Small Group Literacy

By Elizabeth Gonzalez

Week 8

This week, I thought my small group literacy lesson on disasters. The students will be reading a chapter book next week based on actual events of the 1960 San Francisco earthquake. I decided to focus my lesson on a variety of natural disasters by reading a book called Disaster Alert! By Christine Taylor-Butler. This book discusses five different disasters which are tornadoes, floods, sinkholes, volcanoes, and bushfires. All three students participated in the discussion and learned key facts on different disasters there are in the world. All three students met their objectives. One concern I did have during my lesson plan was time. This was my first small group and I wanted to create an engaging lesson plan. I didn’t notice how fast time goes by when you are teaching. Overall, my lesson went great and I am still learning strategies in the classroom to apply next time in my lessons. 

Small Group Literacy

This week I had the opportunity to facilitate a small group literacy lesson in regards to the reading strategy of chunking words into parts that are already known.  This strategy helps readers decode words that they do not already know.  I believe that my lesson went really well this week.  The main thing that I learned through this experience was to think of additional questions I could ask students, throughout the duration of this lesson, to get them to think of additional ways they could use this strategy.  In addition, I learned that it is important to consider table size, when planning to share materials and that you must plan ahead and think of ways to engage students who may not want to participate in the lesson.  Overall, this teaching experience was a positive experience and I look forward to the next time that I will be able to teach these students.

Professional Development and Sight Words

This week, my CT and I spent the morning in a professional development pop up. The pop up part means that it is done in the school during normal working hours to make sure that the teachers have opportunities to attend professional development. I attended one of these before so I was expecting a presentation with a packet to follow along with and some questions and group discussion... this one was different. We walked in and were offered treat bags with chocolate and candles along with relaxation gummies, then we all sat on the floor in a candle lit classroom do yoga. We were sent away with a packet on why a teachers calmness helps students, but we didn’t go over the packet. It was a nice start to the day although I’m not sure where the professional development part happened.

In other news, I have posees in the past about how my CT was running out of ideas for teaching sight words and that students were not regaining them. This week I was able to see a new strategy that she added in that students seemed to enjoy because it was like a game. After using flash cards and have students read the cards, find the cards, hand get the cards and so on, she gave them letter tiles to arrange into the word. This is not only a fun activity for the students, but also a different way of learning sight words. Rather than reading the word they are spelling it. In my opinion, it’s very different to know what a word is by looking at it and to know how to spell a word. The students did well with spelling the words after going through the cards as they typically do.

week 8

Kiley Rolder

March 12th, 2020

Today I taught my small group lesson. I thought m small group lesson would go completely different than it did but we can't always plan for everything. This the third week the students have had a substitute teacher so they were all pretty antsy. The substitute kept yelling at them which made things worse than they were it seemed like she had no control over them. During my small group lesson I had five students with me and in the middle of the lesson another kid who had gotten in trouble with the substitute who was supposed to sit at his desk came over and started to say I want to read, I want to read, can I read? In the middle of me speaking. I had to stop and turn to the other student and politely ask him to go sit back in his chair. This occurred another time too. The students seem to be really struggling and are starting to not listen because the substitute is just yelling at them instead of talking to them and fixing the issue it seems to be making more issues. As I said with this profession we can try to plan as much as we want but we can't expect everything to go perfectly because you never know how the students will respond exactly in this case. I tried my best to manage the issue and get back to the lesson but it also made it hard to get the students to focus while the substitute was yelling at the other children 

Week 7

This week I taught my first lesson. It was my science lesson, and honestly, I thought I did pretty well. The kids absolutely loved my activity because it was hands-on and messy. What kid doesn't love hands-on and messy? I know I don't love hands-on and messy. This had definitely taught me to be more choosey with what messy lessons I allow the students to engage in for cleanup and safety purposed. Having a whole crap ton of spilled water on the floor is not at all safe for the students to be around.

Teaching at the school also made me realize how little time my CT has the students in her class at all. She didn't have her all students in her class to herself for a single lesson, which is a bit ridiculous. The school pulled out students for intervention that didn't need the intervention. Like. Why? It didn't seem to have a rationale that I could explain.

The rest of the day went pretty well aside from the needless intervention for the higher-level students.

The picture attached is a few samples of the student work from my lesson.

Week 7- Science lesson

This week we followed the intended schedule and it was interesting to finally see what their day truly looked like. I was able to see how they test for their sight words and their high frequency words. I myself tested the kids on these words and it was interesting to see how many different levels were in the classroom. I already kind of knew the students who struggled within the classroom based on whole group lessons I have done but it was shocking to see how many people were below grade level on these words and had a lot of catching up to do to be at a second grade level. I knew the kids who had an IEP in the classroom but through this experience and even the small group reading I did with them, I did have a question about another student. I am no expert on IEP's just yet but I did bring up my concerns with a particular student and interesting enough my CT has already submitted paper work on this student to be evaluated. I also taught a whole group science lesson to the class on the different phases of the moon. It was out of the blue and I offered to teach it, I am really glad I did. I did a read aloud and during my read aloud I was asking higher order questions which only a few students seemed to know so as I continued the read aloud, I used lower level questions to ensure they were understanding the topic. The students were all able to answer those questions and then we made our own phases of the moon cycle. I used black construction paper and white chalk for the kids to draw the different phases. The students liked using the chalk as it was something different than what they are use too and they kept engaged with the entire lesson. There was one student who got extremely upset and started crying because he couldn't match the cycle I made. I just reminded him that its ok and everyones is going to look different, make it unique to you. As long as I could see the different phases represented in some way, I was happy. Overall, it was a good day with the kids and i'm ready to continue taking on more lessons outside of my observed lessons. 

Week 7 Substitute

This week in my field observations my CT was out because of a sickness. The sub that she normally has take over her class was there and the students are very familiar with her. My CT always has her take over her classroom when she is out. When their is a sub in the class the students always behave differently because they know their regular teacher isn't there to manage them. The sub had worksheets for them to complete but I do not believe the students actually learn any content when their teacher is out. The sub they normally have does not go over the directions before telling the students to do the work on their desk. The students always have a million questions and they raise their hand and I come around. The sub does not assist them much with their worksheets but I believe this can be done in a much more beneficial way. By the time I make it around to help everyone, the students are out of time and many of them do not finish their assignments. I believe with something as simple as explaining the worksheet and modeling an example can help them immensely when completing the worksheet. Many of them get off topic and rowdy because they do not understand what is expected of them or how to complete the assignment on their desk. I learn a lot about teaching when my CT is there but I also learn a lot when their are subs because I learn from their actions in the classroom. Not everything we see is a good way to teach and I believe having subs in our classrooms is a good way to learn what to do and what not to do.