Reading Lesson Reflection:
I had two different and unique experiences with my lesson. I taught it in a little backroom that adjoins our regular classroom. This room has glass on three sides looking outdoors and into the two classrooms that it connects. The first thing that I noticed was that neither of the students wanted to write. This is something I can relate deeply to right now. There was a little moaning about having to bring their notebooks with them to write the sentences. This probably wasn’t essential to the exercise, but my CT asked me to have them do it so I did. This would probably be the first modification I would make to my lesson. I wasted more time getting the students to write down their answers than I needed to. I also don’t see how writing down the idea added to the main goal of the lesson. It may have reinforced a specific topic sentence, but it didn’t reinforce the idea.
“R” was okay with reading the passages out loud in such a small group setting, but I wonder if this may be a contributing factor to why his comprehension is low on his DIBELS assessments. He made so many starts and stops during the reading that I found it hard to follow along. However, he didn’t do much better with picking out topic sentences when “C” was reading. He may have given up at that point though. Throughout the entire lesson he constantly found something to play with. He would kick a ball that was under the desk or pick at his pencil. I know that some kids need extra stimulation to concentrate, but “R” seems like he uses these objects as a way to pass time. He doesn’t have better answers if you let him play with them.
“C” did much better with the task. He was able to pick out the topic sentences on his own by the end of the allotted time. He didn’t have that much difficulty with the task in the beginning either though. I noticed that with him the task varied in difficulty with where the topic sentence was placed. His original instinct was to always pick the first sentence as the topic sentence because this seemed to be the most common placement. However not all paragraphs were built like this. He was able to tell me a main idea though and by the end he was looking at all parts to find the topic sentence.
“R” never really did catch on to the main idea of the lesson though. This is a weakness of the lesson I hadn’t considered before starting it, but is also the weakness of being given a set curriculum to use. “R” didn’t seem to have much interest in the topic. Would this lesson have gone better if I had been able to use a text about football? I think it may have. My experience for “R” was to have one of us read the paragraph and then I would ask “R” what the topic sentence was. He would say “I don’t know.” and the start to reread the paragraph while I waited for him. When he saw that I was going to wait him out he would pick a seemingly random section and guess. I tried to model how I figured out what the topic sentence was by going through my process out loud. This didn’t seem to help either.
My experience with “C” has left me hopeful. He just needed a little guidance to see that topic sentences could be found everywhere. My experience with “R” has left me frustrated however. We have talked in all of my TE classes about how to motivate students. But, that’s all it is. Talk. When I have had this experience of trying to motivate unmotivated students I have always been frustrated. This goes back to last year’s field placement too. I think that for me the key is going to be in trying some of the practices we have learned about in my own classroom. I don’t know if it’s possible to connect with a student at the right level in the amount of time we are given in our field placements. If I was working with “R” over the course of a whole school year I think I might have a slightly different experience. I would have more time to bring him materials that show I care about his learning. I would also have a little more freedom to do what I want. I wouldn’t be as constrained by the feeling of not wanting to create chaos in my CT’s classroom or seem like I’m undermining her authority.
On the whole the lesson went pretty much like I expected. The students reached the levels I had a feeling they might before I started. This is unfortunate, but true, even for “R”. I also gained insight on what I would do in my own classroom. I think it was a good learning experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment