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.