Monday, November 4^th Lesson Reflection

What did students learn and which students struggled with the lesson?

            For my unit, I created a KWL chart with my students. From the Concept Talk video, students learned, “that animals eat plants amd smol animals wich hlp the animals lv” (that animals eat plants and small animals which help the animal live). I first wrote the K and W sections for my students but they helped me stretch out the words and helped me spell sight words. For the L section, I let students come up and sound out/write the words so they were able to model letter-sound connections.

            Students struggled with hearing some of the H-blend sounds when writing what they learn such as the “wh” in which as well as a few medial sounds like the “e” in “help.” Some of the lower-level students struggled with this activity but they were encouraged to write as many sounds as they could and what they could sound out, was great. I was really pleased that a lot of my lower-level students who usually didn’t participate, eagerly raised their hand and were proud of what they were able to write. When we were arm-spelling the sight words, most students could already spell “we” since it is spelled the way it sounds. However, “my” and “like” were challenging for the low to medium-level students because they are more challenging to sound out.

In literacy centers, students struggled with reading the matching cards (pairing picture and word) at the low and medium levels mainly due to the silent letters such as the “a” in foal. These students also struggled reading many of the sight word cookies except for “a” and “I.”

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

I could have used writing workshop as an opportunity to analyze my student’s abilities to stretch out words. Then I could reflect on what students are able to write whether they are able to write some sight words, stretch initial, medial and final sounds in a word, just the initial sound, just the initial and final sound, or just draw a picture.

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

That many students at all levels are able to hear beyond the initial and final /p/ sounds. Even some lower-level students were able to hear the medial sound which I thought was the last sound they hear in their phonemic awareness progression.

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

The students who need additional support are in our intervention group as well as our tiered groups where they will receive additional instruction on sound-letter knowledge, phonics, phonemic awareness, etc.

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 change this lesson again, I would have students write everything on the KWL chart instead of me writing the information for the “K” and “W” sections of the chart. This way more students get the opportunity to sound out words and watch others do so which will help develop their letter-sound knowledge. I also think that it might be a good idea if students created their own individual KWL charts so they can keep track of what they know, what they want to learn and what they learned although this task would have be slightly modified for the lower-level students. But again, students would be able to stretch out words or draw picture to their ability (with the help of a teacher by either captioning their picture). By using their own KWL chart, students are choosing what they want to know and are monitoring their progress towards answering these questions. Students could even perform some individual research to answer their own questions. Moreover, students get to reflect on what they learned.

Also for the matching cards, I think I should chose animals that students are already familiar with instead of animals that live in other countries. For example, instead of using a zebra to show a foal, I could use a horse instead. At the lower-level, these animals were a little abstract for the students so it was difficult to connect the animals to their babies. However, maybe I could use both familiar and unfamiliar animals to scaffold instruction for the different levels of learners in my classroom.

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

So far, I’ve learned that all of my students can give some initial sound like the word “ball” start with “b.” I’ve also learned that many students are hearing initial and final sounds in words. Additionally some of the higher-level students are able to hear initial, medial and final sounds in words. I think that I need to continue to work with students who are only able to label a few beginning sounds. I could improve their sound-letter knowledge by continually using the Zoo Phonics program with them in small groups or one-on-one so they can begin to recognize the sounds that each letter makes. For students who are mainly hearing initial and final sounds, I can emphasize the vowels using Zoo Phonics so students can become more familiar with the sounds that the vowels make and hearing them in words.

To continue my professional learning, I would like to work more in small group or with individual students based on their areas of need. This way I can better focus on activities that will directly address their needs as learners. Therefore, I need to focus on taking more informal observations in the form of anecdotal records and reflect on their assessments and put these students into groups or work with them individually by designing activities that provide additional support to students in these areas.