Observation Report #5

TC Name: Katie Schmucker

RICA Domain: Fluency

RICA Competency: Reading Fluency-Rate, Accuracy, and Prosody

Grade Level: 2nd

Any Additional Descriptors: Self-contained class with one EL

INSTRUCTION:

                I observed Mrs. R teaching fluency to her class of second graders. She began by telling them to get out their reading anthologies and to open up to the story entitled “Julius.” She then clearly established her student expectations by telling her class that today they would be working on fluency and expression while reading. She explained rate saying that having fluency is reading without pausing. She said that language has a rhythm to it and when we read, sentences should sound the same as when we speak.

                She then addressed accuracy. She asked the class what they could do if they came across a word that they didn’t know. Students volunteered two correct answers: you can sound out the word or look for context clues to figure out what the sentence is about to decode it’s meaning.

                Mrs. R then flipped through the story “Julius” and assigned each student a page to read. She told them to take a few minutes to read through their page a couple times and practice saying the words and to work on their reading fluency. She told them she expected them to read with accuracy and correct rate when it was time to read the story out loud.

                The last thing Mrs. R told the class to work on was prosody. She explained that when you read you should read with expression. She modeled what this should sound like when they read. She also modeled how it would sound if they read without fluency and prosody and how boring it would be and how choppy it would sound.

                After giving the class a few minutes to practice reading their page, she had the first student, assigned to the first page, begin reading. The students read with fluency and moderate prosody. They started reading their assigned page immediately after the person before them finished, without having to be prompted or reminded to read. The children responded well to this activity and seemed more prepared and less nervous than other forms of class read alouds, such as “popcorn” reading.

                After reading, the class completed reading comprehension questions together from the end of the story. The class actively participated in answering the questions and provided correct answers. Mrs. R then read each vocabulary word from the chapter and asked the students to act out the meaning of the words. For example, for the word “slurp” she had them pretend to slurp soup out of a bowl. After the vocabulary TPR lesson, Mrs. R gave the class a quiz on the story “Julius.”

INSTRUCTIONAL SETTING:

                Within the instructional setting the only resource students needed was their anthology. There were no written cues or aids present in the room that pertained to this lesson.

 

Observation Report #4

TC Name: Katie Schmucker

RICA Domain: Vocabulary, Academic Language, and Background Knowledge

RICA Competency: Vocabulary and Fluency

Grade Level: Kindergarten

Any Additional Descriptors: Class contains no ELL students or students with disabilities

INSTRUCTION:

                I observed Mrs. G teaching her class pre-reading vocabulary to assist in their reading fluency. She began her lesson by telling the class that they were going to read a story together about farms. Mrs. G activated student’s prior knowledge by posing a series of questions about farms to her kindergarteners: “Have you ever been to a farm?” “What animals live on a farm?” What types of food come from a farm?” “What sounds do farm animals make?” She listened to her student’s responses and showed them images of things you would find on a farm.

                Mrs. G then pointed to the cover of the large poster entitled At the Farm. The class looked at this together to go over key farm vocabulary before reading. Mrs. G then read each word on the page to the class. She used a long finger pointer and pointed to each word on the page to help the students with concepts about print reading procedures. After reading the sentences on the page, Mrs. G returned to the three underlined words: farm, feed, carrot. She repeated each word slowly and then had the class repeat each word twice.

                She then explained the definitions of each word. She had already covered “farm” in her anticipatory set when she activated prior knowledge. She added on to that definition by explaining that a farm is a place but that the word can also mean “to farm” as an action. She explained the word “feed” by showing the class pictures of different farm animals feeding their young. She explained the word carrot by holding up actual carrots. While everyone in the class was familiar with what a carrot is, seeing the word written and knowing how to recognize it in print was probably unfamiliar to many students.

                After going over the vocabulary, Mrs. G had the class choral read At the Farm with her one more time. She then got out the book Old MacDonald Has a Farm. She asked the class if they had ever heard of this book or the song before. She then played the song from a Youtube video that had the words typed on the images in the video. After watching the video the teacher sing-song read the book to the class.

                Her final activity involved reviewing the key vocabulary and giving children a piece of paper to write the following sentence on: “Farmers feed horses carrots on the farm.” After they copied the sentence on the provided lines, they were asked to draw a picture of a farmer feeding his horse carrots on a farm.

INSTRUCTIONAL SETTING:

Within the instructional setting I observed Mrs. G using many resources to teach her lesson. Some of these resources included a long finger pointer, a large poster book, the internet, visual aids, real carrots, printed sheets divided for writing and drawing and of course the narrative text.

 

 

Observation Report #3

TC Name: Katie Schmucker

RICA Domain: Planning Reading Instruction Based on Assessment

RICA Competency: Planning Reading Instruction-Engaging and Motivating Students

Grade Level: First

Any Additional Descriptors: Class contains no ELL students or students with disabilities

INSTRUCTION:

                I observed Mrs. G reading aloud to her students. She began the day with a morning meeting where she discussed important classroom and school updates. She performed housekeeping duties like taking attendance and then the children said the pledge and sang a patriotic song. After singing, Mrs. G read a story to her students for enjoyment. By reading aloud, Mrs. G exposed her students to an example of great children’s literature. This type of activity promotes a love for reading in young children. Mrs. G chose an appropriate book choice for her student’s age level and she made reading fun and engaging by changing her voice including: altering her pace, volume and adding animation.

                Mrs. G has also provided a stimulating learning environment that promotes success. She has built a beautiful library that is full of books and comfy chairs for reading in. The library is in a nook of the classroom with many windows to provide enough reading light for students. The class has been taught that the library is a quiet place for reading. Mrs. G modeled an excited and upbeat attitude about reading for her students. Students learn to be excited about reading by having someone they look up to present reading in a fun and positive light. Mrs. G planned classroom library time into her lesson so that she could cultivate her young student’s love for reading.

                Mrs. G provided appropriate reading material for her first grade students in their library. She carefully designed her library around the needs of her student’s grade level. She has been teaching first grade for over a decade so she has accumulated a large amount of developmentally appropriate books.  Children should only be asked and invited to read materials that they can read. For self-paced, silent reading, teachers must give children books that they are able to read with ease so that they can come to enjoy reading and not get bogged down by trying to decode too many unfamiliar words.

INSTRUCTIONAL SETTING:

                Within the instructional setting I observed many things that helped to create a stimulating learning environment. The library, of course, is the main component of this learning piece. In addition to the library, Mrs. G displays student work throughout the room related to their reading instruction. She also provides students with visual aids on the walls that highlight components of reading such as the alphabet and high frequency words.

 

Observation Report #2

TC Name: Katie Schmucker

RICA Domain: Comprehension

RICA Competency: Narrative Comprehension-Predicting and Picture Walk as a “before” reading strategy

Grade Level: Kindergarten

Any Additional Descriptors: Self-contained classroom with ELLs

INSTRUCTION:

                I observed Mrs. P teaching narrative comprehension. The teacher showed the class the cover of the book Countdown to Kindergarten and asked them questions to help them make predictions about the story they were about to read. She asked: “What do you see on the cover of this book? So do you think the book is going to be about a dad? Noooo, and why is that? Right, because there is not a picture of a dad on the cover, there is a picture of a girl and her cat.”

                The teacher then modeled how to do a picture walk. She showed the class a few pages throughout the book to give them a preview of what they would be reading in the story. While she did the picture walk she pointed out qualities and actions in the pictures, making note of them for the children to see.

                The teacher then returned to the first page and began reading the book. As she read she asked literal comprehension questions such as: “What do you see on this page? Does the little girl look nervous?” After reading the book she talked to the class in order to help them with one of the six facets of understanding; empathy. “Think back to the day before you started kindergarten. Raise your hand if you were excited. Raise your hand if you were a little nervous. Raise your hand if you were a little scared.” She concluded the lesson by saying: “That’s right, everyone is a little scared to start kindergarten but now you know there’s nothing to be afraid of because kindergarten rocks!”

INSTRUCTIONAL SETTING:

                I did not observe any supports in the classroom that related to narrative comprehension for kindergarteners other than the library where they have many chances to read on their own and practice their own reading comprehension techniques.

 

Field Observation Report #1

TC Name: Katie Schmucker

RICA Domain: Word Analysis

RICA Competency: Concepts About Print- Letter Recognition, Phonetic Spelling Development

Grade Level: First

Any Additional Descriptors: Class contains no ELLs or students with disabilities

INSTRUCTION:

                I observed Mrs. G teaching letter recognition and spelling development. The teacher began by putting five “no excuse” words (a collection of words she deems as necessary for all first graders to know) or high-frequency site words on the board: at, if, go, on & the. She passed out a lined piece of paper to each student. She then had each student stand up and point at the no excuse words on the board. She said “by pointing you are telling your brain that you are ready to learn the word.” This provided kinesthetic support for all learners, especially those with difficulties focusing.

                Mrs. G then led the students through a Total Physical Response (TPR) activity. In unison, the class first read the word out loud. Then they spelled the word while performing a corresponding body movement. If the letter was a tall letter, (goes to the top of the writing line) they clapped above their heads; for example, the letter “f.” If the letter was a low letter, (goes below the bottom writing line) they clapped below their knees; for example, the letter “g.” If the letter was a middle letter, (does not go to the top line or below the bottom line) they clapped in front of their chest; for example, the letter “a.” The word “at” looked like this: “at,” “a,” said while clapping in front of chest, “t,” said while clapping above head.

                After spelling the word with the corresponding letter claps, the class sat down in their chairs and wrote the word, while adhering to the print rules they had just clapped out. Once they were done writing the word they stood back up and pointed at the board-to tell their brains they were ready to do the next word. The class continued with the above process for all five words.

                Mrs. G had me look over each paper for correct spelling and print and all of the student’s papers were correct. This multisensory method helped the students to recognize and name letters and practice writing them with correct print procedures. The choral calling of the letters allowed all students, at every level, to participate together.  This kinesthetic method also provided aid in the area of spelling, causing the students to associate body movements with the sequence of letters in a word.

INSTURCTIONAL SETTING:

                I observed that the instructional setting included a couple of supports to aid in learning letter recognition and print concepts: alphabet posters above the whiteboard, the no excuse words stuck to the whiteboard, and the paper provided to the students to write the words down on.

 

 

 

Blog Purpose

This blog is a way for our EDMS 521 class to share and record evidence of reading instruction from the five RICA domains. Here are my findings...