Lesson 1-Day one, Get Ready to Read
The objective of this lesson was for me to teach the students how to split two syllable words that have a vowel/consonant/vowel. We were determining if the word is split before or after the consonant based on if the first vowel was long or short. I taught this by reminding the students when we learned to split VC/CV words earlier in the year, and when we learned what long and short vowels were. We had a whole class discussion of how you can tell the difference and came up with a saying for the long vowel. This was used throughout the lesson and for the rest of the week. I put a word on the white board and showed the VCV by underlining them with a different color marker. I also wrote the rules on the board; long vowel: the word is ALWAYS split before the consonant, short vowel: the word is ALWAYS split after the consonant. I explained that the long vowel can stand on its own, and the short vowel needs its buddy the consonant with it. Based on this information we figured out if the example had a long vowel or short vowel, and then split it appropriately. We went through several examples on the board as a class. I then had the students come up and split the word themselves and explain to the class how they knew where to split it. After this lesson the students had learned the proper way to split the appropriate words that went along with the strategy. There were some students who had issues getting this strategy down. These students were the ones who get extra help for their speech. They were getting tripped up on the pronunciation of the words and therefore not able to accurately determine the long or short vowel. Since that is step one of the process they were not able to split the word in the correct place after that. I made sure that these students were very aware of the rule and I had them pronounce the word with the first vowel as a long vowel and as a short vowel. This got them used to pronouncing the word both ways and hearing which one was correct when they said it. For example I had them say ‘seven’ with the first ‘e’ as a long vowel (says its name), and as a short vowel. They could then determine which one was accurate and split the word from there.
An alternative way of looking at the outcome of the lesson and the student’s performance during the lesson is to think about how broad their vocabulary is. There is a definite divide between the students, who are supported at home where education is at the forefront of their priorities, and those who may not get as much support. Both groups of students were able to work through the strategy and prosper during the lesson; the latter group just took a little more time catching on to recognizing the words and then pronouncing them correctly.
There is a concept talk at the beginning of the Get Ready to Read section of the Reading Street curriculum and I felt that it was very important this week. It was; how does the structure of plants and animals help them survive? I wanted to extend beyond the objective of just discussing the question because I wanted the students to be exposed to some science during their day. Science gets put to the back burner and I feel that it is important to incorporate it in other areas. Generally the concept talk takes about ten minutes and Reading Street gives you guiding questions to ask. I, however, wanted to expand upon those questions and really get the students thinking about themselves and the animals and plants that they see everyday. I was pleasantly surprised at how educated the students were on the structure of plants and their purposes and we had fun talking about different animals and how they survive. I had the students close their eyes and visualize their favorite animal. I then had them think about a body part of that animal that helped them survive (giraffe: long neck, lion: big teeth, snake: body shape, dog: paws. This was interesting to the students because they were able to think deeper about their favorite animal, and a lot of them were fascinated that they had never thought about the animal in that way.
There were a few students who needed additional support during the word analysis part of the lesson. I knew that since we were going to talk about this everyday for the rest of the week additional help was not necessary after Monday’s lesson. I knew that if they were still struggling after Tuesday’s lesson when we put the words into a sentence then I would need to provide additional help. I decided that during the students Daily 5 time when they work independently I would sit down with that small group of students and go through step by step with them how to pronounce the words both ways, determine which is correct and then refer back to the rule of how to split the word. This is important for them to know because they are tested on it on Friday and also we will be going over it more during the week. I wanted to make sure that they were on the same page as the other students instead of confused all week long. The lessons build on each other and get harder so it was important for them to grasp the concept early on so we could add sentences, then finding the words in a page length text.
If I were to teach the same lesson again I would have handed out small white boards to the students and had them write the word and split it along with me as we went through the examples. This would give the advanced students something to do, and it would have allowed the struggling students to see it for themselves and write it themselves.
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