Small Group Reading Lesson

Small Group Reading Lesson Project 1

Kellie Dimmette RE 5100 I worked with two Kindergarten students, one male (Andrew) and one female (Gracie), in a special education classroom. Both children are repeating Kindergarten and are labeled developmentally delayed. This was my first experience with Kindergartners and I learned a great deal from this experience. Kindergartners have a very short attention span so the activities within my lessons needed to be spread out across the day. Because I was working in a special education classroom and the children were only in that room for a forty-five minute increment this was not possible, so I had to adjust my lessons to fit the attention span of the children.

The first lesson I presented to the two children were lessons that focused on the alphabet and letter recognition. My first activity was for the children to sing the alphabet song. Andrew had no problem joining in and singing along, although Gracie did not participate. After the alphabet song I introduced the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Neither of the students had heard the story before so I gave a brief introduction and we predicted what we thought the story would be about. Andrew quickly guessed it was about a coconut tree and he figured out that they grow in sand. At this point Gracie had continued to be fairly unresponsive.

Before reading the story I showed the children my coconut tree manipulative with the letters that Velcro to the tree. I instructed them that we would find each of the letters as they were talked about in the book and then put them on the tree. As soon as I read the first page both students were actively involved in finding the letters to put on the tree. Gracie was now very involved in the lesson and engaged in the activity. Students were successful with this task, with the exception of the b, d, and p, and the n and u. It was difficult for them to see the difference because you could turn the letters around and they would become a different letter. The children accommodated to this problem and learned how to make the letters work.

After reading the story the first time, I shared it with them again with a different task for them to complete. This time they had to write the letters in sand as I read the story. Gracie did a really good job forming her letters with some help by looking at the book. Andrew had difficulty with certain letters and had to use the book to draw almost every letter. Some letters, such as the G, was very difficult for him because he did not show that he knew the proper way to write the letter.

The last thing I had students to do was choose one letter, think of something that begins with that letter, and draw a picture to illustrate the object they had thought of. Gracie chose s and immediately decided she would draw sand. After completing her drawing she spelled the word sand (sat). I noticed that she has speech problems so she heard sounds differently. When she pronounced the letter d it sounded to me just like she was saying t. I heard several sounds this way, which explains why she heard a t at the end of the word sand instead of a d. Andrew first chose the letter x, but after realizing he did not have many options of things to draw he chose A. At first he said that he would draw himself, but ultimately he changed his mind and drew an apple. He spelled apple (apb). He heard a b sound from the two p’s. He did not get to final sound in the word. I had them both write their names at the bottom of the paper. Andrew was successful at this task, although Gracie was not.

At the end of the lesson we played with alphabet cards. We put them in order and thought of things that began with each letter. My final observations were that neither student had firm knowledge of the entire alphabet. Gracie knew all the letters, even when I isolated one. Andrew had difficulty telling me what a random letter was and it was harder for him to think of things that begun with each letter. Gracie has more letter-sound knowledge than Andrew, possibly because she is more advanced in her letter recognition.

The second lesson focused on sounds in the story and in the world around. I introduced the word onomatopoeia and told students that it was the word used to describe sounds in a story. Both children thought that it was a really funny word and they enjoyed saying it. I brought in some objects that made sounds for them to explore. At first it was difficult for them to make the sound that the object made. For example, I had some bubble wrap and thought the children would say it went “pop”, but instead they said you had to press the buttons to get a sound. Then they heard the birds in the classroom so they got stuck on animals and only gave me sounds that animals make. Both Andrew and Gracie did a wonderful job finding the sounds in the story, and repeated each sound with expression. After hearing these sounds they had a better understanding of how to say the sounds that objects make, although both children chose to draw animals in their illustrations. I think after more instruction this concept would be easier for both Andrew and Gracie.

The last lesson focused on fluency and comprehension and seemed the most difficult for me, but the outcome really surprised me based on the previous lessons. When I gave the students a copy of Chant with Me and told them they were going to read Andrew became very excited. The first time I had the children echo read Andrew eagerly participated, although I could not get anything from Gracie. I let Gracie observe me working with Andrew one on one. After a couple of times practicing echo reading Andrew was ready to read it on his own. He was very successful at looking at the beginning sound to figure out the word and had a good grasp on high frequency words, such as the. After I praised Andrew and Gracie noticed how proud Andrew was of himself she decided she wanted to try it out. She only tried once and she was more independent than Andrew was on the first round. She could read most of the words without my assistance. I came to the conclusion that this was based on two factors: one was that she has higher letter-sound recognition than Andrew and the second was she had heard it numerous times before it was her turn.

I read the story again, but this time I was focusing on comprehension. At this point I had lost their interest and it was difficult for them to stay focused. We did talk about the events in the beginning, middle, and end of the story, and both children illustrated what happened. They were successful at completing this activity, although it took a lot of prompting from me. My plan was to assess their individual comprehension, but after observing that I had lost their attention I did not take them any further. After completing these lessons I learned that these students need more instruction on letter- sound recognition, especially modeling using literature. For my next project I want to focus more on writing through the use of a nursery rhyme. As part of the activities I have planned, I will be introducing some reading strategies that I believe will help both these students as they learn to connect the letters and words with print in a text. I chose to do a three day lesson on the story Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Each day the lesson had a different focus, but each day the students were exposed to the story in Big Book format, along with an actual model of a coconut tree with letters that velcroed to the tree. This served as a manipulative for students to interact with as I read the story. Also, repeated readings of the story were shared with the students. According to studies, research has found that it is important to point to the words in storybooks as you read to children, so I did this as I read. (Adams,1992) This is difficult for students to see if the teacher uses a regular storybook. By pointing and showing students details in an enlarged text helps the undeveloped muscular coordination for beginning readers. Studies have found that teachers can apply the “lap approach” in the classroom by using a Big Book so all students can see the text. (Hoyt, 1992)

In the 1970’s research was begun on preschool age children and how they were responding to books in the home. Based on this research it was found that children love to hear their favorite stories read over and over again. By these repeated reading they found that the children modeled the reading that they saw from their parents. It was decided to apply this strategy to the classroom. To develop a literacy program to apply to the classroom three requirements were necessary. First, the books used had to be those they were proved to be loved by children. Second, the books had to be seen from 20 feet as a normal book would have on the knee of a child. Third, the teacher had to present the book with enjoyment, more as a performance. Most lessons were developed with the following outline: Opening warm-up (favorite poems, songs, or jingles shared with enlarged text), Old favorite (reading of a favorite story in enlarged format), Language games (alphabet games, rhymes, and songs using letter names), New story (New story with new lessons introduced), and Output activities (related art activities). This approach was used several years in classroom and become know as the shared book experience. Many teachers have found the usefulness of this approach to reading and have applied it to their classrooms today. Throughout my lesson I followed this format to make my lesson more meaningful. (Holdaway) I found the story Chicka Chicka Boom Boom on a list of children’s favorite books, and as I shared the story I really used an expressive voice to make it exciting for the students. During my lessons students sung the alphabet song, played games with the alphabet, and were given activities for them to express what they had learned in the lessons. The first lesson I taught emphasized phonemic awareness. Students were exposed to the alphabet in many different ways. They first sung the alphabet song, and then they were given alphabet cards to put in order. During the actual reading of the story each letter was illustrated and was in bold print within the text. Picture cues are important to help students identify words and stimulate interest. As I was reading we examined the pictures and discussed what the letters were doing so students could understand that the words on the page had meaning. (Adams, 1992) After sharing the story with students the first time I had students write the letters in sand during the second reading. This gave them an opportunity to take what they were seeing in the text and apply it in written format. To assess what they had learned about the alphabet I had the students illustrate a letter. This gave students an opportunity to express what they had learned individually. Students were given many opportunities to “play” with the alphabet and were saw it in many different contexts.

The second lesson was focused on vocabulary skills. Student’s attention was placed on nonsense words that they heard throughout the story. Within the story there was a lot of rhythm, which is a critical feature to focus students in on the language of the story. The vocabulary was not too advanced for the students, which made the story easy for them to understand. (Yopp, 1995.) Students were introduced to the word onomatopoeia as they listened for sound words in the story and then heard other objects make different sounds. Students used what they learned to write their own sound words and illustrate the object that made that sound.

The third lesson had a two part focus: fluency and comprehension. Since the students had had several exposures to the story I thought they felt comfortable with it. I discussed with the students how it was important to read the story with the appropriate rhythm in order for the story to make sense to the audience. Students practiced this by echo reading a chant from the story. (Trachtenburg & Ferruggia, 1989) The second focus, comprehension, was accomplished by discussing the story as it was being read. I asked several questions as I read to make sure students understood what was happening at the beginning, middle, and end. The students illustrated this sequence as we had our discussions throughout the final reading of the story. Throughout each lesson I had students illustrate in some way what they were learning, and this gave each student an opportunity to be creative. After students completed their illustrations we always came together as a group and I let them share what they had drawn. We talked about the illustrations and why they chose to draw their particular picture. It is important to allow children to talk about what they are learning. It also benefits students to hear other classmates talk about their ideas. During these sharings I monitored the discussions, but I wanted them to be more student led with me being a guide to help the discussion along. (Hoyt, 1992) References:

Holdaway, Don. Shared book experience: Teaching reading using favorite books. Theory Into Practice, 21(4), 293-300.

Trachtenburg, Phyllis & Ferruggia, Ann. (1989) Big books from little voices: Reaching high risk beginning readers. The Reading Teacher, 284-289.

Hoyt, Linda. (1992) Many ways of knowing: Using drama, oral interactions, and the visual arts to enhance reading comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 45(8), 580-584.

Yopp, H.K. (1995). Read-aloud books for developing phonemic awareness: An annotated bibliography. The Reading Teacher, 48, 538-542.

Adams, M.J. (1992). Preparing young children to read. Beginning to read: Thinking and learning about print, pp. 51-71. Center for the Study of Reading.