Article lesson #3

For this lesson I used stratigies that I took from the article: Vocabulary Development During Read-Alouds: Primary Practices by Karen J. Kindle (2009) http://www.Idonline.org/articule/39979/

Background Information: This reading lesson was presented to a first grade inclusive classroom. In this classroom, there is a general education teacher, a special education teacher, and a special education paraprofessional. There are nine students receiving special education services in the room. There are a total of 22 students in the class. Students with identified disabilities are served in multiple areas including Significantly Developmentally Delayed, Orthopedicaly Impaired and Speech Language.

Standards covered in the lesson: 

ELA1R5 The student acquires and uses grade level words to communicate effectively.

ELA1R6 The student uses a variety of strategies to understand and gain meaning from grade-level text. The student:  a. Reads and listens to a variety of texts for information and pleasure. b. Make predictions using prior knowledge. f. makes connections between text and/or personal experiences.

Objectives:
 To improve the student's engagement with a read loud text.
 To introduce the students to new vocabulary words.
 To explore poetry as another form of read aloud.
 To work on the following skills visualizing,clarifying and making predictions.
 To make connections for text to self.

The Lesson was taken from the First Grade Imagine It program. The poem that the class was covering this day was in the Back to School Unit.  And The Answer Is. . . ? by Carol Diggory Shields and illustrated by Paul Meisel.

To start the lesson the special education teacher began asking the students the following question:

Does anyone know what a poem is? Students made various predictions and then the teacher gave the students a kid friendly definition of poem ( short lines with words put together in rhythm  almost musical).
The teacher told the students that they were going to read a poem about a teacher asking a student questions and how that student was feeling.   The definition of question was given (when some asks another person for information).

The following vocabulary words were introduced to give the class the information that they would need to better understand the text being read.

Vocabulary Words

Staring: Looking at directly for a long time. The teacher had a visual picture definition card with the written definition for the students to see. She then asked for a volunteer to come and act out with her what staring would look like. The students enjoyed this part of the lesson and it helped to give the demonstrate the meaning of the word.

Mystery: Something that is puzzling. The teacher used this word a in a sentence to help the student better understand its meaning. ( The Detectives solved a mystery by following clues that they found in the room.)

The teacher also gave the students definition of the two strategies that the students would be using to better understand the poem:

Visualizing-- using words they read to to help make pictures in their minds about what is happening.

Clarifying-- To make clear. The teacher told the students that when they don't understand something that they can reread to help them make the information clear.  During the reading of the poem the words wrap, snap and breeze were reread so the students could understand what the writer was meaning.
During the first reading the teacher asked the students to visualize if this poem was about them and how they would be feeling and what their bodies might look like if they were being asked the questions. The teacher also stopped to clarify the words wrap, snap and breeze for students. She gave them a quick example of what it means if something is called a breeze ( to be considered easy)

After the second  reading of the poem the teacher shared a story about when she was a student and how she felt when her  teacher asked her a question that she did not know. She demonstrated to the students by acting out what her body would look like is she did not know the answer and then she did the same for when she did know the answer. This got the students excited and they all wanted to share in the discussion and relate it to their experiences.
She then allowed several students time to talk and share there feelings and stories of times when they did and didn't  know the answers to a questions. 

Many of the strategies that were covered in this article are in the Imagine It curriculum in the shared reading portion of each unit. This makes it very easy for the teacher to cover all skills needed to help the student comprehend and enjoy the stories that are being read to them.