alyssalicker.weebly.com · web viewwhen i first looked at this book, i noticed the word leap in the...

Alyssa Licker

Guided Reading Lesson

April 13-16, 2015

During my final full week in the field I will be teaching a guided reading lesson. I will be working with 4 students in the class who are identified to be below grade level. The members of my group include 2 male students and 2 female students. In a conversation with my mentor teacher we discussed the different groups that she meets with for guided reading. I chose to work with the lowest group in the class because I felt that they were probably the ones who needed the most support and those that would really benefit from my lesson. In order to get to know these four students as readers, I decided to meet with each of them individually for a reading conference prior to our lessons together. During our conferences, I noticed as a whole the group struggled most with decoding words they did not know. One student would guess words that started with the same letter and continue to read even if it did not make sense. Another student paused and then skipped over words he did not know completely. A third student in the group looks to the teacher when he does not know a word and does not attempt to read it. The fourth student in the group goes back if she notices a word does not make sense but then pauses and seems a bit unsure how to figure the word out. In learning this about my students, I knew that I had practice decoding with this group. In my lessons I have planned to give the students different strategies to use when trying to figure out what I word is. I will work with them on breaking a word down into parts they do know to help them, looking at picture clues, and rereading sentences to see if the word they are using makes sense. I also decided to work with comprehension skills in my lesson since I think that this is an important aspect of reading. I think that once the students are able to practice decoding skills, it will help with their comprehension of a story. For my lessons I chose two books. We will work with each book for a period of two days. We will have 15 minutes per day for our guided reading lesson. My mentor teacher provided me with a library of leveled guided reading books that the school uses. I looked through quite a few of the books but could not find one that I loved for the particular lesson. I decided to use other resources and chose a story from Learning A-Z, a site that I became familiar with at my previous field site. The first book that I chose is Leap! A Salmon’s Story by Sharon Fear. I chose this book because I knew that fishing was an interest of 2 of the students in my group. I also liked this book because of its title. Something my mentor teacher asked me to focus on during my lesson was the vowel pattern “ea.” This title offered a good way to introduce the pattern. The second book I chose is called The Creature Constitution. I liked this book because it offered the students further support in using the vowel pattern. I also liked this book because the students just finished up a lesson on the Constitution and I thought they would enjoy reading this book with the animals. One goal I have for this lesson is for students to learn different decoding strategies and be able to use them in their own reading. In order to ensure this goal is met, I will remind the students at the end of each lesson to take the strategies into their independent reading. I will monitor the students and conference with them when they have time to read independently. Another goal I have is for the students to gain better comprehension skills. My hopes are that they will use the decoding skills and they will help them to better understand the text. I will use prompts throughout the story and students will respond to them individually. I will review their responses from day to day to see what they are understanding and thinking about the story.

Day One Guided Reading LessonText: Leap! A Salmon’s Story By Sharon FearWhat I say… Why I say it…

Hi everyone! We are going to work together in this group to share some strategies that you are going to use to help you in your reading. This week we are going to work on thinking about what makes sense as you are reading and if you get stuck on word. As we are reading today, we are also going to make predictions about what is going to happen in the story.

I am really excited about the book that we are going to be reading together. When I picked this book I thought it would really help us on working on different reading strategies. I thought it would helps us in using our decoding skills on words we may not know right away and in working on our comprehension. Comprehension is what we notice and learn as we read.

The book we are going to read today is called Leap! A Salmon’s Story. Let’s talk about that. When I saw the title of this book I was thinking that it might be about the journey of a fish and how he escaped from a bear. The reason that I was thinking this is because I was looking at the pictures on the front and connecting them to the title. This is a strategy I use a lot when making predictions about a story before reading it. If you had to make a prediction before reading, what do you think this story will be about? (Discussion) I am excited for you to read this book and find out if your predictions are correct.

When I first looked at this book, I noticed the word leap in the title. This is a tricky word because it has two vowels next to each other but you do not hear both of them. You will notice that this word is used a lot in the story in different ways. For instance, turn to page 6. On this page it says, “Oh, now how she could leap! All salmon are great leapers, but her leaping was special.” Since I knew the word leap I was able to look at the other words (point to leapers and leaping) and pick out the part of the word that I knew. Once I added the ending, the words made sense in my reading. This is one way to decode. We break the word into chunks to see if there are any parts we know.

There were some other words in this text that

I am saying this in order to welcome the students to the guided reading group and to help them know what goals I have set for them and what the expectations will be for our time together.

Share my excitement for the reading and tell the students why I picked this book to use for working on our reading strategies.

Modeling the strategy of using pictures to make predictions about a story. Having students make predictions prior to reading to help them practice the reading strategy and help with their comprehension.

Modeling of the strategies students are encouraged to use.

More modeling of decoding strategies and

During the reading: All students reading the text chorally.

Teacher supports the readers by stopping at words they struggle on and helping them to decode.

Examples: “What would make sense?” “Can we say it that way?” “Look for parts you know.”

Teacher also supports the readers in using a comprehension strategy of stopping at two points in

the book and asking children to respond to a question about the story. Students respond to the

prompts by writing on the post it notes provided. Responses are shared after the reading.

Comprehension Prompts:

After the Reading:

First, let’s talk about what you wrote down on your post it notes. How did you answer the first

question? Why did you think that?

Teaching for processing strategies…

Something I noticed when you were reading…

(I noticed that you used each other for support as you were reading. This is something that is

good to do if you are reading with a partner. Sometimes our partners help us to decode words or

see parts of text in a different way. Reading with someone else can help us to build off of one

another and become stronger readers together.)

Connection to Reading:

You did such a great job reading together, using your decoding strategies, and answering

questions during the reading. I loved how you solved the words you did not know by thinking

about what makes sense and looking for parts you know. When you are reading on your own at

some point during the day, make sure you are using the strategies we used in helping you to

decode words you do not know.

Day One Reflection:

Overall, today’s lesson went well. The students were unsure of what the word decode

meant in the beginning of our lesson but once I explained it to them they were able to tell me a

couple different ways to decode a word. They told me to look at the pictures, sound it out, or

break the word into smaller words. This helped me to see what prior experience the children had

with decoding words. The plans that I had today were not met completely as my students and I

ran out of time. The students were able to work up until writing on the second post it note. Since

I have another day planned using the same book it was not a big issue. Students will be able to

reread on their own and respond to second prompt next time they read. I realize that running out

of time is something that often happens in teaching and this can be out of our control. The

students seemed to like the post it note idea. I feel that there was not as much pressure as they

did not have to respond in front of the whole group. They were able to respond privately and

then will be given the choice to share their answer when the prompts are discussed tomorrow.

My mentor teacher suggested having the children read chorally, but I did not really like how this

turned out. The students were not following along with one another and I could not hear them

read as individuals as well as I would have liked to. The ones who were a word or two behind

were listening for the others to say words so that they could read them rather than having to stop

at them. If I use choral readin again, I will make sure to point out that I want the children to try to

stay at the same point in the text and follow along with their fingers to ensure that that happens.

Day Two Guided Reading Lesson

Text: Leap! A Salmon’s Story By Sharon FearWhat I say… Why I say it…Hi everyone! We did such a great job working together as a group yesterday. We are going to work together again today and continue reading the book from yesterday.

The strategies we worked on yesterday are decoding and using our comprehension skills to answer questions. We are going to continue to work with those strategies today.

We already know what this story is about, but good readers usually like to reread a story in order to understand it better. When I am reading on my own, sometimes I learn a lot more and understand the story better when I go back and read it again. This is another way to help us with comprehending a story.

Yesterday when we were reading, we practiced stopping at a word we did not know. Does anyone remember what we did if we did not know that word? (Discussion) That’s right, we tried to break the word down to see if there were parts that we did know. If we were not able to do that we looked at the pictures to see if they could help us and we reread the sentence to see what word would make sense there. When we are able to do this, we understand the story better.

As we are reading, we are going to stop at the post it notes again. We are going to add another sentence to our response from yesterday. As I said before, reading the story a second time will help us to understand it better. Now that we understand it better, we should be able to respond better. You may also rewrite your response for today on a new post it note.

Today, we will be whisper reading. Since we already read this book together, you are now getting the opportunity to read it on your own. When I come to you, I will listen to you read and support you. Remember to use your

Welcome the students into the guided reading lesson. Remind students of previous work and tell them the goal for today’s lesson.

Remind students of previous lesson and recall reading strategies that were emphasized the day before.

Telling students why we are reading the text again.

Recall of strategies used on the previous day. Why those decoding strategies support us as readers.

Building on comprehension skills. Reiterating the importance of rereading.

Set expectations for reading and build confidence in children as individual readers.

decoding strategies if you come to a word you do not know. When you are finished with the book, please go back and reread it again to yourself until the others have finished.During the reading: All students reading the text individually through whisper reading.

Teacher supports the readers by walking around and listening to each reader. Teacher will

encourage students to stop at words they struggle on and help them to decode by asking

questions.


Teacher also supports the readers in using a comprehension strategy of stopping at two points in

the book and asking children to respond to a question about the story. They will enhance their

response from the previous day by either adding to what they wrote or changing their answer and

writing a new one underneath.


After the Reading:

First, let’s talk about what you wrote down on your post it notes. What did you do to change or

add to your response from yesterday? Did reading the story a second time help you to understand

it better? As a reader, I often have to read stories two to three times until I really understand what

I am reading. This is okay to do. It helps to build on our comprehension skills and helps us to

understand what we are reading more clearly.



(Today I noticed that you stopped on words you did not know. When you were asked questions

and encouraged to think about the word, most of the time you were able to decode. Slowing

down and thinking about what the word looks like, what part or parts we may know, and what

would make sense in the reading helped to make you stronger reading. I noticed that when we

slow down it helps us to be better reading. As I told a couple of you, you do not have to be the

first one done to be the best reader. The best reader is one who takes their time to read carefully

and clearly, making sure that they understand all parts of the text.)

Word Work: On white boards (1-2 Minutes)

We will work on the vowel pattern “ea.” Recall the word in the title of the book, leap. Students

will write this word on their white board. We will go over how may sounds we hear in the word

and how many letters are in the word. I will point out that we only hear the long e sound. I will

ask students if they can think of any other words that are like this. I will encourage them to scan

their books for support, as there are a couple other examples of words like these in the book. If

students struggle I will direct them to a certain page that has examples.


You did such a great job reading on your own, using your decoding strategies, and answering





Day Two Reflection:

I was very happy with the reading and amount of work completed in today’s guided

reading lesson. I felt that having the students whisper read helped me to listen in more and help

them individually. The pace of reading varied among the students. I had to remind two of the

students to slow down when reading. I pointed out at the end of the lesson why I wanted them to

slow down and how it benefitted them. I was afraid that the students would not add anything to

their post it notes, but they all added on to their writing without hesitation. In discussing what

changed in their response, I saw that most of their answers changed completely to the second

prompt. When they read individually, they seemed to understand what was going on in the story

better. I think that the choral reading may have distracted them the day before since they were

out of tune with one another. I plan to try choral reading one more time and see if I can structure

it in a way that will work for the students.

Day Three Guided Reading LessonText: The Creature Constitution By Torran AndersonWhat I say… Why I say it…Hi everyone! Today we are going to be working together again as a group. We are going to continue working on our decoding strategies that help us to read word words that we may not know right away in our story.

We are going to be working with a different story today, but we are still going to focus on the same reading strategies we have been working with for the past two days. Does anyone remember what those two strategies are? One strategy is our decoding skills such as breaking down a word we do not know into parts we might know and rereading to see what makes sense. Another strategy we have been working with is comprehension.

The book we are going to be reading today is

Welcome the students into the guided reading lesson and to explicitly state the purpose for the day’s lesson.

Focus on strategies worked on previously within a new text. See if students can recall the strategies used.

Introduce new text. Model and practice

called The Creature Constitution. When I saw this book I thought it would be really interesting to read together. Not too long ago, we learned about the Constitution in social studies. This book seemed interesting. The title really caught my eye and made me wonder what the story would be like. Looking at the title and the pictures on the front cover helped me to predict that maybe the animals were getting together to make rules, just like Americans did when writing the Constitution. What do you think this story will be about? (Discussion)

Let’s try out our strategies. Everyone turn to page 4. On this page, I struggled at first in reading this word (point to “pigeons.”) When I broke the word down, I knew that the beginning said, “pig.” Using that part of the word in the sentence made no sense. I then looked at the picture and saw music notes next to the birds singing. After reading the rest of the sentence, I knew that this word was pigeons. I used clues in the picture and connected those to the sentence with the word I did not know to help me understand it.

You will see today that I wrote a question on page 10. When we are reading today and we get to the end of that page we are going to stop and discuss the question and how we would answer it. By talking as a group and listening to others ideas, we are learning about different perspectives. When the other members in the group speak, I want you to give them your full attention. This will help you to better understand how they are comprehending the story and how that may be similar or different from your own thoughts.

As we reading today, do not be afraid to stop us if there is a word you may not know. This will help us to work together to decode that word. Good readers always help one another.

We are going to start by reading chorally

comprehension strategy of predicting.

Modeling a different decoding strategy than the one modeled during day one and day two.

Practicing comprehension strategy.

Reviewing the strategies and working on helping students become more comfortable with using them.

Setting expectations for the reading.

again. Last time we struggled a bit with staying at the same place, so today I want you to use your tracking finger and try to stay at the same place as the others in the group. Staying at the same place in our reading keeps us from being distracted and makes for good teamwork.

During the reading: All students reading the text chorally and the teacher makes sure that

students are reading together. The teacher stops the group if they are getting off track and they

start again together.



Teacher also supports the readers in using a comprehension strategy of stopping at a point in the

book to have a discussion. All students will get the opportunity to respond to the question.


Looking at the creatures, what rules do you think they will make in their constitution?

After the Reading:

Were your predictions about what the story would be about in the beginning correct? How is

what happened different than what you predicted?

What surprised you about this story? Can you use evidence from the text to support your answer?

In using evidence, talk about events that happened in the story to tell why you are answering in

the way that you are.



(Today I liked how we all stopped at certain words. There are some words in this text that are

more difficult to read and we all seemed to struggle with certain ones. We were able to work as a

team to decode these words. I also liked how used what you knew to make predictions. We all

had different ideas to add when making predictions and they were all valid points. I am glad you

were able to use your own thoughts here and throughout the story.)







Day Three Reflection:

Today’s lesson went well. All four of the students in my group were present for the

lesson. We started reading a new book, which the students seemed to enjoy. When making

predictions before reading, I was able to see the students using the pictures and the title of the

story to help them think about what the story might be about. The students shared their

predictions in saying that they thought the story might be about animals that are making a

constitution. One student who originally said this changed his mind and said that the other

picture with the men made him think that the animals were going to try to sign the constitution

because there were real people in that picture. When reviewing our strategies of decoding and

comprehension, the students were able to recall what we have been working on. Throughout our

reading of this story the students needed to decode more words than in the previous book. The

student that was not in the classroom during the second lesson, struggled individually with a lot

of words. He did not use the strategy of underlining the words to help him. Instead, he would

skip over a word. I noticed this but did not want to call him out in front of the group. I underlined

these words in my own copy of the story and decided to work on this with him later on. One

word he struggled with was the word hall. Twice he identified this word to be hill. When

covering the h, he was then able to read all and say the word correctly. I also reminded him to

look at picture clues for this because the animals in the picture were standing in a hall. The

students had many ideas to offer when we stopped on page ten and I asked them a question. They

were able to identify the creatures they had seen so far in the story and infer what rules they

might make for their own constitution, some of which were correct. In tomorrow’s lesson I

would like the students to read the book again on their own and I will walk around in order to

hear each of them read. The only struggle that we faced in today’s lesson was attention. Two of

the students were getting distracted by other students working in centers around them. I will have

a discussion with the students at the beginning of tomorrow’s lesson to make sure that they

understand the expectations for our time together.

Day Four Guided Reading LessonText: The Creature Constitution By Torran AndersonWhat I say… Why I say it…Hi everyone! Today we are going to work with the book that we read together yesterday and continue to work on our reading skills. What two strategies do you remember using the last three days?

Our first strategy is decoding. Can we recall some things that we do when we are decoding a word? We break it down into parts we do know, we reread the sentence to see what makes sense, and we use the pictures to

Welcome the students into the guided reading lesson. State the purpose for the day’s lesson and explain our goals for the day. Check to see if the students remember the strategies being practiced.

Discuss decoding strategies and how we use them to help us in reading. Review comprehension and how it helps the teacher to see what is being understood. Tell students what will be expected in advance.

support us. Our second strategy is comprehension. In this strategy we use what we are learning as we read to answer questions about the text. We were able to practice this strategy with the question I asked you yesterday during your reading. Today we will answer questions at the end of our reading so that I can see how well you are understanding the story.

Yesterday, we made predictions before we read this book. Some of us found that our predictions were very similar to what happened in the story. Today we will continue to work with this book and read until we get to the end of the story.

One thing that I would like you to do today as you read on your own is underline words that you need to decode as you read. This will help you to be able to come back to those words and try them again. Starting to recognize these words will help us when they come up in reading that we do in the future, whether it is with a group, or on our own. I would like each person to underline at least two words as they read that they struggle on. We will come back to these after we read.

Today we are going to whisper read again. As I come around the table, I will listen to each of you read. Please make sure you are pointing to the words when I come around so that I can follow along with your reading. If you finish before other members in the group please go back and read again. Remember, this helps us to understand the story better. After we read we will respond to some questions to help us think about the story and practice with our comprehension.

Review yesterday’s predicting. Set expectations for reading.

Discuss how to use decoding to help students go back and practice the words. Set expectations for underlining and tell students what will be expected in the end.

Set expectations for reading and what to do when students finish. Give students an idea of what will happen after reading.

During the reading: All students reading the text individually. Students will whisper read and

the teacher will come around and listen to each student read one to two pages. The teacher will

remind them to underline word if she notices that they are struggling to read or decode a word.



Teacher also supports the readers in using a comprehension strategy of asking questions at the

end of the story to encourage students to think about the story and recall events and details.

After the Reading:

First, I would like you to go to one of the words you underlined while reading today. Everyone

should have at least one word. I wanted you to practice decoding that word again. Make sure you

reread the sentence and look at the picture to help you. When you are finished, give me a thumbs

up and I will come over to you so that you can read the sentence to me, and I can see your

decoding skills at work. If you need help decoding a word, I would be more than willing to help

you.

Now, let’s talk about the story. What was your favorite part? Did you expect the story to go the

way it did? Think about our predictions from yesterday.



(Today, I loved the way you all used underlining when you got to a word you did not know. I do

this in my reading often. This helps us to go back and practice that word again. When I went

around, I was able to see that you decoded the word and when I asked each of you what you did

to decode that word you talked about the strategies we have been working with. I liked that you

are remember and practicing these. )

Word Work: On white boards (1-2 Minutes)

We will work again with the vowel pattern “ea.” I will ask students to write the word “teach” on

their whiteboards. I will then observe the student’s spelling of the word and remind them of the

“ea” pattern. Some of them may have to rewrite the word. I will then have them circle the vowel

pattern.







Day Four Reflection:

The students really utilized the underlining strategy. I had to remind one student to underline as

I came to listen to him read. As he struggled on a word he finally got it and continued to read. Once he

underlined it, I asked him specifically to turn back to this page at the end, He struggled in reading it

again but I watched as he read the sentence and decoded the word on his own. I was happy to see that

he was using the strategy of seeing what makes sense. The students were able to recall their predictions

from the previous day and say how the book related to their predictions or was different. The students

identified one of their favorite parts in the book to be when the creatures made their own rules. When I

asked them if they remembered the ruled, the group recalled three of them but then went back to the

page and reread them. When working with the “ea” vowel pattern the students all spelled teach wrong

at first. The variations they wrote were “tech” and “teech” after recalling the patterna dn work we did

two days ago, the students remembered the word “leap.” One student suggested that teach was spelled

almost the same as leap. She said “we hear that same long e!” When she wrote it on her whiteboard the

other students could see it and were able to correct their writing. To reiterate and give the students

more practice I had them write the words, “hear” and “clear.” They confused “hear” with “here” so I had

to tell them that this type of hear is when you are listening and in the word you use the “ea” vowel

pattern. All of the students but one wrote it correctly. The one who did not write it correctly wrote

“heare.” We were able to correct this. Overall, today’s lesson went well. I am happy with how the

students worked and how they remained focused.

Overall Reflection

During my four day guided reading lesson I was able to see the students in my group develop in

their reading and become more confident in decoding words and thinking about the story while they are

reading. One thing that I noticed about this particular group from the beginning was that they did not

even try to decode words they did not know. They would either say a word that visually looked similar,

skip over the word all together, or mumble through their reading to get past it. I was happy to see them

grow and develop during this lesson into independent readers who stopped when they were unsure of a

word. They used the strategy of underlining words to help them know to come back to them. When they

did this on the third and fourth day, it helped me to see direct evidence of their learning and practice of

the strategies discussed. I also liked that I gave students time to reflect as a group after reading each

book twice. When I asked them if reading the book twice changed their answers to certain prompts they

were able to say yes and tell me how they changed by reading the first day’s answer and then saying

what they added to it. Their responses helped me to see their thinking change or become more in

depth.

If I were to do this lesson again, I would either allow myself more time each day or use the same

book for a longer period of time. More time with the book would have helped my students to become

more comfortable with it and understand it even better. I may also take more time working with the

students individually. I did my pre-assessments with the students one week prior to our guided reading

lesson. If I were to do this again, I would try to make time to meet with each individual more than one

time. I think that doing multiple types of pre-assessments with the students would help me to get to

know them better individually. A running record could have benefitted in showing me what kinds of

errors they were commonly making while reading and whether those errors were meaning related,

syntax related, or visual. I could also get to know them during this time and what their interests were. I

had an idea of some of their interests but would have likes to know each one a little bit better. One last

thing that I felt would have benefitting this group is meeting with them as a group prior to our guided

reading lesson. In this time I would have been able to explain the expectations in more depth, and I

could even allow them to choose the texts that we would work with during this time. If I were to meet

with them before, I would probably conduct the meeting one week before our guided reading

experience. I would also have the students reflect on themselves as readers during this time and ask

them what it is they think they need to work on most. Taking their opinions into account could help

them to feel more connected to the work we are doing together.

For the next week of lessons, I would probably have the children continue to decode words they

do not know by underlining them as they are reading. I would also work on vocabulary meaning. I

noticed that there were many words in the text that the students could decode, but they still did not

understand what they meant. Working with one text and really picking the text apart to be able to

decode and understand it’s meaning would benefit this group of students. Going over the meaning of

words will also help to build on their vocabulary. If I were doing guided reading groups in my own

classroom I would probably have the students make their own word walls in their notebook or binder.

For each book that we read together, we would pick out the words we did not know and look those

words up. Learning different vocabulary words and their meaning would help the students to

comprehend the text better as well. It is difficult to comprehend a story that we do not understand.

This experience helped me to see that guided reading takes a lot of planning and getting to

know students as individuals. Even though the group that I worked with was put together by my mentor

teacher and she felt that they were best fit together, I still felt that they were so different from one

another in their reading needs. While one student needed more work with phonics and putting sounds

together to form a word, another could do this but needed more practice in slowing down and thinking

about the meaning of the word. Although this experience was one that I enjoyed and I felt the students

benefitted from, it really made me think about how guided reading will look in my future classroom. I

worked so hard on planning meaningful lessons for one group of students, but if I were the classroom

teacher I would have had to do this for five to six groups of students who all needed something

completely different. This is overwhelming to think about, but I believe this experience helped guide me

in the right directions and understand what I need to do in my planning. I will take my reflections from

this lesson and help them to better myself in conducting guided reading lessons with my future

students. I was glad to have had the support of my mentor teacher and the resources that she uses

when planning during this experience. My mentor uses The Next Step in Guided Reading by Jan

Richardson when planning her lessons. I was happy to have access to this book and this method of

planning guided reading because it is one that I became familiar with during my block three semester. I

will continue to use this resource in future guided reading lessons.

Artifacts (Notes, Photos)

alyssalicker.weebly.com · web viewwhen i first looked at this book, i noticed the word leap in the...

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