Hawes Lesson 2 Reflection

Lesson 2 Reflection

My objectives for this lesson were: 1. Introduce comprehension skill (Main Idea and Detail and Monitor and Clarify) and 2. Introduce the vocabulary words.

The comprehension skill this week was tough for many of my students. I think that a little more than half of them didn’t understand it completely. My MT said that this is probably the toughest comprehension skill that they will learn this year. They could pick out the topic and were kind of close with the main idea, but the details weren’t exactly right. I think they weren’t sure what a detail was. They could pick out parts from the story, but they weren’t really related to their main idea. Monitor and clarify wasn’t as stressed, but it seems that they did understand this skill. It is just about making sure you understand what you read and we have done lessons on this before. The vocabulary words are usually pretty easy for the students. They aren’t sure of the definitions at first, but after go over them the first time, they can recall them and remember them throughout the week and in the weeks after.

I learned that the students like the vocabulary part because we usually have fun conversations around the words and they get to talk with each other. I think that they are learning a lot during this time even though they are having fun with it. I think that one way I could change up this portion of the lesson each day would be to act out the words or to have them come up with definitions in groups. This would be another way to have fun and to be learning at the same time.

I will be re-teaching main idea and details in my centers the week following this one and in future units with Reading Street. It always comes back to skills that have been previously taught so I think after next time I will see if they can understand it better.

I learned that my students would benefit from writing. We have only been doing writing for a week and I think this would help them in other areas of literacy such as main idea and detail. If they could practice writing stories and finding their own main idea and details, this could transfer to finding them in other stories.

If I were to teach this lesson again I would spice up vocabulary a little bit with a new type of activity. I think this would enhance their learning because they would be able to come up with the definitions on their own or in a different way.