PRIOR - Lesson 3 Reflection

Within this lesson, my objectives were: 1) Expand on the weekly concept and discuss with the whole class 2) Introduce more Amazing Words 3) Develop understanding of V/CV and VC/V phonics pattern and 4) Introduce the idea of “Author’s Craft” to students.

I am seeing a pattern when I reflect on my lessons that when my students have to sit for long periods of time where I “talk at them,” they tend to lose focus. The material is either too difficult, too easy or too boring for them, so I am trying to make it as engaging and interesting as possible while still keeping within our time frame and curriculum expectations. After today, I could see that most of my students were starting to understand that “structures” are “parts” of plants and that we, as humans, have parts that help us solve problems just like animals and plants do, too. I found that the more that I related this topic back to the students, the more that they were able to connect with the questions and get involved. My students usually vary on understanding level for Amazing Words depending on how well they are paying attention and if the words are meaningful to them or not. Today’s words were “predatory and brace,” and my students were not very interested in these words. However, once I got them talking about lions, tigers and bears, they wanted to share all types of stories. I would like to say that after today, almost ALL of my students are grasping the phonics pattern that we are working on this week. They understand the steps that I am walking them through, and they all like to shout them out as we break apart the words: “First find the pattern! Then see if the word has a long vowel or a short vowel! Etc…” I could tell that my students already understood what Author’s Craft meant, too because they were giving me many examples that we have already discussed this year. (Like I said, Reading Street is a spiral curriculum, so they have already been given examples without really understanding that this is called “Author’s Craft.”)

I could tell that my students were “fading” a little during our concept talk and Amazing Words discussion, because (again) I generally feel like I’m talking at them. I can see how I might take their lack of understanding as lack of interest and vice versa. I think that in order to address this problem, I really need to pay attention to my students’ individual summative assessments and figure out which students are truly struggling and which ones are just bored. I think that it is important for my kids to have verbal confirmation on their vocabulary or a certain skill while also having written practice on the topics, too. Once the week continues, we will get into more whole-group and individual application of the words, skills, etc.

I think that I will continue to revisit the phonics skill with my students to make sure they really “get it” and also help my students develop their understanding of “Author’s Craft.” To do this, I want to give examples and also have my students find examples in the stories that we read. I think that by applying this skill to our reading, my students will be able to tell me more about how an author is using the text, pictures, and punctuation to make it his/her own style.