At the beginning
of my lesson I worked with Kenny, Joseph, Javier, and Omar. Initially I was having difficulty managing
the group with four boys. Omar was not
wanting to participate and was creating distractions to the other students. I tried various strategies to engage him, such as asking him question and moving his seat next to me on
the carpet, but he still remained a big distraction. My mentor teacher came over and could tell that it was
difficult to get through the lesson when Omar did not want to participate. She told me, “if he is not behaving, you can
just work with the three students who want to learn”. I decided to have Omar go back to his seat
and work with the three other boys.
After Omar left, there were no behavior issues.
My
lesson objective was that students will develop word knowledge and comprehension
skills by reading the mini story Spring Will Bring and using context clues to identify unknown
words. All three of the boys I worked
with were successful in meeting this objective.
When I was modeling how to use context clues the students helped me
figure out what word would make sense.
Javier picked up on the clues and was able to guess that the word was “colorful”. On the next page the Joseph struggles with
the word “bumble”. To support him in
using context clues I asked him question such as “What is the first letter?” “What
do you notice in the picture?” “What word would make sense?” Joseph was successful in figuring out the
word.
A major
strength of my lesson was that the students were able to help each other look
for context clues. Javier was quick to
figure out the word on each page. I
think it was beneficial for the other two students to see what strategies
Javier used to figure out the word. For example,
when we were trying to figure out the word “warm” we looked at the picture of
the sun and the first letter. I
asked the children what they knew about the sun. Kenny replied that the sun was “”hot” and then
that triggered Javier to guess “warm.” When I asked Javier how her knew that
was the word he said because it started with a “w”. It was beneficial for both Kenny and Joseph
to see how Javier figured out the word.
A
limitation to this lesson was that the children could have simply memorized the
word, and not actually have been reading it the second times we read through. At
the end of the lesson we did a choral read through where all three boys read
every word in the story. I am not certain
if the boys memorized the words that they initially didn’t recognize or if they
were actually reading the words. I
wonder if I were to present these words to them out of context if they would be
able to read them.
Overall,
this mini lesson was a great teaching experience for me. Working with a small group was a lot more
intimate and really allowed me to get to know me student’s strengths and
weaknesses. I think that initially my number
of students was too high. Working with the three boys was a lot easier than
trying to work with 4. It is more beneficial
for both me and the students to have a 3 person reading group.
I am
glad that my mentor teacher was there to support me when I was having difficulty
with Omar. I didn’t know how to handle
the situation on my own. Although I
think it benefited the rest of the group to have Omar not participate when we
was acting up, it didn’t benefit Omar.
If I were to do this lesson again I would have called Omar back over
after I was done with the other students and work with him one-on-one.
If the same problem arises during my next reading lesson, I will make
sure to work with him on his own so he is still learning the content.
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