GROUP SIX

Vicky: 

Hi.  My name is Vicky and I will be doing my group’s reading lesson introduction.  This is Danielle and she will be doing the body of the lesson and finally this is Katherine and she will be doing the wind up of the lesson.

This reading lesson is part of a fairy tale unit.  It is lesson number six and it will be extended into two lessons.  It is directed towards a grade 2/3 class. The students will practice reading a script.  The re-reading will enhance fluency and expressive reading.  It will also aid comprehension of a fairy tale.  It is a shared reading activity that is accessible for varying levels of readers to participate in a group presentation.  This activity will make students feel more confident reading in front of an audience.  The children will also have some fun reading a script that is from the fairy tale genre as well.  They will also experience pleasure watching and hearing the teacher model what they are not to do and what they are expected to do.

In the grade 2/3 language arts PLOs it states that:  It is expected that students will read with support, becoming increasingly fluent and independent.   It is expected that students will reread and read ahead for clarification.  It is expected that students will demonstrate a willingness to experiment with communication forms to respond to, inform, and entertain others.  It is expected that students will demonstrate a willingness to participate in a variety of shared activities that include reading and listening to stories and poems, dramatic play, and presenting their own work.  It is expected that students will demonstrate a willingness to support others by offering compliments and encouragement.

The students will be able to present a Readers’ Theatre by the end of this two day lesson.  The focus will be to notice fluency and expressive reading from the students.

In previous lessons, on various fairy tale texts, the children have already practiced doing and hearing various types of reading.  These include read alouds, shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading.

If we could do the entire two day lesson, the children should be able to notice the differences in expressive reading and fluency from the teacher’s voice, when the scripted version of the story Jack and the Beanstalk is read aloud, compared to the story book version.  But for today’s class, to further notice differences in reading, the teacher will read page one of the script, with an expressive voice, and then pick a few lines to read in a monotonous voice and then with an expressive voice again.   This will further reinforce reading with expression.

The teacher would prepare for the first day of the lesson by having the children sitting on the carpet, in front of the classroom.  She would then play a CD that has taped harp music on it. (PLAY THE CD) This auditory stimulus would open the children’s minds to a type of musical theme.  Then the teacher would bring out a sack filled with fairy tale artifacts in it.  The artifacts would include:  a glass slipper and a magic wand, an apple, a long yellow yarn braid, a miniature bed, a miniature gingerbread house, a miniature spinning wheel, and a silk cloth attached to a picture of a loom.  The children would then come up to the front of the room where the teacher is holding the sack filled with artifacts, and have the children guess which fairy tale we would be focusing on today, based on the music and from the process of elimination (because we already have done five other fairy tale lessons already on various fairy tales).  One child would come up, see, touch, and feel the artifacts and this would remind them of stories we have already worked on.  Hopefully the student would choose the beans (CHOOSE THE BEANS) from the sack and guess the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.  If not, the teacher would have explained to the class that today’s and tomorrow’s lesson will be based on the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.

The teacher reads aloud the text version of Jack and the Beanstalk to the class.  She would have the children look at the front cover of the book (SHOW THE BOOK’S COVER) and have them orally describe what they see.  Then the teacher would read the book aloud and stop at certain places that would engage students in discussion and would also be appropriate places to check for their comprehension of the story.  The teacher can ask the 5 Ws, Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How questions to check for the children’s comprehension of the story.  The teacher would also introduce vocabulary from the story so the children would understand unfamiliar words and their spellings so when the time comes for them to practice reading the scripted version of the text, this would not hinder their reading fluency.  The children would have also had practice participating in shared reading from the book Jack and the Beanstalk before beginning the second part of the lesson on reading, on the scripted version of Jack and the Beanstalk, for the Readers’ Theatre presentation.  For part two of the lesson, the teacher will explain to the children that a script is another way to tell a story that includes many people participating in the reading of the story and that it can be a lot of fun.

The materials the teacher would need for the two part lesson would be the text and scripted version of Jack and the Beanstalk, a transparency of the script, an overhead projector, a sack filled with fairy tale artifacts, including beans, a CD with taped harp music on it, and a CD player.

The teacher will begin part two of the lesson by putting one page of the scripted version of Jack and the Beanstalk on the overhead projector.  As stated before, the teacher will read one page of the script aloud, in a regular voice, to the class.   She will then choose a few lines to read in a monotonous voice and then with an expressive voice.  The class will practice reading the lines of the script with the teacher.  The children will practice reading it in groups of eight.   They can choose which character they would like to be.  If that is a problem, then the teacher will assign their roles.  Afterwards, when the children are ready, one person from each group of eight, will come up and pick one bean from the sack.  The person who chooses the “magic bean” will get to perform the Readers’ Theatre with his group first.  Afterwards, the remaining groups can choose a person to come up and choose a bean from the sack in order to see which groups turn it would be next to perform the Readers’ Theatre.  This would continue until all groups have presented the Readers’ Theatre to the class.

From our readings and our discussions, the information gathered about reading and fluency is: 

How children feel about reading in general will determine their willingness to try and think about how to read.

If the students believe that they can make good progress, they will believe in themselves as becoming successful readers.

Children must feel pleasure in reading for its own sake.

Effective teachers find ways to enable all students to feel excited, confident, and successful about their reading attempts.

When students are reminded of what they already know (prior knowledge) about a subject, they will be able to cross-reference the new information.

The harp music and beans, in this case, promotes imaging.  The children could hear, see, and touch the story in their minds.

Prediction helps focus the child’s comprehension and adds to comprehension.

Children become better readers when they learn to speak clearly and correctly, listen well, and when they read together and individually.

Repetition of reading the same material, allow children to notice different things each time.

The teacher can ask students to “echo read” parts with her, to find certain letters, and notice how they sound in words.

Fluency is a bridge between word identification and comprehension.  It is the ability to identify words quickly and automatically.  To develop fluency, there should be lots of opportunities for reading and re-reading.

With various types of repeated readings, the first time students identify the words.  The second time they put phrases together in meaningful units.  The third time, the children are asked to read faster and with more expression.

With echo reading, one person reads and the others repeat what was read.  One sentence at a time is read.  Echo reading is good for reading scripts.

With choral reading, the characters and verses are assigned to individuals and/or groups.

Choral reading should be used throughout the grades because re-reading provides children with the practice needed to build fluency and self-confidence.

Recognizing high-frequency words accurately and automatically promotes fluent reading.

To increase fluency adults should read aloud to children engaging children in repeated readings of instructional text.   Children should reread the text more than once too.  In this way, their reading becomes accurate, automatic, and expressive.

Fluency is critical to reading comprehension because of the attention factor.

The teacher should allow students to continue reading even if they make errors.  Later the teacher can draw their attention to sentences or phrases with the error(s) and ask them to repeat the section.  Usually they will be able to self-correct, which is more positive than being corrected by others.  If they continue to make the error(s), focus on the word(s) and remind them of phonics or decoding strategies.  Help the students to “figure it out” if possible. 

(PAUSE)

A rubric has also been created to assess the children’s Readers’ Theatre performances.

Now, over to Danielle to continue with the body of the lesson.

Danielle : 

I play the grade 2-3 teacher.

First part:  Reading Aloud

I tell children that we will do a Readers Theatre. I explain what is a Readers Theatre by showing them the script of Jack and the Beanstalk on a transparency and by explaining the difference between a script and a book. I read aloud page 1 of the script to demonstrate that a Readers Theatre is read with expression.

(I had read the book to them during the previous lesson, in which we went over the vocabulary – meaning, spelling and pronounciation).

Second part: Shared Reading

Readers Theatre practice

The class is divided in three groups of 8 students. I hand out a copy of the script to every student. Each group practices Jack and the Beanstalk Readers Theatre. I circulate around the room to guide each group of readers.

Readers Theatre presentation

1 group (8 participants) is chosen to presentJack and the Beanstalk Readers Theatre. The other two groups watch the Readers Theatre.

Third part: Partner Reading

I step out of my grade 2-3 teacher’s role and tell our Educ 473 class that I would close this lesson by inviting children to go back to their desk and read the script over with a partner.

Katherine:

Lesson Windup

The focus of our lesson was to improve fluency and to introduce expression. Readers’ Theatre provides a structure in which students of different abilities and comfort levels can participate in. Perhaps the most appealing benefits of this activity are that it serves to promote reading in a fun and engaging manner and it facilitates inclusion. We decided that in order for our lesson to be successful, we needed to make sure that it was multilevel and that it would support struggling students.  The aim was to make sure that all of our students’ needs were met. We also wanted to create an activity that could be easily adaptable to any grade and ability level as well as any subject.

We have chosen different students that represent various needs and created modifications that would better support their learning and success. For ESL students, we would assign them smaller roles or roles that they felt comfortable reading. We want this experience to be positive so that their confidence will increase and they will want to participate again. Reading the smaller roles also takes away the pressure of having to read for a long time. The teacher also has to use her discretion because some ESL students might want to participate in bigger roles and that should be encouraged.  For ESL students whose level is low, we would incorporate pictures along with words. This allows them to identify the word and learn it more efficiently because they have a visual cue. The fact that they will be given ample opportunities to practice and reread the script also allows them to build their confidence and become more familiar with the words and their pronunciation. Students using pictures could also provide sound effects for key pictures when others are reading. For example student A could be the narrator and talking about the wolf and student B could do the wolf sound. A variation on this could be having the students who are not reading perform the actions of key words. This way the audience not only gets to hear the play but they also get it see it. These techniques should also be done by advanced readers so that everyone gets the chance to experience it.  

Once we start dealing with students who are advanced readers, the focus changes. Both groups will be improving fluency but the advanced readers will focus more on expression rather than on fluency. Advanced readers can practice their scripts and work on expression. They can play with their voices to see the emotions that are evoked with each one.  They can also pair up with struggling readers and practice reading with them. This type of modeling not only allows the advanced reader to keep practicing his expression but also model for the struggling reader who with time will start to improve. The advanced reader can even ask the struggling reader what he/she thinks about the expression in the voice and the struggling reader can provide feedback.

            For students who are unable to speak, we would have them sign the words as another student is reading. This way the child gets to participate and the rest of the students understand what is occurring. Another method is to have students hold up signs of key words. So for example they might hold up a sign with an arrow pointing up and another with a beanstalk when Jack is going up the beanstalk. This ensures inclusion and provides visual cues that are especially helpful to ESL students in the audience; apart from providing an aesthetic appeal.

            To ensure that this lesson is successful, we would have instructional support available to all students. In the classroom, students would have readily available copies that they could use during independent reading or practice reading with other students. There would also be copies available for students to take home and practice with their parents. The teacher could have audio tape samples of different groups of students reading the same script but with different expressions. This would allow the students to hear the pronunciation of the words as well as the effects that expression has when one reads a text.

            The idea of having Readers’ Theatre is that it allows for a fun and safe way for children to improve on fluency and be introduced to use of expression. It is an activity that is easily done because the materials are so easily accessible. The activity also promotes inclusion because all children can participate no matter what their level or experience is. It allows students to practice on their own or with groups at school or at home. It is also good because the skills that are practiced and learned can be built upon as well as applied to other areas.

            Readers’ Theatre also lends it self to create a variety of extension activities. Students can work together and create different endings to the same story. Then this would lead into giving them a story and in groups they write a script for it and perform it. This would show how differences exist even though it is the same story.  They can research stories with similar plot lines from different cultures. Once again this would reinforce their reading skills and expose them to research skills.  Have students write their own stories and read them aloud to the class. These stories can then be placed in a binder which students can take home and read with their parents.  Finally, students can write a script for a topic in a subject such as science or socials studies. For example they can write a script on the digestive system and have each organ be a character and explain the process that occurs. Not only would this continue to reinforce their reading and writing skills but it would also serve as a different way to learning and showing their understanding of the material.

            In conclusion, our purpose behind readers’ theatre was to expose children to the fact that reading is for enjoyment. It is a skill that goes beyond learning school material. It is to allow the reader the freedom to go where there are no limits.

GROUP SEVEN

Alyson:

Introduction:

We have designed a reading lesson for a grade two class.  The class has previously worked extensively on onsets and rimes as well as word families. This lesson focuses on identifying rhyming words in a new poem, and then sorting these rhyming words into word families (which are spelled the same) and non word families (which are not spelled the same).  The purpose is to extend the students’ understanding of rhyming words.

We chose to use a short, funny poem as a basis for our rhyming words because we believe it is important for students to experience words in context and because we think that reading this poem is an enjoyable reading experience that will engage students in reading.  Our hook has been designed to activate prior knowledge.  We ask the students to access prior experiences and share them, and then make connections between the main character in our poem and where he lives. 

The main focus of our lesson is on student’s phonemic awareness.  Listening to the poem allows the students to hear the words spoken while seeing the words written down.   They then have the chance to practice reading and speaking the words, connecting what they see with the way they make the sounds.   An important component of phonemic awareness is the ability to hear when words rhyme: “Once children can hear rhymes they can read rhyming words by changing the beginning sounds and making the word rhymes” (CMCM pp.37).  Through rhyming activities, students can begin to understand that we read words by blending a beginning sound we know with a pattern we recognize from other rhyming words (CMCM pp.38).

“Rimes are a productive approach to phonics for several reasons.  First, rimes consist of several letters, allowing a reader to analyze a word several letters at a time, rather than analyzing individual letters one at a time.  Second, rimes have a high degree of consistency [in sound]. … by their very nature, words containing the same rime, do rhyme.  Thus it is not difficult to compose poems that feature targeted rimes, providing superb practice in learning those rhymes” (R&P pp.38).

We address the issue of fluency in our lesson by doing repeated readings of the poem.  The students hear the poem read by the teacher, and then read it themselves using both echo and choral reading techniques.  When children read a piece of literature the first time, they spend a lot of time identifying words.  With subsequent readings, children can “put phrases together into meaningful units” and eventually read more quickly and smoothly (Cunningham Moore Cunningham Moore pp.63-64).

Our lesson also briefly touches on the areas of spelling and decoding when we break a large word (Frigidaire) down into its components.  By breaking words down into smaller more familiar parts, we are identifying word patterns along with the accompanied meanings and spellings.  These patterns can be connected to other words students will encounter in their own reading.  

In addition, because poems are short and do rhyme, students can memorize them which will help them develop that “I can read” attitude that will promote their self-confidence in reading.

To prepare for this lesson, a teacher would need to find a poem that contains rhyming words of both varieties, copy the poem in large print onto chart paper, identify and copy the rhyming words onto strips of paper, then brainstorm and prepare a hook.  It is also important for the teacher to practice reading the poem beforehand, in order to provide a good reading model for the students.

Tessa:

Activate prior knowledge:

Ø      Talk about Rhymes-What are they? What do they look like?

Ø      Talk about word families and what they look like.

Ø      Give examples such as: Pill and Bill.  These sound the same and are spelled similar etc.

Lead students in an echo reading of the poem:

Ø      Instruct them to listen for rhyming words.

Ø      Talk about the differences between rhyming words ie: word families and non-word families. Similar spelling and spelling that is different.

Read the poem one more time:

Ø      Discuss the words they discovered.

Ø      At the end of the reading have students, one at a time, come up and put a rhyming word onto the fridge under the correct category, Word Family or Non-Word Family.

Ø      The rhyming words will already be cut out and ready to be placed onto the fridge.

Ø      With a grade 2 class, one might have to read the poem again to find all of the rhyming words, which will also be working on fluency.

Closure:

Ø      Divide the class up into three groups.

Ø      Give group one the word Bear.

Give group two the word Scare.

Give group three the word There.

Ø      Instruct the students to brainstorm rhyming words with their groups.  The words can be from word families or non-word families. (Teacher will gage how much time is needed for this exercise). Students can sit anywhere in the room for this activity.

Ø      Have students come back to the circle and share their ideas.

Ø      As a class, create a poem using the words generated form the group brainstorming activity.

Ø      Once the poem is complete, length may vary, have the students copy the poem into their language arts books using only one side, and on the other side of the page, have them draw a picture that they feel represents the poem.

Laura:

Conclusion:

One of the first choices we made in designing this lesson was to use a poem.  We decided a poem was an excellent source for the kind of language patterns we needed in order to accomplish our learning goals in a way that was quick, efficient, and enjoyable for the students.    Rasinski and Padak (2001) agree that poetry is a good strategy for teaching early reading goals, with the additional benefit of introducing children to a literature genre that is all too often overlooked.  Poems provide countless examples of the word and language patterns we want to teach.     Shel Silverstein’s poetry is a great resource because of the language he uses and because he writes about topics that engage children and appeal to a wide age range.  In reading instruction it is important to choose something that children will really love in order to energize the process of learning to read (CMCM, p. 88-89).  Some other poetry resources to look at are books by Dennis Lee, Loris Lesynski, and Jack Perlusky (for kids a little older).

It was easy to generate activities that were multilevel using this poem.  All the rhyming words allowed for phonemic awareness, word decoding and word pattern analysis activities.  With words like Frigidaire, we could work on vocabulary development and morphemic analysis.  It was easy to work on developing fluency as well as poems lend themselves easily to multiple readings.   Finally, including a writing activity as a follow up gave the children a chance to explore what they learned and to collaborate with others.  The follow up activity accommodates a number of skill levels as the children create new rhymes and participate in the shared writing activity.  Within the scope of these multilevel activities there is something to further skill development in the struggling reader to the more accomplished reader.

This poem provided plenty of rhyming word families and rhyming words that were not in the same word family.  The work with rhyming patterns in the same word family such as fish, dish, meat, seat etc help struggling readers with basic phonemic awareness as they practice how beginning sounds change a word. Readers who already have a beginning level of phonemic awareness will strengthen their skills by listening to the rhymes not spelled the same and comparing them to the word family rhymes.  Having the students be ‘word detectives’ and look for the rhymes and having the words sorted in their families in a pocket chart as they find them reinforces our concepts.  Hunting for rhymes each time the poem is read gives them a relevant reason to read and reread the poem.  It is important that children will feel successful when reading and have fun as well (CMCM, p. 41)   This poem fit the bill exactly.

Rasinski and Padak (2001) contend that developing word identification skills requires “deep learning of word patterns” (p 50) and suggest reading poems with rhyming patterns is an effective method to accomplish this.  This means children must see words in context, isolate them, and read lots of texts that contain the targeted words or patterns being taught (p. 50-52).  Our lesson plan follows Rasinski and Padak’s suggestion by providing lots of opportunity to read and reread the poem and having the children search out and isolate the rhyming word patterns from the text.  Once the words are isolated, having the children sort them under their correct headings in the pocket chart and work with the word patterns at their desk facilitate discussion and reinforces their learning. Finally, the shared writing activity serves to extend their understanding of the concepts further as they discuss and think of their own rhyming words to compose a poem. (CMCM p.43)

We thought a funny poem was an engaging way to work on developing fluency in our readers.   Through practice provided by the multiple readings,  the children become more skilled at recognizing high frequency words like there, like, know, our, and simple words they are already able to sound out like big and  lets. They are also introduced and getting familiar with any number of new words. Being given a set purpose before each rereading prevents boredom and the loss of engagement. It is important to have fun reading many times.   (CMCM p. 56).  For even better fluency practice, after the children read the poem performing the actions, they could read it a ‘mother’s” startled voice, a “father’s” angry voice, or a scared voice before it is ever read for rhymes.

This lesson is also set up to improve comprehension in its before, during, and after stages.   The hook is lively and funny and will go a long way to get children ready to attend.  The pre-reading discussion of vocabulary and morphemic analysis also heightens comprehension (CMCM, 7).  Students are given a purpose for reading the poem and read it multiple times, getting into the actions and humour.  After reading the teacher follows up on the purpose of the reading with an activity that is closely associated with the original purpose, something Cunningham et al emphasised as essential to teach children to read for comprehension consistently.  Working with poems is a great way to introduce both simple and some more sophisticated reading skills required for grade two.

We believe the value of doing this particular poem and using it to focus on phonological awareness is twofold.  First, the poem contains language that is very accessible for a grade two level.  It is important that the children can read text that is fairly easy for them when doing oral reading (CMCM 75).  Second, the funny rhyme scheme and the subject matter (a polar bear) is very attractive to children of this age.  This lesson was designed to move children out of the first understandings of phonemic awareness learned in grade one into a more sophisticated understanding of how letters and sounds combine to great a great variety of sounds. It also offers the vocabulary instruction and morphemic analysis level grade two are ready for when the word Frigidaire is broken done and discussed. 

We factored in support for struggling readers in a number of ways. Choral and repeated readings give them support getting through the text.  The hook is lively, prepares students for comprehension, and is especially helpful for struggling readers.  They already understand what the poem is going to be about and are helped to grasp the humour in finding a polar bear in a fridge before they even begin to read.  The activities chosen for this lesson will give struggling readers the satisfaction of being successful at reading with a group of their peers.  They  will be able to identify the simpler rhyme families like ice and rice by attending to the initial sounds and will be able to participate in the word sort after without difficulty.   Rasinski and Padak believe it’s important for struggling readers to feel successful and not isolated doing ‘catch up’ activities out of context of authentic texts.  Working as part of a group being helped by peers in a variety of reading and writing activities with a variety of texts is essential for struggling readers (p. 183).  This lesson offers all of those opportunities.