Comprehension Lesson

Name: Tatianna Johnson

Grade 2^nd

Group: The Puppies (low reading group)

Rationale: This lesson is designed for students to understand the importance of summarizing a story for a retell.

Lesson Topic:  Comprehension through summarizing

Objective: The students will be able to read through a story and notice important details that will be used in a summary.

Materials:

-       Book The Adventures of Taxi Dog

-       Paper

-       Pencil

Introduction

-       I will begin the lesson by informing the students what we will be doing for the lesson.

-       I will then explain to the students what comprehension strategy we will be discussing for the lesson

-       I will then go over what a summary is

o   Retailing important details

o   Crunching what we read into smaller chunks of information

o   Remembering the important information

-       After the students have a understanding of what a summary is, I will then highlight key elements of how we write a good summary, students will create a checklist

o   What is the book about?

o   Is this detail important to the main idea of the story?

o   Should I remember this detail?

o   What order should my ideas be in?

o   What is the main idea?

o   Are there any underlining main ideas?

During the Lesson

-       We will read the story together one time through

-       I will instruct students to go back over the story silently (or whisper reading) and answer the questions in the checklist we created.

-       I will tell students that it is their job to try and convince their classmates to read The Adventures of Taxi Dog

-       I will ask the students what the story is about

-       Together we will work as a group to write a summary for the story while paying special attention to the language we use and the order we choose to place important topics.

-       After we create a summary we will read it together to make sure it meets the requirements of a good summary

-       We will select one student from the group to read their summary to the class, and afterwards ask them if they would like to read the book based on the summary that was given.

Closing summary

-       I will have students return to the group and we will go over what a good summary is

-       I will have them create a poster for the entire class that includes what a summary is and what a good summary looks like.

-       Students will post this in the classrooms reading section

On-Going Assessment

-       Students will use their checklist to write a summary for one book they read this week

-       Each student will exchange their summaries with a student that has not read their book

-       The students will continue to pass along their summaries until someone wants to read the book that they have created the summary for.

Reflection

            I really enjoyed this lesson because students seemed to have fun creating persuasive summaries. The book that we read, The Adventures of a Taxi Dog, was chosen by the group, so I believe that it made students more interested in writing the summaries. This particular group is a low reading group so the book was appropriate for their level. When students had to skim the story by themselves, I noticed that most of them were using the pictures in the book to help them summarized what was important. I think that this was a good strategy for them because it helped them remember what was happening in the story.

Some of them were using to much information so we had to decided what should stay and what should go. The Students decided this based on main ideas and underlining ideas that support the main idea. I noticed that many of them struggled with this so we spent a lot of time figuring out what the main idea was and what ideas support it. Once students understood what was important, I think that they found it easy to place these events in the proper order.

I think that the fact that students had to persuade their classmates to read the book really helped them enjoy the activity. Having them create a poster for the entire class gave them a sense of ownership and pride. I now believe that they will be able to comprehend the things that they read because they will be focused on what important aspects could go well in a summary.

Reading Mini-lessons

TE 402 READING LESSON PLAN

Reading Lesson Plan # 2

Your Name:  Tracy Tossi                           Grade Level:  5^th    

Date lesson was taught:  4/19/12              Number of Students: 1

1) Rationale (What evidence do you have that your focus students need to learn this skill/strategy?):

The student struggles to read accurately at an adequate pace to show that they comprehend what they read. She tends to pause in the middle of sentences or paragraphs due to how easily distracted the student can become. There is also a lack of prosody when the students reads; the tone of voice does not show that the student understands how the punctuation can have an effect on the way the text is read. By making the student more comfortable with their accuracy level and pace in reading, perhaps they will be able to focus more on prosody while reading. Improvement in all of these areas will have a positive impact on the student’s comprehension skills.

2) List which reading skill/strategy is the main focus of your lesson (select ONE area):

Fluency: Rate and accuracy improvement through repeated readings

3) Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria):

The student will read a passage from Keep Your Ear on the Ball at an independent level after 3 repeated readings.

4) Materials & supplies needed:

Keep Your Ear on the Ball, tracking sheet, timer/clock, writing utensil

5) OUTLINE OF LESSON PLAN (Provide a bulleted list of ideas):

• Introduction to the lesson  

·         We will be working on fluency today but more specifically your accuracy and speed. When you read fluently, you read most of the words correctly at just the right speed and with expression.

·         When we read fluently, it sounds like we’re reading smoothly.

·         When you read a text going word by word, we tend to forget what we’re reading. (Give an example)

·         Reading fluently is important because it helps with our comprehension; comprehension is when we understand what we are reading

·         Rate is how fast we read the text. This is measured in words per minute. The goal is not to read too fast or read too slow. We want to read at a speed that makes it easy to remember and understand what we read.

·         Another part of fluency that helps us understand what it is we’re reading is accuracy.

·         Accuracy is the percentage of words that are read correctly

·         Eventually this will lead to reading with expression. This is when our tone and pitch sound like we’re talking when we read. So when we see an exclamation point or a question mark, we know to sound excited or say something as a question.

·         All of these factors are important in helping us read fluently. Remember, when we read fluently it’s easier to understand what we’re reading about.

·         This is the whole point of reading; we want to understand what it is we read because that’s the only way we learn anything from it.

• OUTLINE of key events during the lesson 

Before Repeated Reading

• We just read Keep Your Ear on the Ball, and you did a great job reading it.
• What we are going to do now is assess your rate and accuracy, which is the same as how fast you read and how many words you read correctly.
• What you will do is read this page (point to previously selected page in book) in one minute. I will time you and record any words that you get incorrect.
• Don’t be nervous, this isn’t for a grade or a test or anything like that. You will get to improve your score because we will do this at least two more times after your first try.
• I would like you to read naturally like you would if you were reading out loud to yourself.
• If you make a mistake, don’t be afraid to keep on going
• If you don’t know a word, you can skip over it.
• Remember, just read to me like you normally would out loud.
• Show an example of reading too fast and show an example of reading too slow. Read with proper rate and accuracy and prosody, this way the student may able to exhibit prosody in their reading.
• This is your first try. When I ask you to begin, you may.

After First Try

• You did great!
• Go over results with student, provide feedback
• Circle any words the student had trouble with and clarify if there were any vocabulary issues
• Have the student attempt to decode the words they didn’t know and clarify any misconceptions
• Tell the reader to prepare for their second trial
• Repeat the same steps after more trials; repeat the reading at least 3 times, depending on whether or not the student would like to continue improving their score. Do this no more than 5 times or if the student reaches independent level

• Closing summary for the lesson (

·         That was great! Thank you for showing me how well you can read!

·         How do you think you did?

·         What are some things that you want to work on with your fluency?

·         What helped you during your second and third trials?

·         What was the hardest part for you?

·         I can see how you became more quick as you continued to improve your store and you read more words accurately during each trial

·         Do you feel like you understand that passage more? What was it telling you?

·         This shows you how reading fluently allows you to better understand what it is you’re reading

·         The next step to helping you become a fluent reader would be to read with expression.

·         I can see how you acknowledged some of the punctuation to help you read with expression. As you become more comfortable reading at a proper speed and reading more words correctly, reading with expression will become more easy!

·         Do you see how this is related to comprehension?

6) Ongoing-Assessment: 

• I will record the student’s results after each trial
• These results will be graphed so the student can see their improvements over time
• Based on this graph, it will be easier to determine when the student is able to read more difficult text
• The goal is to have the student to read at an independent level for this lesson but once the student  can read at a book level at the instructional level, it is acceptable for them to increase the difficulty of text for them to read
• The student must practice reading fluently so that they can continue to develop their rate and accuracy; this will lead to an improved prosody as well
• Once the student increases their rate and accuracy levels, introduce assessment of expression to help them build on their skills in this area of fluency
• Practicing reading is the best way to improve fluency

7) Based on what you know about your focus students, what Academic, Social and/or Linguistic Support will be needed during the lesson?

• After each trial, it’s important to go any difficult words that the student encountered and define what they mean to help the understand the passage
• I will work one on one with her and acknowledge that it’s ok for her to make mistakes since she is shy about making errors
• I will show the reader an explicit example of how to read fluently because she benefits from visual examples 

Reflection

Fiona’s participation during the mini-lesson was more focused than I had anticipated. Typically this student exhibits off-task behavior during any activity. It has been observed that Fiona will even interrupt a conversation to discuss a random topic because she has a tough time staying on-task. During the mini-lesson, she was eager to do the repeated readings and increase her score of WCPM and percent accuracy. There were times when she did get sidetracked and discussed various events in her life about learning to read and the people who helped her. Once she was asked to save her stories for after the activity, she was able to get back on-task and complete the repeated readings successfully.

When prosody was being defined, Fiona made comments alluding to her understanding of how to read with expression. She stated that punctuation helps determine how to read a sentence; a question mark shows that you have to read like you’re asking a question and an exclamation point shows that you have to sound like you’re louder or more excited. This exhibits Fiona’s pre-existing knowledge on fluency which was also apparent in the way she read aloud.

The objective was for Fiona to read at an independent level by the third repeated reading. Fiona was able to achieve this goal with only two repeated readings which shows her ability to make adjustments to her reading errors, helping her to improve her WCPM as well.

One limitation of the lesson was the reading level of the story chosen. Next time it may push the reader to develop her fluency level if a more difficult reading was chosen to evaluate her fluency. Although I feel the reader could have been pushed further, the reading level chosen did have some benefits. The easier reading level gave Fiona confidence which is important for this student in particular. I’ve observed in class that she will know the correct answer but she is too self-conscious to share with the rest of her peers in fear that she’s incorrect. By providing a text that she can read at an independent level, this makes her aware that she is capable of reading fluently.

Working one-on-one was also a strength of this lesson. Fiona is easily distracted but working together in the hallway allowed her to stay more focused throughout the reading lesson. The individual lesson also enabled Fiona to feel comfortable, which gave me the opportunity to see what she really is capable of in terms of reading fluency.

As a teacher, I noticed that I could use more practice with behavior management. I noticed that I would let the student go off on tangents longer than I should have. I need to learn to quickly bring the student back on track and develop a way to reinforce on-task behavior. I also noticed that explicitly stating learning goals helps students feel more prepared about what they need to do during a lesson.

I would like to see how fluently Fiona is able to read at a more difficult reading level. I think she is completely capable of reading at an independent level with a more difficult reading level; however, I also think that the environment will also have an impact on how she performs.  

TE 402 READING LESSON PLAN

Reading Lesson Plan # 1

Your Name:  Tracy Tossi                                       Grade Level:  5^th    

Date lesson was taught:  4/19/12                          Number of Students: 1

1) Rationale (What evidence do you have that your focus students need to learn this skill/strategy?):

This student needs explicit instruction in determining importance of a story. It has been observed that when the student has been given directions, she misses the important goal of the assignment or activity, making it difficult for her to succeed in activities. Class observations have shown that the student is disengaged during reading activities, including read alouds, making it difficult for her to participate in comprehension activities. Rather than assume the student is unable to comprehend readings, it is vital to work with this student one-on-one to get a better idea of what areas of comprehension the student needs more development.

2) List which reading skill/strategy is the main focus of your lesson (select ONE area):

Comprehension: Determining Importance

3) Objective for this lesson (performance, condition, criteria):

The student will fill out an Anticipation Guide completely prior to reading Keep Your Ear on the Ball, provide evidence for their predictions during the reading, and state whether their initial predictions were correct based on their evidence. The student will also answer Reading Guide questions during the reading based on main ideas they retrieve from the text.

4) Materials & supplies needed:

           Anticipation guide, Reading Guide questions, Keep Your Ear on the Ball, writing utensil

5) OUTLINE OF LESSON PLAN (Provide a bulleted list of ideas):

• Introduction to the lesson   

·         We will be focusing on determining the importance of the story

·         Do you know what it means for something to be important?

·         We need to understand how to do this because it allows us to understand what we read.

·         We get a better understanding of the theme and the main ideas. The author wants us to understand what’s important in the story because these are related to the main ideas. This is why we read.

·         This gives us a purpose to read

·         Determining what’s important is not just used in reading, either. When we make decisions, we always have to decide based on what’s important. Sometimes I would rather hang out with my friends than go to the library, but I know it’s important for me to get all of my school work done first.

·         When we can determine what’s important in a story, then we can understand what the story is all about. That’s why we read.

·         We will be reading a book called Keep Your Ear on the Ball

·         It’s a short little story and I know you like to read out loud so I’m going to have you read it for us

·         Before, during, and after we read, we’re going to be doing a few activities to help us determine what’s important in this story

·         I’m excited to hear all of your ideas and answer any questions you have!

• OUTLINE of key events during the lesson  

·         Before we start reading, I’d like you to ask a few questions from my reading guide

·         This reading guide will help us draw out the important ideas of the story

·         Read “before reading” questions from guided reading

·         Model how to use the anticipation guide: model how to do the first row and provide evidence from the book

·         Model whether or not this is an important part of the story. “I think/don’t think this is important because…

·         Fill out the anticipation guide before reading portion; read the statements if needed and clarify any questions

·         Throughout the book, ask questions on the reading guide that pertain to sections of the book

·         Push the reader to ask any questions or share any predictions or ideas about the what’s important in the book

·         When the second statement’s evidence arises in the book, point to the question and ask if they have discovered the answer to the question or statement. This will be shared practice so that the student can develop this skill

·         When they provide evidence, ask if this is an important part of the story.

·         Ask how they know it is important or not important

·         Ask reading guide questions throughout the story and ask if this brings out important parts of the story.

·         After reading, ask the post-reading Reading Guide questions and ask the student if these answers help determine the importance of the story

·         Fill out the “After” portion of the Anticipation Guide

·         Discuss with the student whether they believe the evidence they found is important to the story at an independent level  

• Closing summary for the lesson

·         How do you think you did on your anticipation guide?

·         What were some things you thought were true before reading the story that you learned were false. Did this surprise you?

·         What helped you understand the story?

·         Did these activities help you determine what was important in the story? What to you was the most important message to take away from the story?

·         You can use these strategies every time you read a book for fun or for school.

·         By questioning as you read (give examples) you can pick out the important parts more easily.

·         Determining what’s important allows us to comprehend what it is we read. This means that we can read something and understand what the reading is telling us.

·         This is the whole point of reading! We never want to read a ton of words on a page and then not have any idea why we read everything or what it is we read. We read words on a page because they have a message. Determining what’s important in a story allows us to understand what that message is. This gives us a purpose for reading.

6) Ongoing-Assessment:

·         I will observe for how well the student picks out evidence from the text to support her anticipated ideas

·         This will inform how well the reader comprehended the story; by finding adequate evidence, it will show that she understood the story well enough to pick that out.

·         The responses from the reading guide questions will also be  evaluated

·         Based on the responses the student gives from the questions, this will help direct future comprehension lessons

·         The student will continue to practice reading at an instructional level, working on anticipation guides and reading guides

·         It may be beneficial for the student to create her own anticipation guides and reading guides for peers to show that she knows how to extract important ideas from the text

7) Based on what you know about your focus students, what Academic, Social and/or Linguistic Support will be needed during the lesson?

·         If any words are unknown, I will work with the student to help decode the word and have the student try and define the word based on the context. Clarifications will be made if need be.

·         The student and I will work in a quiet hallway where she does not feel pressure from her peers.

·         I will sit next to the student to make her feel more comfortable and lessen the authoritative status between the two of us

·         I will give the student explicit directions so she knows exactly what is expected of her

·         If the student gets off-task, I will remind her of the behavioral and instructional goals.

 Reflection

I noticed that Fiona was more focused than I had anticipated. During comprehension activities in class, the student is off-task, usually doodling or staring off into space. In class, comprehension activities usually include a read aloud and questions that the teacher asks the students informally. By engaging the student in questions prior to the reading, during, and after, she was able to answer comprehension questions successfully and with great insight.

One of the strengths was the anticipation guide that the student filled out before the reading. This enabled her to be aware of important details in the story that would help her to understand the overall theme. Fiona was also able to change her initial choices based on ideas from the text, allowing me to see how well she comprehended what she was reading. Providing evidence to her decisions was a great indication as to how well the student comprehended what she read.

Another aspect of the lesson plan that could be a limitation as well as a strength was the fact that important details from the book were already provided for the student prior to the lesson. On the anticipation guide, I provided several statements (some true and some false) that highlighted important details from the story which Fiona had to agree or disagree with. This could have been a limitation because Fiona was not the one to choose important details from the story. Since all of the statements were not necessarily true, it did give Fiona the opportunity to decide whether she thought the statements were true based on evidence from the book. Even though this did test her comprehension, it may have been even more challenging had Fiona been the one to choose the important details on her own.

As a teacher, I learned that at times I may push students’ thinking too much. If I know a student may be on the right track, I ask questions that may lead them to provide a certain answer rather than allowing them to make a mistake in their response. I should allow more time for students to develop their answers and see if they are capable of reaching the right answer on their own. This will allow me to see what they’re thinking and then if need be I can go ahead and make any clarifications.

I wonder if Fiona would be able to pick out important details on her own in the future as a way to test her comprehension. She was able to work well on an individual lesson but placing her in a classroom setting with the same lesson plan may have resulted differently. I wonder how well Fiona would have performed if she was in a group setting . Her success in this comprehension lesson also makes me wonder how successful she can be in other aspects of comprehension. 

Val's Mini-Lessons

Guided Reading Mini-Lesson #1

1) Rationale:

According to R.NT.02.05 of the Michigan GLCE's, second graders should be able to "respond to individual and multiple texts by finding evidence, discussing, illustrating, and/or writing to reflect, make connections, take a position, and/or show understanding." (Michigan Department of Education) By making text-to-text connections, students are demonstrating their in-depth understanding of the book in use. This is because they are being asked to reflect on what they have learned from the book, in an effort, to connect it to others. We are activating their prior knowledge by having them draw on outside texts with similar themes, characters, or other literary features. One of the comprehension strategies outlined in the Tompkins' text is connecting, which she describes as, "the linking of text or an element of it to another text [students] have read." The focus of this lesson is to familiarize students with making connections between texts, which she also mentions, is the most difficult connection to make since it requires higher-level thinking. (Tompkins, 2010) Students must learn how to make these connections, in order, to have strong comprehension skills.

2) List which reading skill/strategy is the main focus of your lesson:

Comprehension: Making Text-to-Text connections

3) Objective for this lesson:

Students will listen to the story, "Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon", and make a text-to-text connection between the book and another story they have read. Students will write thoughtful and descriptive connections between the two, making sure to state specific similarities between the characters, theme, or other features.

R.CM.02.01

Make text-to-self and text-to-text connections and comparisons by activating prior knowledge and connecting personal knowledge, experience, and understanding of others to ideas in text through oral and written responses.

R.NT.02.05

Respond to individual and multiple texts by finding evidence, discussing, illustrating, and/or writing to reflect, make connections, take a position, and/or show understanding.

4) Materials & supplies needed:

Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon by Patty Lovell

Pencil

Paper

Whiteboard/Chalkboard

Whiteboard/Chalkboard Markers

5) Outline of Lesson Plan:

Introduction to the Lesson

- "Today, we are going to read Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon, by Patty Lovell. Instead of having each of you read it, I am going to read it to you."

- "Based on the title, what do you predict the text will be about? What do you think will happen? Why?"

-"While I am reading, I want each of you to pay attention to the characters. I also want you to think about the theme of the book. What do you think the author wants you to take away from reading it?"

- "Most importantly, as I am reading, I want you all to think about how this story relates to another story you have read before. This is called making a text-to-text connection. Any time you read a book and compare it to something else you have read, you are making a text-to-text connection. This is an important strategy to use, because it helps you understand what is happening in the story."

- "When we are done reading the story, each of you will write about the connection you were able to make between this story, and another story you have read."

- Using two different books that students have read before, the teacher may model this strategy to ensure that students understand how to use it properly.

Outline of key events

- As the teacher reads the story, they will stop and ask focusing questions, to make sure the students understand what is happening so far.

- More specifically, the teacher will stop and discuss Ronald Durkin after he is introduced in the story. "Do you think he is being nice to Molly? Why not? What is it called when someone mistreats another person because they feel bigger, better, or smarter than them?"

- Since the students have just finished a lesson plan on bullying, the teacher should include these questions to make sure everyone is on the right track.

Closing summary for the lesson

- "What did you think about the book? Did any of the characters change? How?"

- "How does this book relate to other books you have read? What is similar about the books?"

- The teacher will make sure each student explains a text-to-text connection to ensure that everyone knows what they will be writing about for the post-lesson assignment.

- Teacher will go over directions, giving the students 5-7 minutes to complete their writing.

6) Ongoing-Assessment:

- Students will create a chart in their notebooks that has a list of books they have read in the first column. The second column should list the text that they connected the initial book to. The third column should have space for the students to write a short summary of the text-text connection they have made.

- As students continue to read new texts, the teacher will continue to have them fill out the chart. With this repetition, students will become more comfortable with making connections, which will strengthen their comprehension skills.

7) Based on what you know about your focus students, what Academic, Social and/or Linguistic Support will be needed during the lesson?

-I will make sure to clearly explain the directions to these students. Occasionally they do not listen to directions and then get lost through out the lesson in the whole group environment. Another aspect of support for these students is doing this lesson in such a small group. They often get lost in the shuffle of daily lesson plans and the teacher does not notice. In this small group environment they can both get the individualized attention they need.

REFLECTION:

            My students were very engaged in the book. My mentor teacher was thrilled about me using the book, because she felt it fit perfectly with the theme of building self-confidence (which is what she has been working on with the students). The students were very positive during the reading. Even though one student shouted out, “This is like Leave Me Alone”, I was excited that they were already making connections between this story and others they have read.

            When I finished reading the story, my mentor teacher came and asked the students more questions about the book. I appreciated her doing this because it made me feel more comfortable, and it let me know that she REALLY did think the students would benefit from the story. After she went back to the rest of the class, I went over the directions for their assignment. After talking with my mentor teacher, we thought that it would be better for the students to make their text-to-text connections using the Venn diagram templates that Mrs. D had. I am glad that chose to do this, because it allowed the students to make several contrasts and comparisons.

Guided Reading Mini-Lesson #2

1) Rationale:
Vocabulary is one of the main focuses of language arts. This lesson strengthens vocabulary because it requires students to activate what they already know about affixes. They can, then, use this knowledge to predict the meaning of new vocabulary terms. According to R.WS.02.10 of the Michigan GLCE's, students should be able to "use syntactic and semantic cues including reading context; picture clues; prefixes re-, un-; and suffixes -s, -ed, -ing to determine the meaning of words in grade-appropriate texts." (Michigan Department of Education) In this lesson, students will be introduced to new prefixes and suffixes, and their meanings, to help them reacg this goal.

2) List which reading skill/strategy is the main focus of your lesson:
Vocabulary

3) Objective for this lesson:
Students will describe qualities of character(s) in Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon (or other familiar text),  by identifying the descriptive vocabulary cards that characterize them. Students will use prior knowledge of affixes to identify word meaning, while learning new ones.

R.WS.02.10
use syntactic and semantic cues including reading context; picture clues; prefixes re-, un-; and suffixes -s, -ed, -ing to determine the meaning of words in grade-appropriate texts.

4) Materials & supplies needed:
Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon by Patty Lovell
Descriptive Vocabulary Word Sort Cards (Descriptive word on front, with definition and synonyms on back)

5) Outline of Lesson Plan:

Introduction to the Lesson
-Teacher will read Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon to students.
(Procedures for reading are outlined in Mini-Lesson #1)
-Teacher begins by letting students know that the activity they will be doing will require them to think about the characters in Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon,
-"Today, we are going to do work with descriptive vocabulary. Who can tell me what descriptive vocabulary is?"
-If students are unable to define this, teacher will break down the term. For example, "What does descriptive mean? If descriptive means to represent or describe something, what do you think descriptive vocabulary means?"

Outline of key events
-"You will be given a set of Descriptive Vocabulary Cards, along with character cards. Using what you have learned about affixes and their meanings, you are to sort the cards by placing the descriptive cards under the character you think it represents."
-"If you come across a word you do not know, try your best to predict the meaning. Then, flip the card over and read the written definition and synonyms."
-Teacher will take advantage of these moments by explicitly teaching the new word and the new affix to all of the students.
-Teacher will add the new affix to the class vocabulary list and encourage students to practice using it.

Closing summary for the lesson
-Teacher will go through the student(s) lists, to see how well they were able to complete the task.
-If the teacher comes across words that a listed under the incorrect character, the teacher will repeat the definition and explain the term using other synonyms and examples.
- Teacher can create a descriptive word wall, for students to come back to often.

6) Ongoing-Assessment:
-Teacher will have students write a short story using five of the descriptive words they just worked with.
-This will allow teacher to see if the students understand the meaning of the terms. In addition, teacher will see if students are able to use the vocabulary words in context.
-Based in the students' performance, teacher may need to clarify meanings. Teacher will make time to do this, if necessary. They will also answer any questions students may have, regarding the words and their meanings.
-Teacher will continue to do activities with students that allow them to practice with these affixes and vocabulary words.

7) Based on what you know about your focus students, what Academic, Social and/or Linguistic Support will be needed during the lesson?

-I will need to clearly explain the directions to these students. If students are unable to identify the affix, I will help them. If students have a difficult time understanding the definition of a word, I will provide more examples and use he dictionary, if necessary.

REFLECTION:

            This lesson went a lot faster than I had planned. Since we used the same book we did in the first lesson, I did not have to re-read it. When I made the word sort cards, I did not realize how much time it would take to find words that were not too complicated, but that included various prefixes and suffixes. Luckily, I was able to find enough words that had affixes with similar meanings to the ones they have been working on already.

            During the word sort, the students were very excited. So, I had to keep asking them to quiet down so that I could go help them with the activity. One of them kept trying to look at the back of the card for the definition, because he wanted to “beat” everyone to the answers. It really helped to be doing the activity with them, because I was able to monitor their understanding, while making sure they used a dictionary when they need to.

            Overall, I thought the activity was a good idea. However, I feel that the lesson was too easy. Despite using new words and affixes, the words were still not challenging enough. This could have been because they were good at learning definitions, but I think it was more because the words were not complex enough. In addition, they may have been familiar with the words in spoken context, but not in writing. In the future, I will try to come up with more difficult words, or modify the activity. Since this was only a 10-minute lesson, I would follow up with a more challenging activity.

Fluency Lesson

Name: Tatianna Johnson

Grade: 2^nd

Group:  The Naruto Fighters (a group of five students that are in a low/middle reading group)

Rationale: This lesson is designed for students to learn the importance of varying the pitch, rate and volume of their voices. Putting emphases on different words will alter the meaning of the poem.

Lesson Topic: Fluency through expression

Objective: The students will be able to read through poems by Kenn Nesbitt using pitch, expression, speed, and accuracy to improve fluency.

Materials:

-          Poems

-          Paper

-          Pencil

Introduction:

- I will began the lesson by telling the students what she will be learning today and going over the important elements of reading poems fluently, which included accuracy, expression, pitch, and speed.

-I will go over each element with them by explaining what each means

- I will ask them if any of these elements sound familiar to them, and if so when do they see them being used.

During the Lesson:

-          I will begin by reading a poem by Kenn Nesbitt to the group without expression so that they can hear what it sounds like not to read fluently.

-          The students will be given a copy of the poem I read to them

-          I will ask students what they thought of my reading and what I should change about it.

-          I will then read the poem again this time using everything we discussed about fluency so that they can hear what they should sound like when reading.

-          I will ask the students to then read the poem with me after I have finished reading it.

-          I will then ask them to read it another time to me by themselves using expression, pitch, speed, and accuracy.

-          Once the students have read the poem to me twice I will show them another poem by Kenn Nesbitt and ask them to read it silently to themselves two times through.

-          After the students have read the poem to themselves I will ask each of the students to stand up and read it to the rest of the group using what we learned about fluency.

Closing Summary:

-          After the lesson I will go over what we have learned about fluency and why it is important that we read fluently when reading aloud.

-          I will invite the students to read one of the two poems that we went over during the lesson to the rest of the class.

On-Going Assessment:

-          After the lesson I will ask the students that I was working with to write a short poem (it does not have to be a rhyming poem, it can be a cinquain poem seeing that students have been working on this in class).

-          The students will take them home and practice reading them to their families

-          When I return I will have the group of students read their poems to the Kindergarten class next door.

-          I will publish the students work on the class bulletin board.
       Reflection
       Doing this lesson with the Naruto fighters gave me a better understanding of what they knew about reading fluently. I like the fact that all of the students participated equally in the lesson. When i first read the poem to students all of the recognized the fact that i was not reading fluently. One students asked after i finished reading, "why did you read it without any emotions?", by saying this i knew that she understood that fluent readers change their pitch, tone, and expression when reading. After i read the poem fluently to the group all of them said that it sounded better that way and they were able to identify what i had changed about my reading. When it was their turn to read the poem, all of them read with the same expression as I did, changing their pitch and tone most often. Some students struggled writing their own cinquain poems saying that they could not think of anything to write about. For those students, I worked with them and read created a poem about school lunch. One student enjoyed writing their poem so much that he assisted another student with finishing her poem. For the fact that some of the students did not feel comfortable reading their cinquian poems to rest of the class. I chose to have the three students that wanted to read their poems do so, while the others read the poem we had been working on throughout the lesson.