2. Around 20 to 30 minutes
3. I will be working my first graders toward R.F. 1.4, SL. 1.2, SL. 1.4 and SL 1.5.
4. A statistic was found by the educators at my school, I am unsure of the exact percent but the majority of students at my schools parents have a lower vocabulary then we did as students. To try and keep the gap from growing they are trying to add some higher level vocabulary words each week. So this lesson directly affects their lives. The words come from books that we read aloud to them, this is an example of learning through literacy. This learning also includes learning literacy because they are learning new vocabulary and attempting to use it within their conversations. An example of how this lesson will include learning about literacy is as follows. When a student learns the word stupendous they will learn that this word means that they are great, amazing, and wonderful all in one. Well they need to know what they words great and amazing and wonderful mean first to really understand what the word stupendous means.
5. The students read a book each week that has their robust vocabulary in it and throughout the rest of the week they go back to that book and do activities that push them to interact with the word so that they become comfortable with it. This classroom talk always starts off teacher-led due to the read aloud and then introduction of the words. I would like to build up a Teacher-Involved type of discussion because I feel that the students would feel more comfortable with the words if they were able to talk about it together and I was just there to help them if they got a bit confused.
6. The Core Practice that I choose to study is strategic selection of words to study. I want to work on improving this practice because I feel that it is important for students to expand their vocabulary. Plus this practice goes right along with the route I am taking with Webster's Robust Vocabulary program. I believe that this will contribute to my own professional learning because it will push me to become more aware of the words that I use around the students. I will start to try to use some different words to introduce them to new language.
7. I have the teachers within my school community to use as resources. I can also use the school library as a resource to look for the two books that I will be reading for this target area.
8. My principle gave me the book Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction by Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G, McKeown, and Linda Kucan to help with writing my unit plan so I will be using that as my additional resource.
9. Honestly, this is something that I am unsure of because I am not sure how to pre-assess someone's vocabulary. I had the idea of having a discussion where I ask them to tell me the biggest or hardest word that they know the meaning of but I feel that this would be a bit intimidating and that I may only get a few kids raising their hands. So I guess the honest answer to this question is that I do not know but I plan on doing some reading to see if there is a way to answer this question.
10. I will need to find out who is comfortable with language and who is not. I do have an ELL student in my classroom so I also want to figure out a way to help him to understand the vocabulary that I am choosing because he is already struggling to understand, I do not want to overwhelm him and make him feel inadequate.
11. I need to learn that this is the correct core practice to be using for my unit plan. Having the wrong core practice will cause me to have trouble planning out my teaching strategy. I also want to know if I am utilizing enough core practices or if there are more that I could be using and am not seeing. If this is the case please let me know what other core practices you could see me using within my unit, I will gladly take any input given!
12. My concern is that I am not teaching a big enough unit. While I feel that this is important I am aware that this unit is not about reading or writing. My teacher was very upfront with me and said that she was not comfortable giving me writing because she was on the writing committee for Webster and they are trying something new and she wants to make sure it is being done correctly. I totally understand and am fine with that but I am just worried that I may not be taking over something that is considered big enough to MSU.
Margaret Rule
ReplyDeleteMargaret Rule
ReplyDeleteSeptember 26th, 2013
TE 802
1. Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.
My target area for guided lead teaching will be Vocabulary Acquisition, Use and Assessment. My MT and school calls it, Robust Vocabulary Instruction. Day one, students gather on the carpet and teacher reads a story. Day two, teacher introduces vocabulary words through story text. Typically, teacher chooses 3 words per story. For each word, the teacher reads sentence from text and discusses word use in story. Students repeat word. Teacher talks about word meaning, and gives examples in context beyond original text. Then students interact with example; tell of something or someone who or which is… Day 3 and 4 choose one activity for each day.
Questions, Reason, Examples
If you are….. you need to
What is something you could/might….
Which of the following things might be…?
Making Choices
If any of the things I say might be examples of (word) say _______. If not don't say anything.
If you _______ would that be ______ or ______?
Using all 3 Words
Relate the words by using more than one of the instructed words in a single sentence
One context for all three words
Day 5, have students illustrate each word and try to use or write it in a sentence.
2. Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?
15-20 minutes per day
3. Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?
This lesson doesn't directly correlate with a standard, that I am aware of. However, I feel robust vocabulary is helping with the standard:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.4: identify words and phrases in stories or poems that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses.
4. How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives? In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?
A rich vocabulary supports learning about the world, encountering new ideas, enjoying the beauty of language. A rich vocabulary enhances an interview, allows one to see the humor in wordplay, shores up what an individual wants to say, and, especially, wants to write.
The students will be exposed to different books, different use of vocabulary while working on their writing skills. (Beck, 2013)
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 (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk such as Almasi, 2006)?
ReplyDeleteWith our first graders, the classroom talk will predominately be teach-led. If you refer back to question one, I noted that the teacher will explain what the chosen word means and afterwards will then ask for students to give their personal examples using the new vocabulary word. Listening to different students use the word will help the teacher get a suggested understanding; are our students understanding the word? It may help to connect the word for the students. "This word _____ is a fancy word for _____." Eventually, it would be nice to have a teacher-involved discussion, to give students more responsibility and room for growth.
6. Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?
I want to work on everything! Getting to know my students better will help me to strategically select words to study and use. On a daily basis, my students and I will develop word consciousness. Remember, what does this word mean? We will post our words for that week on the board for students to see. Every time I hear/see a student use a word, I will reward them with a ROAR ticket, and put a tally mark under the word on the board.
7. What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?
My MT has her personal collection of books that I will be able to choose from. Our school also has spelling words, high frequency words for each grade that I will look at to get a better understanding of where my students are headed this year. Also, all teachers and interns received a great book called, Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. This book is a tremendous help and ables teachers to become educated about the importance and use of robust vocabulary in the classroom.
8. What additional resources do you need to obtain?
I will need to create a worksheet for my students. I plan on using white paper, the top half will be a blank box where students can draw a picture to go with their sentence on the bottom half. For example, the word is stupendous. I will have a sentence stem that says, "It was stupendous when___________." Students will need to think of a time when he/or she felt great, or saw something stupendous, etc...
9. How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?
Simply testing difficulty of words by asking students if they know what they mean.
10. What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?
It will be helpful to talk to students and see if they share interests, ideas, etc… When I choose my books and vocabulary, I want my students to be interested otherwise they won't have incentive to work and play around with the new words.
11. What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?
What other activities can I do with the students to engage them with the new words?
12. What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?
I feel confident in what I am teaching, how I want to teach it. But am I incorporating robust vocabulary enough? And, my MT and I have a extra difficult bunch of first graders this year, and it has been a constant struggle in the classroom for our students to follow directions. I am concerned the objective of this lesson won't be met due to students behavior.
Since you both have the same target area I am going to somewhat respond to you both in the same post yet there will be some differences that I will note. In terms of your lesson target areas I think that vocabulary is a great choice. I believe that you should break it down by day and keep it to around 3 words per week for first graders. The day-to-day activities should be the same every week with minor variations. In the Writing essentials book they discuss the idea of content rubrics vs. evaluation rubrics. Despite the fact that this is regarding writing I believe that it is still applicable to your lessons. I would send home a content rubric each week with their homework telling parents the three words you are discussing this week. You could have a list of questions that the parents can ask the students about that word after each school day. You could use an evaluation rubric at the end of the week to evaluate if the students can define it by using it in a sentence. For example, on a scale from 1-3 of how well they know the word. 1 meaning no meaning similarity, 2 meaning but not used in right context with sentence, and 3 definition and used correctly in a sentence. When choosing your text make sure it allows them to draw conclusions to what the word could mean before you even discuss the meaning. Our Strategies That Work book discussed the importance of book selection and in your lessons I would choose books that on the page with the word I could visualize what the author is saying despite not knowing the word or can look at the illustrations for clues. The Strategies Book also discussed to make sure the book's audience is appropriate. I would make sure to really look into this. Many books with larger words may be too difficult for first graders to comprehend in general. Before you even start your lessons on vocabulary I think it would be good to do a small mini lesson on comprehension, discussing what it is and modeling responses to text. This will start the children's thinking about content within the text and then do a mini lesson on tricky words. For example, in our class we did a lesson on how tricky words don't scare us and how we can figure out what they mean. I think this would be a great introduction to your vocabulary units. The comprehension mini lesson comes in because I think after you read the book each time you should go over comprehension of the book so that students can place the word meaning (once they can define it) within the context of the book. For example, in our class we use the story hand. State the setting, characters, problem in the book, how was it resolved, and the ending. Meg I would do this before you introduce the words. Alexa I would do this after you have read the book. I would then suggest introducing the words, but then looking back on the page they are on to see if the students can use any comprehension skills to guess what the word might mean. I'd make a KWL chart for the three words. I believe this would be a great pre-assessment for the children. I believe asking a first grader if they know a word will result in a no. This gives them to background to see if they can look for clues in the text (which is what we do when we read normally) and then they draw a definition in the KWL chart. This relates to the concept of using sticky notes to make connections in the Strategies book, yet first graders still need whole class instruction for this early on. Later in the year you could have them find words of their own and make their own definitions to share with the class then as a class you find out if it is correct or incorrect through context clues, dictionaries, etc. When you ask the children for examples Meg I would have them do a think, pair, share with partners and then have a group that had different ideas and similar ideas of the word share on day one.
ReplyDeleteFor the questions, reasons, and examples I would do that on day two as a class. Day three I would have them work in small groups and create a list. You could put one high functioning writer in each group. They could rotate from word to word and examine student work to see if any they believe anything is wrong. I would flip the last two activities and instead do illustrate and use the word in a sentence before all three words in a sentence. I believe the three words in a sentence is much more difficult. As an assessment tip that we learned in the writing book, pay attention to content and how they used the word according to its definition versus focusing on spelling, punctuation, etc.
ReplyDeleteKelly! You are great, and I think I can speak for both Alexa and I when I say you have some wonderful, helpful hints and examples I am definitely thinking about. I agree that literacy is so important, especially vocabulary. Again referring to chapter 9 in Writing Essentials, I do too like the idea of rubrics and the idea of sending them home to the parents too. In our class, we already have sent home a writing rubric and we require our students to write one small moment story once a week. But my point being, the more the parents know, the more capable they are of engaging their students in using the vocabulary at home too. I also like the idea of evaluating my students every week. However, considering my first graders, I would use a oral assessment rather than written. Some of my kids would be able to do a written assessment, but others struggle too much with writing, however I do know they are able to understand the definitions. Kelly also mentioned the importance of book selection. Is the story appropriate for my first graders? I will need to consider the total amount of words in the story, and how many of those words would be considered robust? The story also needs to be context appropriate. Can my students relate to the story? Will they be engaged? And at the end of each week, would a oral exam be acceptable? Can the students define the vocab in their own words? Do they understand the context in which to use the word. Can they spell the word? Can they use it in a sentence?
ReplyDeleteConsidering chapter 7 in Strategies that Work, I do see my MT asking questions and suggestions questions and answers to our students. "This reminds me of..." "Does this idea or ____ remind you of anything?" She does a lot of modeling and thinking aloud to introduce connection making, and does a good job avoiding distracting connections. "Thats a great idea Jeff, but hold on to that for later." What I take away most from the readings and this discussion is that, for my first graders, the more verbal discussion the better. My students are quite intimidated when it comes to writing, so I want to do more discussions. Slowly go from teach-led to student led or pair share thinking.
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ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteMeg, I wouldn't worry about the size of the lesson. You will have opportunities to do that later on in the year. Is your teacher saying that you won't ever have opportunities to write, or just not at this time?
Kelly thank you so much for the wonderful comments! You have given me plenty to think about. I love the idea of using a rubric like our Writing Essentials gives us examples of using. I believe that this could be incorporated easily into our (meg and my) lessons for the final assessment as well as the pre-assessment. Even though you have not thought about your lesson yet Kelly I think you could even use a rubric like the one you gave us the idea for because it is straight to the point and does not require a teacher to become obsessive about the small things. Meg, as I was thinking about the layout of our lessons I was thinking that it would make the most sense to have the students draw the pictures and write a sentence to go along with the picture on the second day because I believe it would give us an idea if there is any confusion in what the word means. The last day it might be fun to do something interactive with the word like put them into partners and have them act out a sentence involving the word or simply act out what the word means. All students love to be in front of the class, this would give them the opportunity to shine. While I think the idea of a KWL chart could be good I think i like the suggestion Kelly gave Meg about doing a think pair share. This would be a good pre-assessment task for my class because it would give me an idea where their head was at before telling them what the words mean. Maybe trying one each week to see which worked better would be useful for my future teaching.
ReplyDeleteI know the Strategies That Work book has emphasized the importance of having a book that the audience can not only recognize but understand and be able to align themselves with. I plan on utilizing this book when coming up with the story that I am going to read to the students because they give so many different stories within the chapters. Like Meg, I have noticed my MT using similar sentences to prep my students on some questions they can answer to help connect their thinking of the vocabulary words to their daily lives. I would like my students to do some writing with the vocabulary words, this could be one or two days though. It does not have to be everyday because like Meg my class seems to be intimidated by writing and a verbal discussion may move smoother then having the students do writing.
1. The target area for my guided lead teaching is Vocabulary Acquisition, Use, and Assessment.
ReplyDelete2. The allotted time will be between 5-10 min depending on how long is takes for the students to complete that section of the LLI (Leveled Literacy Intervention) lesson.
3. My lessons will focus on phonics and word work. Depending on the lesson within the unit it works on certain types of sounds in works. Some standards are:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.2 Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.2a Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.2b Orally produce single-syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including consonant blends.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.2c Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.2d Segment spoken single-syllable words into their complete sequence of individual sounds (phonemes).
4. Teaching this target area will allow the students to work on the sounds within words. These students are reading at an A or C level in second grade. This intervention with them will allow them to be given context to try to find out tricky words and will expand their ability to know more sight words. This will ultimately help them succeed as a reading and they will be able to apply it to their reading.
5. The talk in these lessons will mainly be teacher led. However the teacher will be asking for a response after a statement or ask for student participation. The teacher will model the sounds, pictures or words that are associated with those sounds. The student will then have a chance to interact with those sounds. The norms for interaction that I would like to build on are that my modeling will allow the students to pick up on more than I'm telling them and it will apply to the next lesson.
ReplyDelete6. The core practice that I will be focusing on is Word- learning strategies. By focusing on this core practice it will allow me as a educator to see what phonemic skills are needed in order to push the children toward reading at grade level. It will allow me to learn what basic skills are needed in order to understand and read basic words.
7. The resources that I have will be the LLI (Leveled Literacy Intervention) prompt guide for other core practices and the LLI books with the lessons.
8. I need to obtain knowledge of my students and get to know them better. I will be beginning this program this week, which will allow me to make any adjustments needed to help them when I begin my guided lead teaching of the topic. For example, any behavioral or directional strategies I must use.
9. I will pre-assess my students with a basic test asking them to say the name of all the sounds of the letters for my A readers and my C readers with vowel sounds.
10. I need to find out what reading strategies they are using, are they trying to sound of the words using these sounds?
11. What I can do to make the scripted lessons more engaging without altering the key points the author is trying to make
12. I am concerned that the LLI is very structured and I may have a hard time answering some the requirements for MSU.