Week 7 Assignment 2 and 3

Assignment 2 

1. How can you ensure that your struggling readers have access to texts they can easily read?

            Some schools have libraries of many different types and reading level books in each classroom. This provides all levels of readers something to read. If a 3^rd grader who reads at a 2^nd grade level has some 2^nd grade books to read, they will be able to read much more than they would be able to with 3^rd grade or higher books. 

2. How can you foster a learning environment in which students have many opportunities to practice reading?

            A good way to foster a learning environment with plenty of reading opportunities is by balancing the types of instruction offered in the class. A class where there is whole class instruction, small group  instruction, and side by side instruction will generally have higher achieving readers than classes that are dominated by whole group instruction. 

3. Describe ways in which you can model fluent reading in your classroom throughout the day. 

            Modeling fluent reading in the classroom starts with teachers simply reading with fluency.  As teachers read, it is important that they make a point to acknowledge good reading techniques like intonation and expression at appropriate moments. While students may hear a teacher reading with expression, they may not acknowledge it until it is pointed out to them.

Assignment 3

 

1. Explain the three levels of words and how you can use word levels to decide which words to teach.

Tier 1 words are words that students automatically know and do not need to be told like “bed” and “look”. Tier 2 words are words that are more complicate dlike “freeway” and “democracy”. Tier 3 are words that are specialized to a certain subject like biology and should be taught by a biology teacher and not by an English teacher.

2. How do you teach your students to "chunk" words as a strategy for decoding unfamiliar words? When do you provide this instruction?

          

           If a word is too complicated for a student, they can cover up the front and back of the word and focus on reading the middle of the word. Once they get the middle, they can focus on reading the front and back of the word. Once students can read all chunks of the word, they can then begin piecing the chunks together. This instruction is useful when students reach a word that they have the ability to read, but need a little extra help figuring out how to read it. 

3. Based on Professor Allington's comments and the classroom examples, what are some ways you might foster word study in your classroom?

           

          A great way to foster word study is by adding a small number of words each week to students’ vocabulary from the materials they are covering.  Instead of having separate vocabulary or spelling lessons, students can learn new words through a book or story they are reading.

Week 6: Assignment 3

Candidate’s Name: Damien Beckinger

Grade Level: 2

Title of the lesson: “A” Vowel Sounds

Length of the lesson: 45 minutes

Central focus of the lesson is to distinguish between the different types of sounds that the A vowel can make Recognition of different sounds of “A”

Knowledge of students to inform teaching (prior knowledge/prerequisite skills and personal/cultural/community assets) Key questions: Students know that sometimes the letter A is pronounced differently. Spanish speakers are more familiar with the short o sound that can sometimes be written as an A.

Common Core State Standards (List the number and text of the standard. If only a portion of a standard is being addressed, then only list the relevant part[s].) Common Core Learning Standards for ELA and Literacy) CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.3.a Distinguish long and short vowels when reading regularly spelled one-syllable words. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.3.c Decode regularly spelled two-syllable words with long vowels.

Support literacy development through language (academic language) Compare and contrast the various sounds of the letter A. Recognize and pronounce words using the correct sound for the letter A.

Learning objectives Sample: Will know the three sounds that the letter A can make. Will be able to pronounce most common words using the correct sound for the letter A.

Formal and informal assessment (including type[s] of assessment and what is being assessed) Apply sounds in context (Students will read sentences from story outloud using correct sound for Letter A)

Instructional procedure: Instructional strategies and learning tasks (including what you and the students will be doing) that support diverse student needs. Your design should be based on the following: Teacher will open by asking the students to give an example of the sounds that the letter A can make. Teacher will provide an example word for each sound (play, sat, car) Teacher will ask students to listen for these sounds in the Book “The Best Mariachi in the World” Teacher will ask students if they can give any examples of the different A sounds in the story. The sound will be turned off and the story will be played again. This time, each student will read a few sentences of the story out loud, taking note of the different A sounds they are reading. Teacher will repeat the three sounds when a student is struggling to determine which sound is used to pronounce the word. The lesson ends once every student has read out loud at least once and the book is finished.

Instructional resources and materials used to engage students in learning. Handouts of story and A sounds SMART Board Tumble Books “The Best Mariachi in the Worlds”

Reflection Allowing students to listen to the story first before reading out loud gives less advanced students the chance to hear the words pronounced properly. A possible change would be to pair more advanced students with less advanced students to read the story a second time. The less advanced students will have the chance to hear how the more advanced student reads the word. This change will help learning through scaffolding as students are learning from the tape, then from each other, then eventually reading on their own.

Week 6: Assignment 1

Candidate’s Name: Mary

Grade Level: 3

Title of the lesson: Past and Present

Length of the lesson: 30 Minutes

Central focus of the lesson is to provide students with some basic rules for determining when a past or present tense verb should be used. Suffix recognition (Grade 2)

Knowledge of students to inform teaching (prior knowledge/prerequisite skills and personal/cultural/community assets) Mary sounds out words she is struggling with and self-corrects 1 out of 4 errors. Mary also is good at comprehending what she is reading.

Common Core State Standards (List the number and text of the standard. If only a portion of a standard is being addressed, then only list the relevant part[s].) Common Core Learning Standards for ELA and Literacy) CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.2.3.d Decode words with common prefixes and suffixes.

Support literacy development through language (academic language) Determine if a past or present tense verb is required Complete a sentence with either a past or present tense verb Student must be able to recognize and pronounce both past and present tense forms of a verb

Learning objectives Sample: Will know when to use a past tense-verb instead of a present-tense verb and vice versa. Will understand that adding “ed” to some verbs will cause them to become past tense verbs.

Formal and informal assessment (including type[s] of assessment and what is being assessed) Tense Recognition: Students will be informally assessed based on their correct or incorrect choice of verb tense when filling in the blanks of sentences. Tense Recognition & Reading Fluency: Students will be formally assessed by a running record and miscue analysis.

Instructional procedure: Instructional strategies and learning tasks (including what you and the students will be doing) that support diverse student needs. Your design should be based on the following: Students will each receive a packet with a story. Each page of the story will be split down the middle. One side will say something along the lines of “When I was a baby, I _____ all the time.” The other side will say something along the lines of “Now, I do not _____ as much.” The teacher will ask a student to read the first sentence then ask the class if the blank should be filled in by “cry” or “cried”. This will be continued through the rest of the story with words like “walk/walked”, “play/played”, etc. At the end of the story, the teacher will ask if any of the students notice a pattern with the verbs on the baby side of the story. The teacher will explain that adding “ed” to some verbs can make them past tense verbs. After this lesson, a running record will be performed with this story to determine if the student recognized the “ed” suffix.

Instructional resources and materials used to engage students in learning. Story SMART Board

Reflection This instruction supports learning for the whole class as it solidifies a pattern that many students may have already noticed and clears up confusion for struggling students. A variation to this lesson would be to have the students work to complete the story in pairs rather than with the entire class. This method would promote scaffolding, teamwork, and peer mentoring

Week 5: Running Record

            Most of the struggles of this reader came from words that are uncommonly used in the 3^rd grade lexicon such as “drone”, “cell”, and “pleasant”. I think the best method to improve the student’s reading would be to make the student more familiar with these words. I would first read the story to the child again, stopping at difficult words to ask the student if he knows what they mean and explaining if necessary. After reading through the story and defining some of the difficult words, I would ask the student to read the story one more time by himself. In a situation like this where the majority of the student’s reading was excellent, I feel that a brief vocabulary refresher is all that is needed.

Running Record and Assessment

            I would categorize the student as a good reader, though it is hard to accurately assess the reader’s skill without knowing her grade and the level of book that she was reading. According to my running record, she only made 7 errors. She also often corrected herself or repeated phrases in order to steady her reading Overall, her error rate was 1:28.

            As far as the comprehension of the story, the child has an adequate comprehension. She remembered the topic and many details about the book. For example she was able to tell some of the differences and similarities of whales and fish. She did however, fail to mention how whales and fish get air which was mentioned often in the story. Without that omission, she would have perfect comprehension of the story.

 Error Rate = 1:28

Accuracy Rate = 96%

Correction Rate = 1:3