My Final Formal Lesson!

I implemented my lesson plan focusing on word families today in my clinical.  I had objects from two different word families, such as sock, lock, and clock for the ock family and log, hog, and clog for the og family.  These were mixed up in a bucket and students from the small group chose objects out of the bucket and categorized them in the correct word family bucket.  The students then placed the objects in the corresponding buckets and then wrote it on their white boards.  I got through two small groups, the higher ability level and the lower ability group.

            As the lesson was going on, I felt very confident in it.  The students were all very engaged and they understood the concept of the word families being used to spell words.  I did have to make many “in the moment” teaching decisions, however.  During this lesson a few students did not know what the object was.  For example, they thought clog was a shoe and hog was a pig.  They were confused as to what this language was and as I gave them hints as to what it was they still were not getting it.  I decided to “chop” the word to help the students figure out what it was and how to spell it.  This helped them a lot and I think that it helped to build their vocabulary. I thought that the materials worked great for this lesson.  It gave students a hands on concept and real life example of the words rather than having them on a worksheet.  I also think that the students’ general learning of the concept of using the ending part of the word to make words went very well.  The students in the higher ability level really seemed to grasp this.  They were writing down the names of the objects very quickly and as I noticed this I stopped this part of the activity.  I had the students instead jump to their sentences.  While they were doing this, they used the word families to create new words, so they showed higher level thinking in doing this.  As this was the main goal of the lesson, this was a positive.

            The students learned more about the two specific word families.  They rhymed the ending and they created new words, which are skills they are able to use in their writing and even reading.  The higher group also worked on their skills of writing sentences and substituting the beginning sound to actually make a new word.  The lower ability level students were able to categorize and identify the word family in each word.  They were all able to do this.  When a student had a tough time with these skills, I chopped the word or pointed out the buckets that were labeled with the word family to help them be able to spell it.  I was able to see that they met the objectives by having them write out the objects’ names and the sentences.  I was able to see where students were having trouble and where I needed to intervene to help the students learn from their mistakes. I think that changing this lesson would make the learning better.  I would use this as a supplement lesson for hands on learners in my classroom.  I would have the students have word family books.  There would be a new book for each word family and the students would be able to draw a picture of it, write the word, underline the word family, and write a sentence.  These would be great for assessment purposes and also for a reference material for students.  The students would be able to pull these books out when they had trouble spelling a word, or when they needed some extra practice on word families.  It would also be a great permanent product to show families what the students are learning in literacy. With that being said, I would use this hands on activity along with the word family books so that students get a real life connection to the word.

            Through this lesson, I learned a lot about myself as a future teacher.  After doing this lesson I noticed that I really need to focus on doing a conclusion.  Throughout the past two formal lessons I have had, I forget the conclusion.  I believe that it is because I am under supervision, time restraints, and stress, but I need to ensure students grasped the major things they learned from the lesson so that they can apply it in their writing and reading.  After doing this lesson, I also realized I need to be very prepared with academic language and vocabulary that may come up.  Since I did not know how to create references to prior knowledge for students to come up with the correct words for things such as hog, I felt unprepared. I think this knowledge will come with having better pedagogy and also knowing my students better.

I also learned some positive things that I do as a teacher.  I learned that I was very responsive to the students.  Whenever they had a question, I was there to answer it.  I was constantly referring the students back to the word family bucket label so that they could get the connection between spelling, word families, and creating these words along with new words. I also feel that my introduction to the students was strong.  In the introduction I told students we would be talking about word families, I asked them what word families were, and how they help us to become better spellers.  I also “hooked” the students by asking the students what two previous word families’ words had in common.  For example, I listed off ox, fox, and box.  I asked the students what these words had in common.  They all said “they rhyme” or “they’re a part of the same word family.” I connected this back to what they learned the previous week and they really seemed to understand it.  The transitions also went smoothly.  I transitioned the students to come to and from my group by shaking a tambourine.  All the students stopped their literacy centers and put their hands on their heads.  I called the students I needed, and they came without a problem. All in all, I believe this lesson went very well.  I would definitely implement it again as I see it being a major concept and skill that emerging readers and writers need to possess.