Lesson Five

Objectives:

1. Good readers are able to sort words into their proper categories based on blends and how the consonants influence the vowels.
2. Good readers are able to story map based on setting, characters, and main events of the story.
3. Good readers are able to create unique poems based on vocabulary words in the text.
4. Good readers are able to create their own unique visuals of how they feel the characters, setting and main events may look in the story.

Procedures:

1. We will start the lesson with continuing to read chapter 4 of Dragon of the Red Dawn book. During this time I will be conducting a running record to determine if his accuracy has improved in our time together. After we finish reading the story I will have him retell the main events and characters of the story. The student will then place these facts on our existing story map we started at the beginning of our time together.
2. After we finish with the story map the student will then be asked to create an acrostic poem using the phrase "The Poet Basho" based on a character from the book. I will ask the student to use words and phrases from what we have read and create descriptive visuals that help retell what we have read so far in the text. We will use the book to search for words in the text.
3. Once we have finished with our chapter 4 activities we will continue on with our word sort and discussion of blends and how the consonant r can influence how the vowel i may sound in a word. I will ask the student to sort the words that we used in our last session and have him explain to me why we sorted them in their particular categories. Once we are finished discussing the words we will do activities for the rest of our time together. Some activities will include blind sorts, speed sorts, rainbow sorts, etc.
4. Once we are finished and leaving I will be sending home a report card of our time together to share with the student's parents. I will also be giving him a small writing journal so he can practice over the summer. This journal will be for questions he might have as he reads and to write down all the books he may finish before the summer ends.

Reflection on student:

As we began Jason was prepared to continue reading our chapter book that we have been working on. He was adamant about reading in his head so I had to explain to him that I was assessing his reading and needed to hear him say the words out loud. I explained to him that I was trying to determine how accurate his reading was and how this would help me when we started our lesson. I analyzed the running record and saw that he improved his accuracy by 3% his error rate lowered to 1: 16.1 ratio while his self correction rate remained the same at a 1:4.33 ratio from his first running record. I was really happy to see these results as he had improved in this area in the short time we spent together.

As we transitioned into the next activity I explained to him that it would be something different and I wanted him to try and use his resources (the book) to  create an acrostic poem. He wasn't sure what an acrostic poem meant but when I started explaining it he knew right away! He started out strong creating words and phrases that really gave visuals for the book and were great descriptors. I wanted him to make sure that if someone read the poem that they could get a good visual or setting, characters or main events just based on the phrases he provided. After we got into it a little more he lost interest. He started to make up words that did not relate to the book at all and also were at times inappropriate. It took a lot of redirecting and prompts to get him back on track. After a little while of not making progress I helped him find words and had him describe what he already knew about the book. I then told him well that word starts with... This was to keep him on track to finish the project.

We ended our time together with our word sort that we have been working on the last few sessions. I once again had him sort the words out and explain his reasoning behind the sort. We then really focused on the sound the vowel in the word made when we said it out loud. I told him to really put emphasis on the vowel sound so he is able to properly sort the words. After we went through and spoke all of the words we did a speed sort. He really wanted to beat his time and so we focused on reading the word out loud quickly but making that emphasis on the sounds so he could get it correct the first time. He was able to sort his words properly, beating his best time twice during our session.

Reflection on teacher:

Although Jason expressed boredom for the book in our previous session I wanted to end on something he was familiar with and able to really finish strong for our last time together. I noticed that although he wasn't very interested in the book anymore he got right to work right away and knew the routine to where I didn't need to explain to him what needed to be done. It was nice for me to be able to just tell him our objectives and he was able to start without hesitation.  This also concerned me because I thought maybe we were not doing much of a variety in our lessons. I knew that it was the right choice however once I scored the running record and saw that he improved him accuracy when reading. I did ask him how he felt after reading this time and he told me that he thinks he was reading the book a lot better and understanding it as well.

There were a few times during our acrostic poem activity that I knew I lost control of our work time. He would get off task and it would take me longer than anticipated to get him back to working. This showed me that maybe I need to avoid something completely new unless I fully prepare the student prior. Next time I will want to have my lesson plans all complete and before leaving during a session explain to him that we will be doing something new and different and explain it briefly so that he will be ready to go when we start our next lesson.

The word sort was great. He really did a good job with focusing on putting emphasis on the vowel sound. It did take me a few times to really show him how to really pronounce each sound so you are able to tell the difference in which column they needed to be sorted into. After we finished really focusing together I let him take charge and sort out the words doing a speed sort. In the future however I want to really get some other activities involving word sorts incorporated to keep it fresh and fun for the student.