Thursday, April 26, 2012

Reading Lesson Reflection #2


Mary did a very good job.  She came in not being able to answer what “predict” meant or even guess what it meant and she left being able to define predict as “guessing what will happen next because of what you read” and make accurate and relevant predictions about the reading. 

When I first went to the room to bring Mary to the reading resource room, all the kids wanted to go with me.  “Take me!  I want to go!  Can I go?”  When I asked Mary to follow me out into the hall, I think she felt really important and excited because a big smile came across her face.  Once we got to the room we talked for a bit while I set up the computer and materials.  She shared that she had been in the room before and liked it because there were so many books. 

I started by telling her what we would be doing.  After, I asked her what she thought “predict” meant and I received a blank stare.  I asked her what comes to mind when she hears the word or if she had even heard it before.  After a large moment of silence, she smiled and shook her head no.  So I went ahead and started to explain it.  Using the examples was really helpful for her.  As soon as I gave my first example and had her finish the second, I think she was able to understand.  Creating examples that students can comprehend and that are relevant, helps scaffold and make the content connectable.

As Mary began reading, she did pretty well.  The text has some made up words, so I decided to read every other page with her.  Her fluency was pretty slow, but from where she was in the beginning of the year, she has certainly improved.  When the first predict question came up, she seemed a bit surprised because she was getting into the story and the repetition of reading.  Stopping made her think about what was actually happening in the text.  All of her predictions were relevant and could have potentially happened.  Near the end of the story she even made a comment on a page about what might happen next before I prompted her to predict.  This was very encouraging and evident that she comprehended the lesson because she started to take the skill and apply it on her own. 

As the story ended, we talked about why it was important and she decided that it helped her understand the story better.  Mary concluded by saying that she really enjoyed the story.  Working one on one with a student provided me the opportunity to specifically tailor the lesson to meet the individual student’s needs.  It is important to incorporate pull out lessons into your classroom to address individual students’ needs.

No comments:

Post a Comment