Due to the hurricane that decided to grace Florida with its presence, schools in Hillsborough County were cancelled last Friday and Monday was a Non-Student Day which granted teachers and students a four day weekend! As much as everyone enjoyed their unexpected time off from school, it set things back. It was noticeable that my CT was very overwhelmed when I walked into the classroom Tuesday morning as I watched her transition from one task to the next as she gathered papers, checked her email, and searched for items in preparation for the student's arrival. However she did not let the impact of the four day weekend show as students walked in and greeted her. I have always said that teachers are in indeed superheroes in disguise. In the end, they realize that they have a job to do and they will accomplish it by any means necessary without a complaint or display of fatigue. They will push their personal feelings to the side to ensure that everything is in place for their class and that the students are taught properly.
The lesson that stood out to me today required the students to develop a passage based on their individual notes that they wrote while reading a story about elephants. My CT realized that producing a topic sentence was very complicated for the first graders as they continued to tell her statements that would serve as details rather than a general statement. For instance, students would raise their hand and say, "Elephants walk on four legs" or "Elephants have wrinkly skin." I commended them for trying to come up with their own sentence although they couldn't really differentiate between what would be considered a detail and what could bring it all together. As a result, she created three topic sentences that they could use to begin their paragraphs. Almost every Tuesday, I am granted the opportunity to work one on on one or in a small group that includes my focus student Jennifer (pseudonym). Today during this activity of producing a paragraph based on personal notes taken after reading a story, I noticed that she was struggling with spelling. She frequently confuses b and d while writing and misspells words even if they are provided in the text. I encouraged her to always refer back to the story that she read to see if the word that she wants to use is in the book. As I observed her writing, I reflected on a moment that I witnessed her reading independently. I discovered that she uses a personal tactic that includes the aid of the picture that is provided on the page to figure out an unfamiliar word rather than using context clues from the text that she read or morphemic knowledge (prefixes, suffixes and root words). For instance, while she was reading independently during center time, I asked her to read the story aloud. When she encountered a word that she did not know, she would mumble lowly or bypass it completely. I proceeded to stop her and ask her to repeat the word. I then noticed her personal tactic; the particular word was shirt but when she glanced at the photograph, she was under the impression that it was a sweater so that is what she plugged into the sentence. I decided to make that a learning moment by helping her stretch out every unfamiliar word that she came across and encouraged her to re-read the sentence multiple times before moving on to the next so when she came across the word again (which she did) she would know it.
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![]() This week I had the opportunity to teach an English Language Arts lesson to a small group of first graders and amazing is an understatement to describe the experience. I was actually very confident about the lesson due to the ample amount of support I received my collaborating teacher and the assurance from my supervisor. I believe that my CT and I were matched perfectly. Although I did not see myself teaching first grade, she is constantly teaching me the ins and outs of managing a classroom full of six and seven year old students and how she instructional places and paces the class with students who are at different levels. The lesson was centered on the short vowel sounds of a, e and o. I incorporated index cards, flashcards and dry erase boards and markers into the lesson to make the learning more interesting rather than having them listen to me talk the entire twenty minutes. I had no doubt that the students would behave during the lesson but I was surprised at how engaged, attentive and responsive which made teaching the lesson enjoyable. I believe that this may have been a result of it being a small group setting rather than the entire class. They did not have any time to get distracted or talk to someone since I was sitting directly in front of them. One particular moment that caught my attention was when one of my students couldn’t decide whether he thought the sound was “short a” or “long a”. I encouraged him to be confident in his answers and I feel as though that was such a critical moment within the lesson. Often times students are discouraged when they say the wrong answer aloud which may lead them to participate less during class and that is not the environment that I want to create in my future classroom. I want my students to know that this is a learning process, and yes there will be times that they will make a mistake but it will not dictate their capabilities. One thing that I could take away from the video was how I need to work on making eye contact with all of the students. I noticed that I did not look at the student to my left as much as the two that were sitting in front and on the right. The objective of the lesson was, “Given sample single-syllable words orally, the student will be able to identify short a, e and o sounds as well as spell words with those vowel sounds correctly.” Students grasped the concept of those vowel sounds based on their individual activity at the end that required them to create their own word family independently, without the help of another peer or myself. They were able to do this based on the repetition of reviewing the sounds in the beginning of the lesson as well as during the lesson as we viewed the picture cards. They were more than willing to create their own word families and did not want to only do one. I believe that a child’s excitement to do more as well as proficiency can determine whether they understood a lesson, which is what I witnessed toward the ending of the lesson. The formal observation taught me a few thing:
As I am spending more time with the students and having in-depth conversations with my CT, I was able to point out about three students that would benefit more during the math and science lessons with my assistant. I am grateful that my CT is open and trusts me enough with the responsibility of working separately with those students while she teaches the lesson. This gives her the opportunity to teach an entire lesson without pausing every few minutes to ensure that one of those three students are on task or understands the content. I witnessed how challenging it could be when the majority of the class is grasping the concept quickly but she cannot continue because she does not want to leave the others behind. This leaves room for the other students to began talking and the focus is lost. I take this as an opportunity to show them several ways to solve the math problems, give them the chance to ask any questions they may have and give extra practice problems for them to solve independently so that I am confident that they understood what they learned.
Although this wasn't the first time, I spent more time partaking in Task #19 of the Classroom Management Tasks List which is "Write something on the board or a poster." While my CT walked around the room engaging the students in a lesson about words that belonged to the same family tree, I assisted by writing down all of the words that the students were calling out. It is personally one of my favorite things to do. I tend to write very small but I realized that I would have to change that in order for the students to be able to see clearly. As we entered a new week, I sense that the students are becoming more comfortable with me being in the classroom as they are more open to calling me over to help them with their assignments or if they have a personal issue. It is still a bit strange when I hear their soft voices calling out "Ms. Watkins" rather than their teacher's name but its such a good feeling when they grasp the concept and we give each other a high five. My CT is doing a great job with including me in the learning environment by giving me the opportunity to work with small groups to review their work from the previous day, assist students one-on-one if they are not grasping the concepts in math and allowing me to discuss the areas where they can improve or make a few changes.
In Chapter One of Classrooms that Work which is a required book for the Emergent Literacies Strategies and Assessment course, we discovered that one of the characteristics of an effective classroom is when children do a lot of reading and writing. The classroom that I am interning in exhibits this traits ideally during the time that is designated for centers. While at the different centers, students are required to be engaging in one of the two, if not both. Students spend a certain amount of time at each spot so that they may partake in at least three throughout the day. The different centers consist of independent reading; listen to reading; writing; word work; reading with someone and guided reading groups that are led by the teacher. During centers I am able to implement the 8th task of the Classroom Management Tasks List: "Use nonverbal cues to keep a group of students on task." Rather than possibly disturbing students by calling out their names, I simply take a seat next to the individual student or in the middle of the group without saying a word. If my presence doesn't make a difference, then I will speak up. As a future educator, this shows me that you don't necessarily have to raise your voice or single out a child if they are not focused. A simple task such as joining them on the carpet while they are reading or sitting beside them while they are working at their desk is helpful. Being an intern in a first grade classroom is quite a challenge but these first two weeks have already granted me an insight of what it is to be responsible for the education of a younger generation. Although I observed the first week and wrote notes on things that caught my attention, the second week granted me the opportunity to do more. I took the initiative to write information on the board while my CT explained math problems; monitored the students while they were in different centers and even read aloud a story.
In the course RED 4312, we read an article that was entitled, "The Crayola Curriculum", which shed light on the lack of effective reading instruction that results in children not being able to understand what they are reading. It encouraged teachers to ensure that there is ample amount of time for students to read as well as write rather than engage in useless activities, such as coloring, that are not beneficial to their reading skills. As I sat and observed the first day I realized how much time these first graders actually spent time reading and it was very meaningful. They had a time allocated for shared reading, which is when the CT would read aloud a story. When she was finished, she would have the students participate in a “talk with partner” activity in which they would answer specific questions that relate to the story and the partner in turn would say if they disagreed or not. It did not end there. Once they returned to their seats, they would complete a worksheet that required them to draw a picture of the character and setting and state what the problem and solution of the story was. It was obvious that the students were engaged and understood the story. |
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