Erin's Mini-Lesson-Comprehension

Comprehension Mini-Lesson

Mini-Lesson Topic: Comprehension Strategies

Instructional Objective (performance, criteria, conditions): Introduce students to the topic of using clues to help make predictions while reading, read A Crazy Day at the Critter Café to the students and then guide them on listening for clues to make predications throughout the reading.

Materials needed:
• A Crazy Day at the Critter Café by Barbara Odanaka
Worksheet: http://printables.scholastic.com/printables/f.jsp?id=35532
Connection Remember when I did a lesson with you about the book Flotsam? Well, today we are going to do something similar but we are going to read the book Crazy Day at the Critter Café by Babara Odanaka.


Today, I’m going to teach you a comprehension strategy.

Teach
Mentor Text:

Anchor chart:
Themes Today, I’m going to show you how to make predictions while reading a book.
Using…this worksheet that I printed off it is going to help guide us through making predictions. There is three footprints on the worksheet that lead to a door. On the door you are going to write your prediction of how you think the story will end. On the footprints you are going to write clues that support and do not support your prediction. I am going to start reading the book and then I am going to stop towards the middle of the book to make a prediction on how you think the story will end.
Active Engagement
(Turn and talk to partner,
share with group) Now it’s your turn to try…What do you think will happen next? I want you to raise your hand and try to think of what you think the next page will look like or what you think is going to happen next. If you do not want to raise your hand you can think of your answer in your head. After we have all wrote down our predictions on the “door” I want you to put in your first clue in the “footprint.” After you have your first clue wrote down, turn to the person next to you and share your clue. (Then I would finish up the rest of the story.) As a group we will work on the putting in the last two clues on the worksheet.

Link Today, I taught you how to use clues throughout a story to help you make predictions of how you think the story will end.

When you go off to read today and every time you read, you should be able to use clues that are throughout a story and let them help you make predictions. It is important to make predictions while reading or listening to a story because this will help you pay attention to the story more. When you pay attention this will help you remember what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of a story.
Independent reading time
(conferences) Students to conference with: E, I, S, A, and M. (4 boys and 1 girl)
: While the rest of the class is working on their spelling words I will be asking these students to pick out a different book and write down 3 clues and 1 prediction for how the story will end.
Possible future teaching point: Showing students the structure of how to make a hypothesis. (How to word a sentence with combining examples (clues) and the prediction at the end of the sentence.)
Sharing (individual, partner, group) Students to share: When the students that I was conferencing is down I would like for them to go out in to the hall or to the reading circle so they can share the book they chose and their clues and predications. Then they will be able to give feedback to each other on the quality of their predictions.

Focus: Saying our thoughts with a partner will help students that may not as strong with this topic yet. (I picked 3 students who really need help in comprehension but 2 students who are strong. I did this on purpose so they could help with partner work and with group discussion.) By working together as a group students will learn from each other instead of learning strictly from myself.


Reflection:
I think that my lesson went over pretty well. Something that could have been better was the teaching area. I really do not like teaching to my students out in the hall because I think that these is also too many distractions. (But there was really no other place to teach the mini lesson.) None of the students had read the book that I had picked which is what I was hoping for. If one of the students had read the book they would have probably blabbed on how the book ends and that would have been the end of my lesson. The students seemed like they enjoyed the story and they thought it was funny which is always helpful in trying to keep students attention. Towards the end of the lesson the students started having more wandering eyes and I could tell that they were ready to go back inside of the classroom. While reading the book the students were eager to share their predictions on what would happen next. Even one of my shy students started sharing towards the end of the lesson. (When I called on him in the beginning of the lesson to ask if he had a prediction he would say “I don’t Know.”) When I came to the end of the book the students were excited to see if their predictions were right and were begging me to just flip the page so they could see. Two students got their predictions right, that the cow would become to owner of the café. Then students started to get loud saying that they were right and who was wrong. I then had to remind students that it was just a prediction and that is does not matter who is right or wrong. Overall my lesson went well and I hope that my students will use this strategy while reading.

Kelly's Mini Lesson-Word Blending

Reading Mini-Lesson

Mini-Lesson Topic: Blending Sounds into Words

Instructional Objective (performance, criteria, conditions): Introduce students to the topic of blending sounds into words, help students sound out individual sounds in relation to the letter it corresponds to and blending them together.

Materials needed:

·        Vocabulary Word Chart

Connection	Yesterday we read the book Fish Face by, Norbert Wu. Today, I’m going to teach you about a few words that you may not know that were in the story.
Teach Mentor Text: Anchor chart: Themes	Today, I’m going to show you how to blend sounds from letters into words.  By looking at the vocabulary chart do you know what word number 1 is?  If the children do know the word I will ask them how they knew how to pronounce it.  If the children did not know the word I will have them sound out the word letter by letter.  I will then say all of the letter sounds together to blend the sounds creating the word.
Active Engagement (Turn and talk to partner, share with group)	Now it’s your turn to try so you can turn your body to talk to the person next to you and sound out the rest of the words on the chart.  Remember to say the sound for each letter in the word aloud and then blend the sounds together saying the word.
Link	Today, I taught you how to blend sounds together to pronounce a word. When you go off to read today and every time you read, you’re going to have words in your stories that are not familiar to you.  It is important to take the time to sound out the word and blend the sounds together to say the word instead of skipping over the word.  When you come to a word you do not know before asking a friend or adult what word it is try to sound it out by blending the sounds together and then ask an adult or friend to make sure you have blended the sounds accurately.
Independent reading time (conferences)	Students to conference with: T (E.L.L) and Ta (a transfer student).  -T knows all of her sight words, but does not often read new words aloud and by working with her I will be able to assess if she knows or does not know the corresponding sounds to letters and can blend them or if she just does not like speaking aloud. -Ta moved into our classroom 3 weeks ago and is behind the other children in the classroom with reading and writing.  He will need help with phonological awareness and letter-sound correspondence, before moving on to blending into words. Possible future teaching points: Using words that have combination letters in them.  For example, ‘th’, ‘ch’, ‘st’, ‘sh’ and also making sure children are aware that the letter ‘u’ comes after ‘q’ so they do not need to try and make a sound for each individual letter.
Sharing (individual, partner, group)	Students to share: We will come together as a group after blending the sounds for the words on our chart with a partner.  I will call students at random by pulling their names out of a jar and ask them to say aloud how they and their partner sounded out the word on the chart.  At this time I will also allow their partner to speak to the group helping to explain how they blended the sounds into a word.  Focus: Saying our thoughts aloud as a group to show that we all have relatively the same strengths and weaknesses when it comes to a new topic.  By working together as a group students will learn from each other instead of learning strictly from an adult.  This will help because they are able to better explain or understand each other at some points and an adult does not always know their misconceptions until listening to the students.

                                                                   REFLECTION

         The students in my K classroom often have the tendency to skip over words they do not know or immediately yell, "I don't know it!" or "What does this say?".  This therefore was my reasoning for wanting to implement a mini-lesson on word blending.  By giving students the knowledge of how to blend sounds to pronounce a word my goal was to give them the knowledge to have the skills of being an independent reader even when words they do not know appear.

         My mini-lesson was held on the carpet area after read aloud time.  My lesson I believe went very well because my CT and I both learned from the students and I felt the mini-lesson was used as an assessment, which I had previously not planned for.  I did meet my goal by having the children complete the lesson and learn how to sound out words by blending sounds.  As an assessment while the children were talking with a partner and then aloud with the whole group I noticed that multiple children were unaware of particular letter's sounds.  The class had worked extensively on this at the beginning of the year going through each letter individually, but some students seemed to have forgotten or mixed up particular letters.  With this said we were able to go through the alphabet pronouncing the sound that each letter makes and it also made my CT and I realize that this is something that should be continually worked on.  I believe that since in K the children are taught sight words, which are not always pronounced the way they are blended they loose track of the alphabet sounds and do not learn the tools to help them pronounce words.

        I would definitely incorporate mini-lessons into my curriculum because I found it to be very helpful to the students and the teacher.  Not to mention it doesn't consume a lot of classroom time and is still a great learning experience for particular topics.

Lisa's Mini Lesson

Reading/Writing Mini-Lesson Template

Mini-Lesson Topic: Vocabulary Sentences

Instructional Objective (performance, criteria, conditions): Introduce students to fill in the blank sentences; help students make connections to vocabulary words and how they fit into a sentence; find meaning in vocabulary words

Materials needed: pencil, list of prepared sentences, vocabulary list/word bank

Connection	In first grade, we have been learning about… Vocabulary words and taking tests every week on those words. Today, I’m going to teach you about/how to… use those vocabulary words to help you with reading and writing sentences
Teach Mentor Text: Anchor chart: Themes	Today, I’m going to show you how…  To complete ‘fill in the blank’ sentences Using… your vocabulary words. I have put your vocabulary words in the word bank and those are the words we are going to use where the blanks are in the sentences. We have to read each sentence carefully to see which word will go best in the blank. Let’s do the first one together; Sixty minutes is equal to one ________. (Word bank: Hour, now, time, mine, fun, done)
Active Engagement (Turn and talk to partner, share with group)	Now it’s your turn to try… I would like both of you to read the sentences and try to fill in the blanks with the vocabulary words. If you get stuck, ask each other for help, and I will be sitting here if you have questions. ( Continue filling out the other four sentences using the word bank) If this takes a long time, we will do them together. If they fly right through this, I would then have them make up sentences for each word. Depending on the time, they could make up sentences and have the other person try to fill in their blanks. Before they are done, I will ask each student to tell me what each word means in their own words to ensure they understand that words have meanings and we use them in particular ways because of those meanings.
Link	Today, I taught you how to… vocabulary words to build sentences and to find the meanings of words. When you go off to read today and every time you read, you’re going to… think of a word you don’t know that you read and then re-read the sentence it is in. Try to figure out the meaning of the new word from the sentence it is in before asking a teacher for help.
Independent reading time (conferences)	Students to conference with: William, Ryan, and possibly Teasia (if she is caught up from her absent work) –While the rest of the class is retaking their spelling test (which these kids already passed) I will ask them to come up with a sentence of their own for each vocabulary to fit in Possible future teaching points: how to use a dictionary to find what a words means.
Sharing (individual, partner, group)	Students to share: While the rest of the class is grading their spelling tests, I would like for the 2-3 students to go out in the hall or to the rug to share the sentences they formed. They can give feedback to each other if the sentences made sense or not Focus: Individual work primarily as this is a tool to help these students further their reading and writing in comprehension, word recognition, and understanding of meaning

Reflection

            This mini lesson went over much better than I could have imagined. These students usually have to sit and read silently while the rest of the class re-takes their spelling test, so having something for them to do was a nice change up in their routine. These students are also naturally talented with literacy so they were excited to learn something new and exciting that was specialized to them.

            The few times I have given their spelling tests on Fridays, I have said the vocabulary word, provided a simple sentence, and restated the vocabulary word. So these students had already started thinking about how these vocabulary words fit into a sentence structure. Filling in the blanks I gave them was not a problem as I kept them pretty easy. The sentences they formed on their own were great! They had a wide range of simple sentences to a strand of a few sentences to explain each vocabulary word. They asked if they could do this every week and I told them it depended on if they had to re-take their spelling test or not and if they had other work that needed to be finished first. They were really excited at the thought of doing this activity again which was a very cool feeling for me, knowing they were so geared to learn and further their learning.

4.8.11

(a) Which approaches are most effective for assessing the three components of fluency (accuracy, reading speed, prosody)? 
 I remember assessing fluency in TE 301 and the CT then suggested a running record to assess the students accuracy, reading speed and prosody. The student reads a passage, while the person giving the assessment has a copy of the passage and makes marks on the text to show words that were ommitted, mispronounced, substituted, inserted, etc. The site I remember referring to was: http://www.readinga-z.com/guided/runrecord.html

In your field placement classroom, what have you noticed about your students’ development in word identification and fluency? 
 Every week the MSU Intern tries to get through reading groups where students of similar reading levels read the same book to a teacher. They do a choral reading and then the teacher writes a quick summary of how it went, their progress, if they are ready for a new book, or what they need to work on. When I first started taking reading groups, I noticed the students rarely looked to the pictures for help on identifying words, they would just sit and stare at the word, skip over it, or wait for someone else in the group to figure it out and they would just copy it. So I started having the group read the first few pages together, then I have them read a page alone so I can assess how they do reading independently and suggesting ways for them to identify words. Many of them have benefited from learning to look at the illustrations to help them out.

(b) Outline a lesson plan for a mini-lesson on fluency using your book club novel; mark passages in the novel that would be your focus.  
A mini lesson on fluency for Bucking the Sarge would focus mostly on vocabulary. Part of being a fluent reader is understanding the words and how they flow within a sentence.  I would pick out select words from two-three chapters at a time to work on every week. Words like "slum" which appear quite a bit within the first chapter, and words like "anthrax" that happen in a important part of the story would be what I focused on. Not only would I have a vocabulary test to test their spelling, but I would ask them to write a definition for the words along with a sentence to use the word in. This would assess the students understanding of the words meaning and the context in which they make sense.

New Literacies Project

How has your conceptual understanding of literacy changed since beginning this class?

     My understanding of literacy has changed dramatically.  I learned in previous courses how literacy can be connected to all domains and can be taught in multiple ways, but I do not think I realized the importance of literacy to all domains.  In this course I have learned that without having literacy skills one is unable to complete task in other domains.  For example, my new literacy project was based on visual literacy.  A person is unable to understand pictures and visuals without being able to have the skills to organize their thoughts, thinking about who created the the image and asking themselves other questions in relation to the image.  Another example would be math problems-a person without reading capabilities would have a hard time doing problem solving even if they were excellent at math they wouldn't be able to read the problem.  I also learned that literacy is ever changing and it is up to teachers to continue teaching their children about literacy to further their skills in all areas.  I also learned that a teacher needs to make sure to assess children throughout the school day, semester and year to make sure they are not only at level, but to make sure lessons are being taught constructively for all children to understand.

How does your research on a new literacy and development of your own digital literacy (using your new technology) inform your thinking?

      It first informs me that literacy does not have to be boring like I had previously thought when I was a student!  I always thought of literacy time as reading and writing.  I know now that this is not the case.  Learning about a new literacy made me realize how I could incorporate different aspects of literacy into the classroom to get children excited.  I also learned that technology is a great way to incorporate excitement as well as hands on activities for children.  I realized that with technology being ever changing and easy to send to others it would be a great tool to connect home to school.  For example, when looking at my classmates scrapblogs I thought about how easy it would be to send a weekly or monthly scrapblog to families showing them what we've been learning in the classroom.  I think that families would get a clear picture of what we are doing and it would for sure reach them if sent to their email unlike notes sent in their child's backpack.

What new knowledge, skills, strategies and dispositions are you now aware of, and how do these compare/contrast with more traditional literacies?
I am aware of the endlessness of literacy.  I am aware that it connects to everything that we do on a daily basis as well as aware of the knowledge and skill that continues to develop and change.  I feel that traditional literacy as I said is based on reading and writing.  This connects directly to new literacy, but new literacies go beyond just reading and writing.  New literacies incorporate pictures, technology, thought processes and much more.  I feel that the strategies I learned about teaching literacy through technology will continue to change and I will take this knowledge to continue to teach myself about the new programs that will continue to develop. 

What does it mean to provide “effective literacy instruction” to diverse learners?

To me this means to incorporate multiple instruction tools throughout every lesson.  For example, showing pictures, giving hands on materials, reading aloud as well as giving students directions in print.  Every child learns differently and it is important to make sure they are all learning.  As teachers learn the learning styles of their children I believe it is important for teachers not to only teach using these methods, because as subjects change children may need a different instructional method to help them.  I believe this connects to the importance of assessments for teachers to know what teaching methods are and are not working in their classroom.

Mini Lesson Plan

• Target area and rationale: Visual Interpretation-Pictures and images give us visual cues as readers and as emerging readers children often use pictures as the words to tell them stories.

• Objective(s): Students will write a sentence based on what they believe a picture is telling them.
• Materials and Supplies Needed: Picture Cards, Paper, Pencils

• Outline of Key Events:
1. Teacher will explain that pictures give us cues of what we are reading.
2. Teacher will then explain that each person who sees the same picture may think of something different based on their previous experiences and knowledge of the subject in the picture.
3. The teacher will then tell students that they will each get a picture and they are to observe and think about what they think is going on in the picture.
4. Explain that they will then write a sentence about what they are seeing.
5. The teacher will remind children that everyone will have their own thoughts about the picture they see so there should be no talking until everyone has finished unless they need help spelling a word they can raise their hand or sound it out.

6. After time for completing their sentences the teacher will explain what she wrote about the picture.  She will then ask for students to share what they thought about the picture.
• Closing Summary: The teacher will then discuss the importance of thinking about all the possibilities a picture could be telling us when we are unable to read the words or no words are included.
• Ongoing Assessment: Before reading a story the teacher could do a picture walk through allowing the children to give their ideas of what they think will happen based on the pictures they are seeing.

New Literacies

How has your conceptual understanding of literacy changed since beginning this class?

      Although through TE 301 we learned various techniques, the vocabulary, and the basics of literacy, I didn’t realize how much of an impact literacy had on all subject areas and aspects of life! As we have talked about in class and from many of the readings, literacy in the classroom is affected by the surrounding environment like the neighbors, students, families, professionals, experts, and economy of a given area. The prior knowledge the students bring into a classroom can play a key role in the literacy used in the classroom. I knew literacy had everything to do with the reading and writing within a classroom but I didn’t ever really think about the strategies, activities, and lessons a teacher prepares for students. Actively participating in the book clubs, new literacies, technology with literacy and graphic organizers has really opened my eyes to the limitless ways to boost the positive interaction between students and literacy.

How does your research on a new literacy and development of your own digital literacy (using your new technology) inform your thinking?

      The week after doing the new literacies project I was asked to be a guest reader in a classroom for March is reading month. We took lots of pictures and the teacher asked me to be sure to get them to her. Not wanting to send a million e-mails to her with the pics attached, I put together an online scrap-blog with the pictures, my comments, and a thank you page for the students and teacher. The teacher e-mailed me and was so impressed with the thought, final product, and the excitement from the students to read everything I had written to them. This really showed me the impact a simple creation of a five page scrap-blog in a classroom can have on students! Seeing classmates projects on other types of literacy and various technologies to use has given me lots of ideas of ways to create lesson plans in the future for my students.

What new knowledge, skills, strategies and dispositions are you now aware of, and how do these compare/contrast with more traditional literacies?

Like I said, I always just associated literacy with reading and writing. Now knowing the vast areas literacy can be incorporated into the classroom I am excited to know there are alternatives to handing out worksheets, or close reading a textbook all day every day. I think my new ideas of literacy blend well with traditional literacies as they both focus on students reading, writing, speaking, and listening but these new literacies open up ways to focus on each area.

What does it mean to provide “effective literacy instruction” to diverse learners?

Every student learns differently whether it be the pace, the content, the influence they receive from the lesson, or the way in which they learn best. For visual learners, it is important to have the literacy instruction available visually, like a presentation or having the directions written out for them to see. Kinesthetic learners will take away the most from a lesson if they can feel, touch, or be a physical part of the lesson; like acting out a play for instance.  Auditory learners will benefit the most from hearing the lesson and or directions. The list could go on and on, but the main goal is to provide each student with the tools that will make them the most successful learner.

Mini Lesson Plan

• Target area and rationale: Visual Decoding – pictures speak a million words, each student might get a different idea from simply hearing a story so keeping them all on the same page is important in understanding literary elements of the story.

• Objective(s): Students will illustrate a story simply from listening to it being read, then will re-read the story being able to see the pictures and will compare their drawings to the actual illustrations
• Materials and Supplies Needed: paper, crayons, the book “Hello Red Fox” by Eric Carle.
• Outline of Key Events:
1. Teacher will lead a discussion of what illustrations are with the class.
2. Students will sit at their desks with their crayons and paper ready while the teacher reads the book. The students will not be shown the illustrations and the cover of the book will be hidden as well.
3. Students will listen closely to the descriptions given from the teacher reading the text and will draw their picture strictly based on what the text says.
4. As a whole class, the students will listen to the teacher re-read the book and will be shown the illustrations this time.
5. Students will volunteer to compare and contrast their drawings to the book illustrations for the whole class to see.
• Closing Summary: A final teacher lead discussion will stress the importance of illustrations to a story as they keep the reader on track with exactly what the author was wanting to say and show (visual literacy.)
• Ongoing Assessment: Students could read a story of their choosing and create their own interpretations of the illustrations and discuss why they did or did not make changes to the original illustrations.