In looking over the initial blog posts and responses from the semester I thought my colleagues and I did a good job reflecting on ideas discussed in class and the assigned readings, as well as developing on ideas the initial poster brought up in their post. I noticed that we all relied a lot on passages from the Tompkin’s readings, which I found to be the most beneficial readings assigned this semester. Most of the posts were written thoroughly and provided key aspects of the readings from that week. A trend that I noticed as the semester went on his how much my colleagues and I made connections between what we were learning in class to what we saw in our field placements. Because there wasn’t always time in class to talk about what was going on in our placement classrooms, it was nice to be able to hear about other experiences on the note blog each week.
After carefully reading over our posts from the semester I noticed that we tended to agree a lot with what the initial poster said. It was nice to know that we had similar understandings of the topic at hand, but also it was helpful to read about how the responders built on the ideas mentioned by the initial poster. In almost every post the responders reflected on the initial post, but then made suggestions for how to improve literacy instruction even more. It made me feel comfortable sharing my ideas on the subject matter and it was exciting to know that my blog group members would provide me with even more ideas in their post. The way in which my group members were able to agree and then build on ideas I shared was both professional and valuable.
More often than not, we tended not to disagree with each other’s ideas, but instead just made suggestions for improvement where we thought necessary. While I thought this was great, I think it could have also been helpful if we had some areas of disagreement. I don’t feel like it was made completely clear at the beginning of the semester that it is appropriate to disagree with what our colleagues said in their posts, so we tended to shy away from that.
Overall, I was really pleased with our group dynamic. I really appreciated the way we used each other’s ideas to share our own thoughts as if we were having a conversation back and forth instead of just putting down ideas we had individually. With this in mind, I think the work we all did in our note blog posts deserves a full 10/10 points for the second half of the semester. Not only was each post prompt and fulfill its requirements, but I really feel that most of the posts did a great job making connections to other posts, field placements, readings, and topics from class.
Decoding CVC Words With Short Vowels Lesson Plan
Reading Lesson Plan # 2
Your Name: Caitlin shanahan Grade Level: K
Date lesson was taught: 4/16/12 Number of Students: 1
1) Rationale (What evidence do you have that your focus students need to learn this skill/strategy?):
This student has been practicing blending and decoding CVC with short vowel sounds, but he always practices with one vowel sound at a time. Also, the same words are always used so the student has started to memorize the words instead of actually decode them. The student needs practice decoding a variety of CVC words that include short vowels a, e, I, o, u so this picture/word sort will give him practice with that.
2) List which reading skill/strategy is the main focus of your lesson (select ONE area):
Decoding CVC words with short vowels
3) Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria):
The student will decode and match 12 CVC words to the correct picture with 100% accuracy.
4) Materials & supplies needed:
-CVC words cut out
-12 picture squares cut out
• Introduction to the lesson (3 minutes)
“Hi, Allen. Thank you for joining me. Today we are going to read some words and match them to pictures, just like you do when you work with the vowel boxes. But, this time instead of only matching words and pictures for u vowels or o vowels like we do with the vowel boxes, you are going to see different vowels in some words. That means we will have to be very careful to look at what vowel is in each word, but I know you can do it because you know how to slowly say each sound, then read the whole word fast. Some of these words might look familiar to you, and some may be new. But all of these words are going to help us become a better reader and writer! Are you ready?”
• OUTLINE of key events during the lesson (15 minutes)
-Pass out the CVC word cards and picture cards. The cards will be randomly placed in front of the student.
-I will take a few moments to review what the picture cards are in case there are some cultural differences that make the cards difficult to understand.
-Take one card with a CVC word on it and show the student how we decode the word so he can be reminded of how to blend phonemes to make a word.
-I will start at the first letter in the word with my index finger under it and make a half loop motion with my finger as I go through the sounds. Then once I get to the end of the word I will loop my finger back to the first letter and swipe my finger under the whole word as I read it fast. For example: leg. /llll/ -/eee/ /ggg-/. Leg.
-Then Allen will repeat the signaling and decode the rest of the words, matching them up to the pictures.
-Once he has gone through and matched all the cards we will go over each word and have Allen will read the CVC words quickly.
• Closing summary for the lesson (3 minutes)
“Look at that! You just read 12 new words. I really like how careful you were in look at the vowel sounds in each word. I also love how you used your finger to follow along as you said each sound in the word. That is a good trick to use when you don’t know a word because it can help you hear some of the important sounds in that word. Next time you do the vowel boxes, remember to use this same signal. It will help you learn to read the word instead of just matching the pictures.”
6) Ongoing-Assessment:
I will observe the student has he does vowel boxes during independent work time. He is required to do at least one vowel box activity each day so it will be easy to observe him. It is okay if he decides he does not want to use the signal we used in this lesson, but I will make sure he is saying each sound in the word instead of just matching up pictures.
7) Based on what you know about your focus students, what Academic, Social and/or Linguistic Support will be needed during the lesson?
This student was born in Jamaica so there may be some cultural differences that could affect how he interprets the picture cards. For example, he may be unfamiliar with what a Top is so I will have to review the pictures before I let him finish the activity on his own.
Reflection:
The student did really well with this activity, and since it was simply printed on a sheet of computer paper and cut out I let her take it with her to practice. I happen to know that this student is homeless, so for her to have an activity to take away from school to practice CVC words is really great for her. She needs the extra practice and may not have the resources outside of school to do so. One thing I noticed is that she had a hard time recognizing the pictures, which is something I expected. We went over the pictures before starting the mini-less but even while she was doing to activity she had trouble deciphering what was in the picture. If I were to do this lesson with her again I think I would choose pictures that are more culturally familiar to her.
After doing this lesson I was able to pin point an area of trouble she has with short vowels. She has trouble decoding words with short vowels –e and –u so as a follow up lesson I would choose words that have these vowels. That way she would get some isolated practice with these vowels.
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