Guided Reading Lesson

Three things I liked about my Guided Reading Lesson are;

1. The kids knew how to do a KWL chart
2. The kids responded to my questions
   
3. I felt like I was well prepared.

One thing I did not like;

• Some of the kids really struggled with what they should write on their KWL charts and I felt like I ran out of time for those kids to finish.

Overall the kids did really well on their charts. When I looked over them all of the kids had all the criteria that I gave them and they had well thought out statement on their charts.

Word Lesson

Three things I liked about my word lesson were:

1. The kids had seemed to really enjoy the lesson
   
2. The kids came up with more words than I did
   
3. I learned more about children's spelling and reading skills.
   

One thing I did not like was:

• My double sided letters were messed up. For example the W and e on the back instead of w.

I already wrote about my word lesson but I did not put three positives and three negatives up. Overall I felt like my lesson went really well. I learned a lot about being in front of the class, writing on the board, and helping students out.

Lesson Plans

Yesterday I was given the opportunity to teach both my word lesson and my guided reading. They both went extremely well!!! The kids really enjoyed them and the teacher said I did a great job.
My word lesson used one of their spelling words for a making words lesson. I made letters to hand out to the class and had them raise their hands and tell me all the two letter words, three letter words and so on until they had to use all their letters. Some children had trouble finding the special word but I gave them the clue that it was on their weekly spelling list. They then all rushed to get out their spelling lists and tried to use their letters to spell their spelling words. I feel that this forced them to look at their spelling words and how they were spelled without making them think about doing spelling work. I heard one little boy say to his friend" that was so much fun I wish we could do it again" which made me feel really good because I feel like they really learned something.
My guided reading used a KWL chart with the chapter book that they are reading right now. I had questions already written down on my copy of the chart so that if I couldn't get response about the things they had learned or wanted to learn I could ask them direct questions that would lead them to the answer I had in mind. This lesson went very smoothly. The teacher commented on how well I manged the class time and how well I was prepared which made me feel like I did a good job and the kids all had really good KWL charts. In fact while I graded them I could only take one point off of three students. I told them they had to have 5 things in each section and two children had wrong facts written down and the other wrote the same learned thing down twice. I think this shows that the students comprehended the text really well.
Overall I feel like my lessons went really well and I am looking forward to teaching more lessons to this group of children!

Hatchet reading and QIWK Assessment

My second day at practicum went really well. I am really enjoy my kids. On Wednesdays I sat with a group of four students while they read chapter 6 from Hatchet. All of my group did really well with the reading section that they had. The only thing that surprised me was the fact that they struggled so much with answering the question that the teacher had assigned. The question was.."Why do you think it was Okay for Brain to eat the berries if the birds ate the berries?" The group wanted to answer the the question "because the birds ate the berries".The first problem with this answer is that it is not a sentence. The second problem is that answer doesn't answer the question it just restates part of the question. When I explained this to the group they looked at me like I was crazy. Finally after about 5 minutes of discussion we decided that a better answer would be. because the birds could fly so they weren't sick". Its not perfect and I was starting to help them write a complete sentence their teacher said it was time for them to go to their math class.
I feel that these kids know how to write a complete sentence they just don't do it. If it was my class I would not except work that was not written in a complete sentence because I feel that it is important for the kids to know that work needs to be the best they can do. When they go to middle school the teachers will expect them to write papers and have complete sentences.
The other important literary item that happened on Wednesday was that Angela and I did our QIWK assessment. After looking over the test for the first time today I was surprised to find that many of our kids did not miss any of the words. Some of our kids did struggle but overall they did really well. I think that the formal analysis will be a lot of fun to do.
Overall I am really enjoying myself and learning a lot in my classroom. I am also teaching my lessons on Monday morning which is making me nervous but my teacher said my lessons looked great and that the thought they will work well.

Practicum

WOW! Yesterday was a little overwhelming. I had a great day but it was a lot to take in. Angela and I are in a fifth grade classroom. Their are 15 children in our class and 20ish in the other class that shares our teachers. The two class have our teacher and another. One teacher teaches english and social studies while the other teaches math and science. I think this set-up is great because it helps the students get used to changing classes before they have to do it for everything. Also they stay with the same people which helps them get to know each other and form a strong learning community.
Yesterday we were given the opportunity to teach a lesson to the class. I don't feel like it went to well but at the same time I know it would have been better if we would have been able to prepare for it. Our teacher had to meet with someone at the last moment so she asked us to help the class read a passage out of their text book and to go over two worksheets with them. This would have been fine but we didn't know they had text books so we were reading to them from the book she gave us. Instead of having them read out loud or with partners. Also we didn't know the class' names yet so we had to call on kids who raised their hands or just by trying to identify them by something. This made it harder to move at a good pace because students wouldn't know who we were calling on. Our teacher said we did really well but I hope that my lesson plan will go over a lot better with the class.
Also yesterday was the second day that the class has been reading the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. The kids really seem to be enjoying it. Our teacher has the class split into literacy groups and gives each child a new job each day. One child will have to write down all the words the group doesn't know, one has to retell the story and so on. This seems to work really well. They have a chapter a day to read in their groups and then they have questions to answer. The question the groups answered was "What would you do if you were in the same situation as Brian?" I think that this was a great question because it really made the children think and look at all the possible things they could do. I got the book from friend and I am in the process of reading it right now so that I will be able to keep up with what my class is talking about next week.
I think this experience is going to be great. I really love the kids and our teachers seem to really like us. Before I was unsure if I would be a good teacher and if I would be able to do all the things necessary to teach but now I believe that I will be able to and that it will not be as hard as I thought (although I still do not think it will be easy).

Guided Reading

I feel that my guided reading lesson went really well today. I really like the idea of the KWL charts for fifth graders. Not only are they reading but the chart forces them to comprehend what they are learning but they are learning the things they want to learn. I feel that comprehending what they are learning is the most important thing that children can learn while learning to read. As a college student I am required to do a lot of reading and I then have to explain what the reading meant. If I did not have reading comprehension then I would be unable to be a student. Overall I feel that these charts are helpful in teaching children to pay attention when they are reading.

Word Lesson

I made a making words lesson for the fifth grade class I will be working in. I really enjoyed not only making the lesson but also teaching it to my fellow students. I was really nervous and said "um" a lot but I feel that teaching it to the class will make it easier for me to teach it to the kids. I think I fixed all the transition problems and added new words that can be made. This should help the lesson flow more smoothly and effectively. Now I am looking forward to more feedback about my lesson and teaching it to the class!