Inquiry 3, Part A, Step 3 (Megan)

STEP 3:

o My literacy unit fit within teaching from Reading Street. Reading Street has a Read and Comprehend section, and in that section tested vocabulary words are taught.

o To what extent were you were expected to follow a scripted curriculum, or add your own

ideas to a curriculum that already exists, or create a unit that is entirely new?  I was expected to follow a pretty scripted curriculum. At my school they talk about using Reading Street with fidelity. I had more flexibility when it came to planning activities to practice these vocabulary words though. As long as I introduced them in the way Reading Street said to and used their definitions, I could plan more hands on ways to practice these words.

o What was unproblematic and/or challenging about planning a unit in this context?

Something that was problematic for me was the pacing of planning this unit. I wanted to focus on just a piece of the Read and Comprehend section which is vocabulary, but there is only a certain amount of time allotted for that section and I needed to fit everything in that one block of time, including the extra activities I had planned.

o What obstacles did you face? How did you overcome them?

One of my biggest obstacles was trying to teach my lesson effectively to the entire class but somehow still keeping my student with an IEP motivated and on task. This student is always talking, fiddling, not paying attention, ripping up something and pretty much just distracting everyone from learning. He needs one on one attention at all times in order for him to accomplish anything. Unfortunately he is not able to have one on one attention at all times, so it was new for me to see how to keep him under control while providing the class with a beneficial learning environment. I overcame this by staying near him at all times. As much as I wanted to move around and float around I knew that I needed to stay close to him in order to help him focus. When the class broke up into working on the activity I made sure to pull him aside and I helped him with the activity that way the other students were free to concentrate.

o How did working on developing your ‘core practice’ influence the types of learning

opportunities you were able to offer your students?

Developing my core practice directly influenced the type of learning opportunities I was able to offer my students. I had noticed that they have been really into making paper cootie catchers or fortune tellers during their free time, so instead of doing the boring practice worksheet for the vocabulary during reading street, I made up an activity where they had to practice their vocabulary using cootie catchers. I was able to hybridize what Reading Street wanted them to know and what they were already interested in into this great lesson that they loved.

o What dilemmas (if any) did you face and how did you manage them?

My biggest dilemma was making sure I could give each student attention and an opportunity to ask for help if they needed it. Most of the time after giving instruction I was tied up with my student with the IEP either giving help or trying to coral his behavior. In the end I had a few students who were really understanding helping the other strugglers. It was neat to see them want to help out their peers.

o What enabled you to be successful? 

I think I was able to be successful because I had a very well thought out lesson. I took my time, remained calm, and was willing to try something different with my students. I knew that everything wouldn’t go perfectly and it was ok to change things around to make it work as long as they got it in the end, which they did.

o Did the unit proceed as you expected?

The unit did pretty much go as expected. I think this was due to the fact that I had so many different ideas and activities. If something worked for me one day, I would change it a little but keep the same principal and if something didn’t work, I didn’t stress about it I just figured out something else to try. Why or why not? 

o What surprises or “aha moments” did you experience?

My aha moment came from one of my boys who is pretty shy and doesn’t really like school a lot. He doesn’t try very hard but he came up to me after my cootie catcher activity and told me how much he really loved it and thought it made learning fun. His test score went up that week and he got a 100% and I was so proud! It was so nice to see that coming up with things outside of the box can really influence how my students understand something even if Reading Street doesn’t want you to stray away from the curriculum.

o What do you still need to learn about teaching in this target area, about your developing

your ‘core practice’ and about teaching literacy in general?

I think I would just like to learn more activities and resources I could use when teaching literacy. Having a lot of different ideas that I can try out and see which one will work for me seems to be something I always want more of. I think that learning happen in so many different ways and seeing a bunch of ways other teachers do things will only help me as a teacher.

 Inquiry 3, Part A, Step 3 (Ashley)

               During my Guided Lead Teaching, I was expected to follow the Reading Street curriculum each day as it was written in the teacher's guide. However, there were times when I had the students discuss a question with their think-pair-share partner instead of asking the whole class. This allowed the students to interact with one another and have a break from hearing only my voice. Reading Street is very structured and challenges the students to develop higher level thinking skills, yet students do not always seem to understand the new concepts they are being introduced to. Therefore, I found it to be beneficial to supplement the teacher's guide with activities that reinforce the concepts being taught. Through different games and visual aides (i.e. graphic organizers), the students were able to act instead of just listen, which helped them to make connections with the material that they could draw upon in the future, namely when taking their weekly Reading Street test. 

                Each day, we read a new text that pertained to the topic for that week, Antarctica, and I provided the students with a different graphic organizer to help them organize their thoughts. The first day the organizer was a hamburger, the second an ice cream cone, the third a fish, etc. The student's excitement as to what the next organizer was going to look like helped them to not feel discouraged about the fact that they were being asked to complete another one. I do feel that the repetition of completing these organizers helped them to master determining the main idea and supporting details, as they have been able to successfully extract the information in the weeks since they first learned this skill.

              At the beginning of the week, it was challenging for the students to determine the main idea and key details. The students were suggesting main ideas that were too broad and more topical, as opposed to the specificity of a main idea. I decided to read the text to them one paragraph at a time and stop to model how to determine the main idea and choose the key details that were supportive of it. After the repetition of examples, more students were able to offer their own main ideas and supporting details during our whole-group discussions. As the week progressed and the assignments got more challenging, the students demonstrated their ability to extract the main idea and key details from increasingly difficult texts.

            I believe that my literacy unit was successful due to a great deal of thought and planning ahead of time. I took my students' range of abilities, interests, hobbies, and prior knowledge into account to determine the activities and texts that I chose to supplement the Reading Street curriculum with. I believe that the students appreciated the break from the every day routine that they were being exposed to for that last six weeks, which enabled them to become more immersed in what we were doing.

            When working within the Reading Street curriculum, much of the work is fill-in-the-blank. When challenging the students with more difficult material that originated outside of the Reading Street curriculum, I was surprised to find that the students were able to demonstrate significantly more complete understandings of what was expected of them. My biggest “aha” moment came when I realized that my students are very capable when being challenged in a way that they find genuinely interesting. For example, I created a task where the students had to look at a snapshot to use as a "story sparker" and create their own story based on the image. Writing is not part of the curriculum that they students partake in on a regular basis, but the stories they produced were truly creative and impressive.

            One positive aspect of the Reading Street curriculum is that it is constantly spiraling the key aspects of literacy for 3^rd grade. Since the students began learning this concept, the Read and Comprehend section of Reading Street has continued to ask the students what the main idea and supporting details are to keep the strategy fresh in their minds. In the coming week, my core practice will be the main focus strategy yet again, and I have created more tasks for the students to engage in that will promote their learning on finding the main idea and supporting details. The students will choose three out of five short articles to read and then be responsible for writing down a supporting detail/fact about each article on a sticky note. There will be five corresponding charts with the main idea that match each article and the students have to find the main idea that their supporting details matches.

              While some teachers may feel comfortable teaching literacy from a basal reading program, I find it to be rather challenging. The scripted structure takes the creativity out of planning truly authentic activities that are more meaningful for the students. Developing my core practice within these means proved to be more of a challenge because I had to teach Reading Street first before I was able to integrate my activities. Teaching math and literacy with fidelity is very important at my school which makes implementing all of the great resources I have learned about during my career as an Education student rather problematic. Literacy instruction should be a time where teachers can use their students' interests to create a curriculum that is best suited for that particular group; not assuming that what is best for one group of students in an academic year will be exactly what suits another group of students the following year. However, if and when a basal program is handed to me to use in the future, I need to continue to learn how to hybridize and adapt the curriculum in a way that will meet the needs of each of my students.

Inquiry 3, Part A, Step 3 (Taylor)

Literacy Resources and Programs:  

• Reading Street 

• Reading Street Spelling

• Small Group Reading Instruction

• Whole Group Reading Instruction 

• Writers Workshop

To what extent were you were expected to follow a scripted curriculum, or add your own ideas to a curriculum that already exists, or create a unit that is entirely new?

Although the East Lansing school district employs the Reading Street curriculum, I was not required by my MT to use this when planning for my unit.  In our classroom, we were already making use of small group reading instruction and I was given the freedom to design a unit with my own goals and objectives.  I did not select the text for my book, which I was hoping to have done but my MT chose a text that worked wonderfully with the ideas I had in mind, Arthur, for the Very First Time. 

What was unproblematic and/or challenging about planning a unit in this context?

Planning a unit in this context was a great experience.  I was able to work with a small group of students and came to know them as readers.  I knew their surface reading abilities based on standardized test scores that our district requires us to use. However, I learned so much more about the individuals in my group as I met with them for at least thirty minutes each school day.  This context also allowed me to adjust my lessons for my students and for myself.  I was not required to follow a script and I was not on a specific time schedule that mandated I must have covered certain skills, in a specific order, in a given time frame.

What obstacles did you face? How did you overcome them?

One obstacle that I did face was actually being the teacher who began the unit with my group.  My MT originally had wanted to begin all of the book clubs.  This was a challenge for me because I wanted to establish the norms with my small group of students and felt that it would be much more difficult if they were already used to working with my MT.  It was also difficult to plan the unit out because I did not know how far my MT intended to go into the book with the group nor did I know the focus that she had in mind for that particular group of students.  I was able to overcome this challenge by simply having a conversation with my MT in which I explained to her how difficult it would be to plan for this unit and to establish norms and expectations with the individuals in the group.

What enabled you to be successful?

My relationship with my students and the support I had from my MT enabled me to be successful throughout this unit.  From the beginning of the unit, my students and I established group expectations for participation.  These expectations included coming to book club prepared, not talking when another member was talking, and posing and responding to questions from other group members.  Setting up these group norms helped to create a safe learning environment and to save time on discussions with individuals who were not respectful of the group.  In addition, the feedback that I received from my MT helped me to develop my teaching practice so that I was meeting the needs for my students as individuals and as an entire group. 

Did the unit proceed as you expected? Why or why not?

The unit as a whole proceeded as I expected.  I wanted my students to be able to make connections to the text and all of them were able to do that.  I also wanted them to be able to write about these connections; this is a skill that all of them are beginning to develop but that they still need more explicit instruction in. 

What surprises or “aha moments” did you experience?

            One pleasant surprise that I experienced throughout this unit was one of my student’s describing one of the objectives that I had designed for the lesson.  In the middle of one group discussion, my students were talking about the benefit of talking with other readers about a book.  Tyler said that when you talk about a book with another person it helps you to become a better reader.  He supported this statement by saying that there were some things that he did not understand that another reader could explain to him, and he was also able to explain things to other readers.  This moment made me very happy because it was only the second book club meeting and my students were already recognizing the value of what they were learning.

What do you still need to learn about teaching in this target area and about teaching literacy in general?

            As a teacher, I still need to develop my ability to help students respond to their reading.  There are many ways that a reader can respond to a text and I only focused on one small area:  responding to a character.  I want my students to see that they can respond to themes, plots, events, relationships, etc. and that they can write about these responses in addition to discussing them.

Megan's Lesson Reflections

Reflection from Lesson 1

• What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson.

My first lesson went really well! I thought it was going to be a disaster starting my lead teaching during the week of Halloween but actually it went better than expected. However my students seemed really worked up when I gave the pre-assessment to see their prior knowledge of the vocabulary words. I handed them the worksheet and told them not to worry because this wasn’t going to be a grade. I emphasized over and over that this sheet was to show me how much they already knew about the vocabulary words and also to show them how they improved in their knowledge of these words during the week. When they found out I wasn’t going to be reading them the sentences like they were used to, a few of low level students gave up. They picked words at random and crossed them off on the boxes so it looked like they were actually doing something. My student with the IEP needs direct one on one help and because he wasn’t receiving that he didn’t even try to work on the sheet.

·       What are alternate reads of your students’ performance or products?

My students are low level so most of their material has to be read to them whether they need it or not. I have a few select students who are able to read the sentences on the board easily and would be able to make the correct selection. Instead of figuring out what the sentences said and then finding which word belonged with it, they got confused and put incorrect words in the blanks. I think this is from not reading the sentences very carefully. They sometimes become so dependent on hearing it read, that they forget they have the capability to figure it out for themselves.

• What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

I learned lots about my students. I can see the students who are able to think quickly when I draw sticks to answer a question. Some pay attention the entire time but when their name gets drawn I have to slowly coax an answer out of them. Some of my students barely listen but if they are called on can rattle of a correct answer in 3 seconds. I learned that sticks come in handy but they don’t count for everything and calling on students who have hands raised will also help. I also realized that my students like having extra support for the worksheet. Some might have known the correct answers to the fill in the blank sentences but because they had to read it on their own, might have missed the meaning therefore getting the answer incorrect.

• When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

Vocabulary is great because everyday I’ll go over what the words mean by having students answer me either with hands raised of if their name was drawn. They will have the pictures and words posted on the board all week so when we hear a word, or see one of their words in the text, I’ll draw their attention back to the word card and make sure they understand the meaning.

• If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?

If I were to teach this lesson again, I would make the sentences filling in the blank work sheet not seem so stressful. I would probably make it on a half sheet of paper that way it won’t seem as formal and I could even have the students work on it together in pairs. I wanted to see how they would work with the words without any support but I think not reading it out loud to them was a big shock. I would read the next assessment out loud to them to see if this helps more students.

• What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning? Hybridizing activating prior knowledge

Implementing my core practices turned out to be a little harder than expected. With a basal program everything is very rigid. Lessons are so timed out and we have lots to squeeze in teaching to all academic levels that sometimes things get lost in the shuffle. I wanted to make this my own but found it almost impossible to find a way to pre-assess my students individually without using a formal worksheet. I want to give each student an equal opportunity to show their knowledge of the words, but some students couldn’t read all of the sentences. It was hard for me to see them struggle through it, but I wanted to see what they knew, not what they knew with my help. As the lessons go on, I’ll implement more activities where the students can verbally tell me the definition to the word or draw a picture to show me, that way I am accommodating all different types of learners.

 Reflection from Lesson 2

• What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson.

This lesson went pretty well today. I introduced the idea that when we don’t know what a word means we can look for it’s synonyms. My higher-level students got this concept pretty easily. I could tell they had prior knowledge working with this idea. My lower level students hadn’t heard this term before but once I explained to them that synonyms are two words that mean the same thing, they got a better handle on it. I read for them different words and they had to come up with synonyms with their elbow partners then we all shared as a class. This was really helpful to see who really got the idea, and who needed a little more help. Our students got to pick their seats so if both of my students in the pair were lower level, their answers tended to be incorrect while another group had an easy time coming up with an answer.

• What are alternate reads of your students’ performance or products?

 My students really got the idea that synonyms mean the same thing but had a little bit of trouble applying it as a strategy for vocabulary words. One student said if I don’t understand what a word is, how am I supposed to think of a word that means the same thing? This was great because I walked them through reading a passage and modeled how synonyms were often in separate sentences and if I knew one word, it could give me an idea of what the other word might be.

• What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

I was really excited to see my student stake so much joy in helping one another come up with a list of synonyms. Even though the words were given in the text, they felt like they had creative liberty in coming up with a synonym. They especially loved sharing with the entire group because they could be as creative as they want. I loved seeing the confused faces that turned into understanding after some explanation from their classmates. This was a great way for my students to take ownership of a literary device they will need to be comfortable with that will help strengthen their vocabulary.

• When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

I will review the vocabulary words everyday before we start Reading Street. We’ll go over the definitions, look at the pictures, find synonyms and then use the strategy multiple times during group work, think pair share, or independently. They will have a few different worksheets to help test these ideas and I will always be available to help and clarify as I float around the classroom.  

• If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?

If I were to do this lesson again, I would try to put more focus on the fact that if I’m unsure of a word looking in the sentences before and after it might really help me because they usually contain clue words (synonyms) that have the same meaning as the unknown vocabulary. I would lesson the focus on the fact that synonyms mean the same thing and do less practice with that and more practice with applying the strategy.

• What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

 The vocabulary lessons went much better than I thought. My students were excited to learn these new words and concepts on how to figure out a new vocabulary word. I always think of vocabulary as words and their definitions. My students are so low that I need to go more basic than that with them. I need to walk them through different strategies on how to figure out an unknown word. My focus should be on preparing them to use these strategies to help them master these concepts. Also my students would really benefit from activities that would get them up and moving. Anything I can do to make Reading Street more fun to them would help my class so much. I think if I can tie it into something they are interested in, then they won’t realize they are learning and won’t put up as much resistance.

Taylor's Lesson Reflection

Reflection 10/23/2012

Lesson Objective:  In a small group discussion of the novel, Arthur, For the Very First Time, students will respond to the text by sharing a text-to-self connection that they made while reading the book.  The initial text-to-self connection will be recorded on a sticky note that the student places in the book.  The text-to-self connection can be in relation to the character, theme, setting, or event in a story.

• What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson. 

In this lesson, students learned why it is important to monitor one’s response to a text.  Their homework from the night before had been to record five self to text connections on sticky notes.  Four out of the six book club members came to the meeting prepared with sticky notes; one was absent and one felt that he could not make connections to the text.  The students who did make connections with the text said that it was easy to connect to the main character.  The student who struggled to make connections to the text said that he did not feel like he related to the main character at all.  However, when the entire group shared their connections and thoughts about using sticky notes the student who did not make connections tended to agree with what his peers said about the text. 

• What are alternate reads (interpretations) of your students' performance or products?

I think that Tyler struggled to recognize his connections because he is so involved in the reading.  As the meeting progressed, he revealed that he had actually read up to chapter five when he was only supposed to read to chapter one.  I also observed that he was able to quote directly from the text, including a page number, without opening his book. I think that he becomes so absorbed in what he is reading that it does not occur to him to pause and think about how he is responding to the text, he just continues to read because he knows that he understands. 

• What did you learn about your students' literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

I learned that one of the book club members is able to recognize that she can connect to a story by being different from the character or by having an experience in a different way than the character.  Morgan explained that she likes the character, Arthur, because she does not have the same problems that he does.  She said that she like, “reading what he does because she has never done things like stay in a strange house or kept a journal of observations.” Morgan’s understanding of this type of connection will help her later on in the book club when I introduce different ways to monitor comprehension, other than a connection of agreement.  

• When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

I will introduce the idea of connecting through differences to my group over the next two meetings.  This form of participation will hopefully be easier for Tyler, who finds it difficult to recognize the ways that he is similar or has similar experiences to the characters and events in the text.  

• If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students' learning?

If I were to reteach this lesson, I would have my students focus on two text elements to make connections to.  All of the group members who were present and completed the homework made many connections to the main character, Arthur.  I was happy to discover that they are able to relate to him however, I also want them to understand that they can connect to themes, settings, events, and more elements of a text.  This recognition will improve their understanding of how they can connect literature to real life.

• What did you learn so far about implementing your 'core practice' and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

Implementing my core practices, explicit instruction and responding to reading, was more challenging than I thought it would be.  Explicit instruction sounds like it would be very obvious to your students, the point that you are trying to make in the discussion.  However, it is very difficult to explicitly show an individual how to respond to a text. I struggled to help one student find a way to respond to the text:  he did not feel that he had connections to characters, events in the text, or themes in the text.  I also tried to help him voice the ways that he was different from the text.  However, despite his inability to recognize connections between himself and what he was reading, he was still able to identify why discussion of books is important and how it helps a good reader become a better reader. 

I am already very proud of the way that my students are participating in book club.  Almost all of them have completed their homework so far and they are following the participation rubric that they helped to create.  One thing that I would like to add to the book club for future sessions is more peer to peer instruction. I want my students to explain to each other how they made a connection or how they recognized a difference between themselves and something in the text.  I think that fostering an environment where peers can safely offer each other their thoughts and ideas will help all of them learn.  I also think that more peer interaction will help Tyler to see the ways that he could recognize similarities between himself and various parts of the text.