Final GLT Reflection

Overall I had a wonderful experience when teaching literacy during GLT. My hope was that the students would be engaged in the reading lessons I had planned for them, and I found this to be true for most of my GLT. The first week I read the children mostly Halloween-themed stories. The children were so excited about the topic that I feel they hardly noticed there was extra “learning” happening in these lessons. It was easy for students to be engaged and participate in the different activities I had planned on these days. This goes to show how important it is to make sure what you are teaching is not only relevant to students’ lives, but also of interest to them. It makes teaching other skills and strategies much more simple!

As far as my core practice goes (thinking aloud), I feel that my students have come along way, even in this short amount of time. Students at first seemed unfamiliar with the idea of thinking aloud. Although my MT and I have modeled some of the think aloud strategies in reading lessons prior, this is the first time my students were explicitly taught what each of these strategies looks like and how they can put it to use. I think the fact that I brought back our original anchor chart repeatedly helped students become familiar with and comfortable enough with these strategies to the point where they were able to use them independently. During my last couple lessons of GLT, students were using the “connections” strategy to make both text-to-text and text-to-self connections independently. They were using this strategy where I did not intend for them to, and were using it in the correct way. Students would signal by making the connection sign I had taught them in the beginning of GLT, then I would have them share what there connection was to a particular part of the story. I was really happy with how well students were able to make connections across books and to their own lives. This is a very important reading skill that we can use and expand on throughout the school year.

During my unit, I focused also on initial sounds and rhyming. Mastery of these skills is essential for early readers. Being able to sound out words and find rhyming pairs/produce rhyming words will help students be successful with decoding as well as when writing independently. I found that my students as a whole have a much easier time with rhyming than with initial sounds (my summative assessment and observations demonstrate this). However, students have made some improvement with noticing beginning sounds in words and have put in the effort to try and figure out what letter goes with what sound. I think that my students simply need more exposure to initial sound activities as well as practice with letter-sounds in general. My students really enjoyed playing the Promethean Planet games on initial sounds and rhyming I had planned for them as a review for the summative assessment. In the future, I would like to utilize the Promethean Board more in order to engage students in reading activities that will strengthen the learning of these important pre-reading skills.

Final GLT Reflection

I was not sure what to expect once I took over literacy. My MT does such a great job at seamlessly incorporating comprehension strategies for the students to learn, text structure lessons, and asking questions that really check the students' comprehension. We also do very little "work" with students based on the stories we read, everything is discussion based.  I wanted something a little more concrete to not only monitor their learning but check my own teaching so I was a little nervous about whether or not students will realize they can take what they learned and apply it to what the paper is asking.

My two-week unit was focused on initial sounds and rhyming words and the core practice I wanted to work on was thinking aloud. Overall, I was pleased with the outcome of the unit but there were so obstacles along the way. Voting day and conferences fell within my Guided Lead Teaching so my lessons were often shorter than the normal literacy time. My MT thought the matching rhyming worksheet I created would be too difficult for the students so I had to rely on the rhyming responses of students.

There were two things that really helped my students with initial sounds and rhyming: Promethean Planet games and parent-teacher conferences. I think because the games were interactive and not anything like the students had done in school before, the students were greatly motivated and engaged throughout the lesson. The practice the game gave students was fun for them and it allowed me to hear from every student. Another factor which helped my students learn rhyming especially was parent-teacher conferences. Since the students were only in school a few days during the last week of my GLT, we asked all parents who came to conferences to work with their students on rhyming. When the students returned back to school on Monday for the rhyming review, the students were excelling with rhyming. It was so great to have that support from parents and I could see my students getting excited about doing something at home and at school.

I feel like I improved my core practice of thinking aloud. At the beginning of the unit I made the thinking aloud strategies a little more concrete by creating an anchor chart for the students to look at while we read stories. It was titled "What Good Readers Do..." and had thought bubbles with the different things students should be thinking about as they read (i.e. making connections, predicting, asking questions, etc.) & symbols for each strategy. I explained that doing these things while we read would help them to remember the story and understand what the story is about. Throughout the rest of the unit, I tried to incorporate each strategy at least once while I read. Some students even began to reference the chart and the strategy they used whenever they answered a question which I was very excited about.

I have officially taken over the literacy planning in the classroom and I am hoping to continue to introduce new things with my students like I did with the technology review. One thing I plan to work on is creating worksheets which are challenging for the students but they will still be successful with.

GLT Reflection 2

GLT Reflection

• What did students learn and which students struggled with the lesson? 

Students worked on producing rhymes by filling the blanks of a phrase read aloud to them. As a whole, the group did very well with this. Almost all of the students verbalized the correct rhyming word to make the pair. For the few students that did struggle, I repeated the rhyming pair by taking them out of the sentence context and saying them out loud so they could hear the rhyme more easily. After doing this, these students agreed that the two words did rhyme.

• What are alternate reads (interpretations) of your students’ performance or products? 

Students were able to make connections at various points in the story. I think this came easily for students because of the lesson topic (families). This made it more accessible to students because they could all relate to some aspect of the story. Most students shared about the size of their family (big or small, like in our story) and then they each had a chance to share about something they do with their family. Every student was able to share something that they enjoy doing with their family with the whole class during our discussion.

• What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

With both rhyming and making connections, my students were eager to participate in the learning activities I had planned. I also learned that my students need multiple times to practice a new skill and also see it being modeled for them before they can successfully do so independently. Going over the think-aloud chart several times in this unit and modeling the strategies for students seemed to have helped them to be able to better understand how it works.

• When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support? 

I will continue using the think-aloud chart in future lessons. This is a material that will be used again and again even thought my unit for GLT is completed. Students will continue to receive modeling on these strategies and have time to practice using them in future lessons. Activities involving rhyming will also continue to be an important topic in future reading lessons. This is a crucial pre-reading skill that my students will need more practice with so I plan to continue to teach this material.

• If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning? 

If I were to teach this again, I would have the rhyming phrases written out on chart paper and include pictures next to the words so that students could clearly see which two words are the rhyming pair. This will also serve as a helpful visual for my ELLs and struggling students. This may also get all students even more engaged in the activity.

• What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

In terms of implementing my core practice, I have learned that repetition is key. The more students got used to the think-aloud chart we created in the beginning of my unit and the more they had opportunities to see it being put in action (through my own modeling) as well as practice it on their own, the more successful they seemed to be with it. In order to continue my professional learning, I could look for more ways to incorporate the learning of these practices into reading lessons with young children. 

GLT Reflection 2

• What did students learn and which students struggled with the lesson? 

Students are still learning about the sound that the letter M makes, and how to write the letter M. We are also reviewing the sound that the letter A makes, that I says “eye”, and good readers always point to what they read. Tracking is a very important skill that they need to learn to keep learning how to read. 

 

Students struggled with consistently pointing to what they were reading. It will take time and reminders to keep all students pointing to what they are reading.

• What are alternate reads (interpretations) of your students’ performance or products? 

Some students began saying letter names instead of sounds halfway through the week. This could be because they are learning so many other new things, they are resorting back to what they feel comfortable with, which is the letter name. 

• What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

My students love stretching out sounds. We clap when we first say the word, spread our hands apart as we stretch out the word, and then clap our hands back together. Students really enjoy doing this, and as we are getting more into the writing process, students are carrying this skill with them. 

• When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support? 

I have a review day tomorrow to catch students up with those who have missed days, and for those who need additional support. I have been taking notes with who has been absent/who needs additional support, so I know what to do for each of my reading groups. 

• If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning? 

I would emphasize more that in our reading groups, we focus on letter sounds, not the names of letters. This would help everyone stay on task and then they would know the expectations so I would not have to stop and have students correct their mistakes. 

• What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

I have learned that students are very exciting about learning how to read at this age. I need to continue motivating my students to keep them interested in their reading so they don’t get discouraged as it gets more in depth.

GLT Reflection 2

• What did students learn and which students struggled with the lesson?

In this lesson, students were continuing to practice using the thinking aloud strategies I have taught them. Due to the time constraint of a hald day, I was unable to include the rhyming aspect of the lesson. However, the students did a fantastic job of using the pictures to support their predictions and claims and were able to make relevant text-to-self connections.

• What are alternate reads (interpretations) of your students’ performance or products?

The lesson was about how families work and play together, the students who are often times reluctant to participate all wanted to share their ideas. It was nice to see the students feel confident in their answers.

• What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

I saw my students actually wanting to hear what their peers had to say during the conversation and making connections to their own lives. By forming those connections with their peers and the text it will make learning so much easier for them as we continue to learn about different types of families.

• When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

Since I was unable to include the rhyming aspect of the lesson, I plan on taking those rhyming sentences and teaching it during calendar time. I feel students are more ready to listen in the early morning and it may go quickly enough to not thrown off the day's schedule.

 

• If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?

Since so many students were wanting to participate and share, I let all the students do so. Next time, I should only call on a few students to share focusing on those students who do not normally participate. I think this would give them the confidence to share their thoughts and ideas about different topics. This would also give me more time to get to the rhyming part of the lesson.

 

• What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

Again, my students are really taking to learning how "good readers" think. They using the skills and recognizing how the strategies are helpful. I need to continue to model the strategies without expliciting stating what I am doing so that the students can see it happening more naturally.

GLT Reflection

This week, students had the opportunity to choose their own concept for their concept book. I revisited the list of concept book ideas we generated as a class and added on more topics—we also talked about the kinds of pages we would have for each topic. (For instance, when discussing a zoo animal book, we named animals that would go into that book and students were explicitly told how that book would look—with appropriate animals and corresponding pictures and words on each page.) Students were then asked to choose their own topic to write about—and they had to tell us the ideas that would go in each page before they were given the pages to start. Most students were able to come up with a concept and come up with a minimum of three supporting ideas. Some students seem confused about their supporting ideas—for instance, a student who wanted their book to be about “Thanksgiving” came up with the ideas “macaroni and cheese, spaghetti and candy”, though these are appropriate ideas for Thanksgiving—a more appropriate title could be “Food” or better supporting ideas for “Thanksgiving” could be, “Turkey, pilgrims and a ship”. Over the next few days, students were able to continuously check their work—making sure to have a picture (about ONE idea) and corresponding text on each page. Some of them also went back to their book to add more details/ words/ pages as we discussed in class.

An alternative read to my student’s products is in considering their background knowledge. I need to be careful in my assessment of my students’ work because it may not be that they do not understand “concept books”—but rather the concept they are writing about. For instance, considering the student who wrote about Thanksgiving—perhaps it’s not that she does not understand that a book about Thanksgiving should have Thanksgiving ideas—but she does not have enough background knowledge in considering what Thanksgiving is about. Or that her experiences with Thanksgiving is different than mine, or even that her five-year-old-self does not remember what Thanksgiving is about besides the food!

I will continue to re-teach material throughout our read alouds and reading time. I have created an anchor chart of “what to do when you think you’re done” that I hope will help students as they become better writers. The anchor chart tells students that they can add details to pictures, words, pages, read to a partner, read to a teacher or start a new book when they think they have finished.

If I were to teach this lesson again, I think a think-pair-share would be a good thing to incorporate. Students having the opportunity to tell a peer or discuss with a peer what their book is and their ideas can help them better generate ideas and can give students practice thinking whether their and their peers ideas’ make sense. Again, I think it is very important to expose students to different kinds of literacies and genres so that students understand the different purposes of writing. Making a concept book and going back to add details is great practice for students as they become writers since revisions are a natural part of writing.

GLT Reflection 1

• What did students learn and which students struggled with the lesson? 

Students learned initial sounds are the first sound we hear in a word. Students also learned it is important to pay close attention to the order of a story so that they can remember and later retell the story by acting it out. At first students thought words with the same initial sounds meant those words rhymed so I had to clear that misconception. Once students were able to get past that, they were able to identify words in the story with initial sounds and a few even realized that the words began with the same letters. Correctly sequencing the order of the book was also difficult for them. However, once they students got the correct order, they were able to remember other details more easily.

• What are alternate reads (interpretations) of your students’ performance or products? 

By the end of the week, all students had the chance to retell the story and some students have begun pointing out same initial word sounds in other stories and subject areas.

• What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

Once I cleared the misconception of words with the same initial sounds were not the same as rhyming, the students were able to correctly separate the onsets of words and produce different words with the same onset. I was surprised a handful of students were able to connect the same initial sounds in words also meant the words began with the same letter. While this is not always true, it is  a great step for those students' letter-sound knowledge and decoding skills.

• When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support? 

I was able to re-teach the material to students who were absent or needing additional support by reading the story at least once every day during the week. In the additional readings, I was unable to go as in-depth when it came to the initial sounds objective but the students were given the opportunity to hear the story again and remember the sequence for retelling.

• If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning? 

I would extend this lesson by asking students to produce words with the same initial sound as a given prompt. I think this would improve learning because the students would not have a limited word bank from a story to choose from and it would give them more freedom to show their knowledge.

• What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

I have learned my students are incredibly interested in becoming "good readers." They have been open to learning about the different thinking aloud strategies that I have brought to their attention. For example, as I was writing down the "make connections" strategy I had modeled for the students on the anchor chart, a boy asked exactly how and why it was important to make connections. Of course I had planned on explaining those things once I had finished writing but it made me really excited knowing he was so eager to know how this skill he was developing was going to help him in the long run.

Pulling out the anchor chart the students and I have been working on when the students are working in different subject areas would be another way for my students to learn how to implement these strategies and how they are useful in more than just understanding and remembering narratives. Those reading strategies are incredibly important for the students to know and use with exploratory texts as well.

GLT Reflection

In this lesson, students worked on creating their own Halloween Concept Book. This is an adapted lesson to what was previously planned. My hope was that students would be able to come up with their own concept book ideas at this point but because most students still seem to struggle with the idea of a Concept book—my MT and I decided to provide the students with a prompt at this time. We hope to give them this experience so that students can, in the next week, come up with their own ideas. We started by reviewing the list of Halloween ideas that we previously came up with and exploring the mentor text, “My First Halloween”. We talked about the noticings in the book and students were able to identify that the book was all about one concept (Halloween) and each page had a different idea with corresponding text. I reinforced these ideas for the students’ own book. Most students understood the concept—they were able to apply their understandings to their own book. Students were asked to create a title page with a corresponding Halloween picture and three pages—each with a Halloween idea and a corresponding word. Some of the ideas students struggled with is having the same idea over again in the book (for instance, having “cat” on two pages in the book). Another misunderstanding from two students is having multiple ideas on one page—for instance, drawing and writing both a pumpkin and a cat, or a bat and candy on one page instead of separating them into two pages. While interpreting their work, it is important to take into consideration the table groups that the students are sitting in. To really see whether or not students understand the idea of a concept book and can come up with their own ideas (or take ideas off the class list), I need to see that students are not borrowing ideas from a peer and that the ideas in their book are theirs. Something that I learned about my students’ literacy practices is their resourcefulness. We previously discussed the use of word wall words, alphabet charts, color words and other text written around the classroom as a resource in a previous lesson and students used these resources to help them with their spelling without reminder. Another thing I noticed is that students are able to come up with letters that correspond with a sound if I help them sound it out but are unable to stretch out words themselves. I plan on re-teaching the material to students who need additional support during reading or read-alouds. If students are reading a concept book (which all students have at least one in their book bag) I can discuss these noticings and again highlight the main characteristics of a Concept Book. If I were to teach this lesson again, I would use different vocabulary in my teaching. It was not until half way through my lesson when I realized that I may be confusing the students by saying that the book had to be about one “big idea” and that each page is also about “one idea”. To me, this makes sense but to students it would seem confusing because they may not see the difference between a big idea and its supporting ideas. I could, perhaps, just use the term “concept”—and say that each book is about one concept while each page is an idea about that concept. I think using very separate and distinct vocabulary may clear up confusion so that students can better learn and focus on the lesson. Again, this lesson helped me to see the importance of exposing students to different genres and helping them differentiate books and text by its purpose.

GLT Reflection

GLT Reflection

• What did students learn and which students struggled with the lesson? 

Students learned that some words have the same initial sounds and that we can hear these sounds when we say the word aloud. Students also learned that by paying attention to the key details of the story, we are able to retell the story by acting it out. Most students understood these concepts. The few that did struggle were students that have a hard time focusing for longer periods of time.

• What are alternate reads (interpretations) of your students’ performance or products? 

The majority of students were able to participate in the retelling of the story by stating which part would come next in a sequence of events in the story. This demonstrated that the students were engaged in the shared reading and were comprehending the key details of the text.

• What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

Most students were able to hear the initial sounds as being separate from the rest of the word and therefore were able to identify words with like initial sounds in the activity. Students needed less support here than I had originally intended, which extends beyond my objectives for the lesson.

• When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support? 

The main concepts of the lessons that were taught this week will come up again in this coming week’s activities that I have planned. Students will be exposed to these ideas again and be given an opportunity to practice using the skills involved. If needed, I will pull aside individual students that may be struggling and work with them one-on-one.

• If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning? 

I would extend it by having more word pairs as well as longer words (multisyllabic) for students to try in the initial sound activity. I would also pull sticks to randomly choose students to participate, not just select students that are raising their hands to share their thoughts.

• What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning?

I have learned that students see the value of thinking aloud while reading, and are showing a beginning understanding of strategies to help support thinking aloud while reading. Different types and genres of books besides the fictional narratives that I have read aloud so far may lend themselves better and make it easier for students to use/practice certain strategies.