Justine Miller: Inquiry 2, Part A

1. Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

·       Phonemic Awareness

·       Phonics

·       Comprehension

·       Listening and Speaking

·       Writing Conventions

2. Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

Each day we have 10:00-11:20 allotted for literacy.

3. Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

·       CCSS Foundational Skills 2.e. Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.

·       CCSS Foundational Skills 3.a. Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant.

·       CCSS Foundational Skills 2.d. Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three- phoneme (CVC) words.

·       CCSS Informational Text 2. With prompt and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.

·       CCSS Speaking/Listening 1.b. Continue a conversation through multiple exchanges.

·       CCSS Speaking/Listening 3. Ask and answer questions in order to seek help, get information, or clarify something that is not understood.

·       CCSS Writing 2. Use a combination of drawing, dictation, and writing to compose informative/ explanatory texts which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic.

·       CCSS Writing 8. With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a questions.

·       CCSS Language 5.c. Identify real-life connections between words and their use.

4. How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important contentand/or skills that relate to their lives?  In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

The students will be learning about literacy and learn literacy through the teaching of the lessons. They will learn phonemic awareness. This occurs initially in oral language and later in writing. It is essential the students learn this basic knowledge of individual sounds. Students also learn phonics. This literacy refers to an understanding of the sounds and letter relationships in language. They need to learn this literacy of phonic awareness because it is necessary in order to use this phonics knowledge effectively in reading and writing.

5. What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area?

The lessons will be teacher led. I will guide the students through discussion. I will demonstrate models of each target area. I will guide the students by asking them questions about the text and have them make connections to their prior knowledge.

I want norms to be discussed before teaching the lesson to remind the students. I want the students to know to be good listeners to the teacher and to each other. They need to give each other fair turns.

6. Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target?

I want to develop and improve my skills in practicing to facilitate. I want to help my students. I want to practice my interactive read aloud. This will be a valuable part of the lesson. I want to be able to come up with important questions to ask during a read aloud to get the students thinking and comprehending. During an interactive read aloud, I want the students to stay on task and not stray away from the reading.

7. What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

Mentor teacher, MSU literacy instructor, field instructor, librarian, classroom books and technology

8. What additional resources do you need to obtain?

Some resources I still need to obtain include literacy centers. I need to collaborate with my mentor teacher on which activities to do for the lessons.

9. How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

I will pre-access the students by paying attention to a high and low achieving student and see what they can and cannot do regarding the target areas. I will then know how to teacher the lessons to reach all of the students.

10. What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson?

I need to find out how much the students know about each target area. If it is an area that they have been working on need to check their understanding and re explain what needs to be.

11. What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

I would like to learn more about how to teach comprehension. I want to look at how to guide students to understanding meaning of stories and different strategies that I can do to help my students.

12. What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

I am concerned at following Reading Street exactly. I know I need to do this because it is a standard of the school. At the same time, I want to align with the standards of the MSU class standards. I also want to make the lessons my own and create my own activities but I do not want to read too far away from the reading street curriculum.