking, scrapbooking, reading and talking on the phone, and I do these in my spare time. I loved teaching third grade which I did for two years in St. Louis, MO. I taught math, reading, lanauge arts, science, social studies, plus a few more subjects. Language arts was not my favorite subject when I was in school because I was not so good at it, therefore I was less confident teaching it than teaching other subjects. I am excited and a little nervous to be taking this class about literacy instruction. This is my second semester at NYIT taking online classes. What I know about teaching language arts is the way I taught it to my students: grammar rules, reading practice, writing technique, etc. I don't know anything about “new literacies” except for what I saw briefly when I did a google search – that educators need to find new ways to teach children to read because of the technologies that we use communicate.