Candidate Literacy Project

This is a sample candidate literacy project for SPE 525. It begins with a Program at a Glance, which provides succinct information about the student, Kelly. What follows is the initial literacy assessment, then literacy lesson plans and reflections.

Program-at-a-Glance

Student: Kelly Grade: 3

Profile

Loves socializing

Likes playing games

Loves looking at books

Likes one-on-one attention

Priority Goals - Academic

Develop further receptive and expressive language.

Develop further literacy skills, including comprehension, sight word identification, and word solving skills

Needs to develop further articulation when speaking

Priority Goals - Physical

Continue PT to help develop more gross motor skills

Continue OT to help improve visual-perceptual motor and bilateral skills.

Motoring of middle ear status; use of FM system

Priority Goals - Social

Further develop expressive and receptive language skills when interacting with peers and adults.

Further develop appropriate interactions with peers and adults throughout the day.

Priority Goals - Management

New information presented in small group (no more than 3).

Tasks involving more than 2 steps need to be broken down into smaller steps.

Visual schedule is used to make transitions easier.

Positive reinforcement is used to encourage compliant behavior and to stay on task.

General Supports

Teach staff how to use FM system to allow successful communication.

Teach staff and peers to allow Kelly wait time in answering questions.

Teach staff to decrease support given to Kelly. She can complete tasks independently when given adequate time.

Assessment of Current Literacy Skills

Through conversations, observations, and conducting some informal literacy assessments, I have gathered data on Kelly's literacy abilities and needs. I conducted a running record and a sight word checklist. The results of these assessments are on the following pages. According to Kelly's special education teacher, Kelly is working at an instructional level at the first grade. They use QRI's for assessments and they use a Fountas and Pinnell scale to determine the levels of their texts for guided reading.

Kelly currently has a guided reading session every day for 30 minutes with 5 other students. After observing a couple of these sessions I realized that I would want to do my guided reading lessons in a one-on-one situation. Each of the students that are in her reading group have IEP's. I was not comfortable in developing lessons that would target each individuals needs. I wanted to focus all my attention on Kelly and create lessons in which she would be able to read texts with me. In her current situation she was following along listening to others read. Sometimes she wasn't even on the same page. I wanted to give her some individualized lessons.

Kelly is an emerging reader who is at an Instructional Level of Grade 1. She is currently independently reading books leveled C based on the Fountas and Pinnell scale. Kelly is working with support on books that are leveled D. Kelly has some strong background knowledge about topics, especially cats, dogs, and dancing. Kelly uses strong picture cues when trying to solve unknown words. She also uses pictures to help her retell a story that she has read. She is beginning to identify the first letter in a word and sound it out to help in solving unknown words. She is also beginning to sound out blends.

Kelly becomes easily distracted which can cause her to lose her place. She also tends to skip words and look around a page a lot. Kelly needs to increase her fluency rate by becoming less distracted and more focused on the print of the page. Her voice to print match needs to increase. Kelly also needs to begin learning and using more strategies to help her solve unknown words. These are all things that I worked on with her.

Running Record Analysis

I decided to conduct a running record on the first read of the text The Mitten. I wasn't so much looking to see what the ratios and accuracies were as much as I wanted to see how Kelly was using meaning, syntax, and visual cues. It was very interesting. First off, Kelly had problems reading the text from left to right and skimming back to the line that was underneath. She started to read all over the page. I stopped her and told her that she should use her finger to point to the words so that she could see the words she needed to read. I definitely saw this as something she needed to work on. To help Kelly increase her comprehension, voice-print match should be taught and practiced. This will be a lesson I do with her.

I learned a lot about Kelly's reading strengths and weaknesses. Most of the errors that Kelly made she used visual cues. She is very strong at looking at the beginning of the words. She definitely identifies the beginning of words. She has no problem with that. It is a good start in trying to decode unknown words. She just needs to work on looking at the endings of words.

When Kelly changed some of the words, she had a 50% chance in having the sentence still make sense. Sometimes the changes would work, but other times it wouldn't and she never tried to correct any errors. This tells me that she does not self-monitor. She may be reading the words to just read words. She may not comprehend the story. I'll definitely want to ask her comprehension questions throughout stories that she reads during the guided reading lessons.

This was a nice quick way to see what kind of cues and strategies she uses while she reads. It has also helped me to see what she needs to work on to help her become a better reader.

Sight Word Analysis

Kelly's IEP has her identifying first grade sight words. The school district in which Kelly resides in has their own sight word recognition lists. Kelly's special education teacher gave me a copy of the kindergarten and first grade lists. They are all on index cards. I decided to test Kelly to see how many first grade sight words she could identify. I started the testing knowing that when I reached 10 words that she identified wrong, I was going to stop because I didn't want her to become frustrated. I was surprised to see how quickly the testing went. We only went through the fist 19 words for the first grade and had to stop because she had missed 10. I expected her to know more because she was reading at an instructional level of the first grade.

Since I was so surprised, I decided to see how many words Kelly could identify off the Kindergarten sight word list. She did very well with this list. She was able to correctly identify 25 out of 30 words. After looking over the words that Kelly wrongly identified, I noticed a big pattern. It appeared that Kelly was omitting the ends of words. The words that she said had the same first and second letters that were on the list. She just changed the ending. This helps me in determining what I can help her with during word work. If she is not looking at the ends of words, the she needs to practice looking at and identifying the letters at the ends of words.

I also need to find texts that have these words in them and use them for the guided reading lesson books.

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LESSON PLANS AND REFLECTIONS

Literacy Lesson #1

Date: March 12, 2008

Student: Kelly

Group Size: one to one

Abilities: Kelly is an emerging reader who is at an Instructional Level of Grade 1. She is currently independently reading books leveled C based on the Fountas and Pinnell scale. Kelly is working with support on books that are leveled D. Kelly has some strong background knowledge about topics, especially cats, dogs, and dancing. Kelly uses strong picture cues when trying to solve unknown words. She also uses pictures to help her retell a story that she has read. She is beginning to identify the first letter in a word and sound it out to help in solving unknown words. She is also beginning to sound out blends.

Priorities: Kelly becomes easily distracted which can cause her to lose her place. She also tends to skip words and look around a page a lot. Kelly needs to increase her fluency rate by becoming less distracted and more focused on the print of the page. Her voice to print match needs to increase. Kelly also needs to begin learning and using more strategies to help her solve unknown words.

Objectives:

Kelly will be able to increase her voice-print matching by pointing to the words as she reads.
Kelly will be able to solve unknown words by looking for picture cues with little support.
Kelly will be able to solve unknown words by sounding out the first letter or blend of the word.
Kelly will be able to retell the story on her own and then with the use of the story.
Kelly will be able to write the order of events by looking back in the story by completing a worksheet during the writing section of the lesson..
Kelly will be able to match the correct beginning blend with its ending to match a picture during word work.

Guided Reading: The Mitten F&P Level D

Pre-reading: Focused Mini Lesson

Sometimes when I read, especially if there are a lot of words on a page, I lose the place where I am at. When this happens I get all confused and forget about some of the things that I have read. Good readers try to stay focused on what they are reading and it helps them figure out what the book is telling them. There are a lot of ways good readers stay focused. One way is that they use their fingers to point to the words as they read. When they do this, they know that they are reading the right words in the order the author wrote them. I'll show you what I mean.

Let's take a look at this page. I'm going to point to the first word on the page. As I read along, I'm going to move my finger so that the word I am saying is the word that I am pointing to.

"Squish, squash, squeeze. Ah." See how I did that? I'll show you one more time (repeat).

Okay, now you try it.

When we read this story in a minute, we are going to point to the words as we read them, just like good readers do.

Pre-reading: Book Intro

Let's look at the cover. Can you read me the title?

Where do you think this story is going to take place? During what season is it? How do you know?

Let's go ahead and look at the pictures.

As we take a picture walk, I will ask Kelly what the animals are and what she thinks they are doing and why.

During Reading:

Now you are going to get a chance to read this book to me and we are going to see if your predictions were right. Remember, as you read to me, point to the words as you say them. Also, if you come to a word that you don't know you can always look to see if the picture can help you, or you can try sounding the word out, starting with the first letter. Good readers always have special strategies to help them when they get stuck on a word. Let's begin.

As Kelly reads I will support her by making sure she points to the words as she reads them. I will try to do this with as little support as possible. I will also support her if she gets stuck on an unknown word. I will give her some wait time to see if she can figure it out by herself. If there is no attempt I'll prompt her to look at the picture. If the picture doesn't help, I'll have her look at the initial consonant and have her begin to sound the word out.

Comprehension:

I will ask Kelly to recall whatever details she remembers about the story and I will scribe them for her. I will also ask her to recall what animals she remembers seeing and reading about. I will also scribe this list for her.

Writing:

I will support Kelly in completing a worksheet that orders the events in the story based upon the animals that crawled into the mitten. She will use the book to determine the order in which the animals crawled into the mitten (see worksheet).

Word Work:

Kelly will work on the beginning blends of two consonant sounds. She will identify a picture, determine the beginning blend and then match the blend up with the correct ending. She will then write the word under the corresponding picture (see worksheet).

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Literacy Reflection #1

I was pretty happy on how well my first literacy lesson went. I had some ideas on what Kelly's abilities and needs were, based on her IEP and just observations of what I have seen so far. I decided to do a structured guided reading lesson with Kelly one on one. Normally Kelly is in a guided reading group made up of five people. The peers that are in her group all have IEPs and need different modifications. At this time, I did not feel comfortable with creating a lesson that would meet each individual members needs. I know that I will have to do that in the future, but I really just wanted to concentrate on creating a literacy lesson that would benefit Kelly's needs and help her in becoming a better reader. I also chose to do the lesson where she would normally have a guided reading group lesson done (literacy room).

I thought that the flow of the lesson was really good. Kelly transitioned to each new section fairly well. I did not anticipate taking any breaks, but realized that during the writing section, Kelly was going to need a break. I then used the idea of a water break, as a driving force on completing the writing piece. Ultimately, this lesson took about 45 minutes. For me that is not a long time. I can stay focused on the task at hand. However, it is difficult for Kelly. She becomes distracted and loses focus easily. That is something that I am going to have to take into consideration as I plan my next lessons. I should have adequate and appropriate breaks for Kelly to take. When we took the water break, it was only for a couple of minutes and then she came back and continued right on with what I had planned next.

The other part of lesson that did not go as I planned was the word work section. In my lesson, it states that Kelly would write the word on the line under the picture. After writing two of the words, I felt like I was starting to lose Kelly. She was starting to fidget more and she needed more verbal prompting and cueing. I decided then to give her a choice. I asked her if she wanted to write the words or cut the pieces out and glue them together. She chose to cut and paste them. I figured that the objective of the word work was to identify the beginning blend of the word and that the writing of the word was just a secondary objective. Identifying the beginning blend was more important than writing it.

After we cut them up, I realized Kelly was struggling with the endings of the words. She was doing great with picking out the beginning blends but was struggling with identifying the endings. Since we decided to cut them out, I realized that I could pick out a couple of endings for her to choose from. Once I limited it down to two options, she had an easier time in identifying the correct ending. She just did a fantastic job.

The focused mini-lesson went better than I thought it was going to be at first. I did a lot of talking in explaining the voice-print match. From what I have observed from Kelly, she appears to only hear half of what is being said. I wasn't sure she focused on what I was saying. I'm glad that I decided to show the example of me doing the voice-print match twice. I then decided to do a physical prompt with her before letting her do it independently. I think it was the right thing to do. By doing it with her, I knew that she would have a better understanding. She still needed a little help in solving the words, but she pointed to the print just fine. It was a good mini-lesson to do with her. It will definitely be something that I continue to do with her for the next few lessons.

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Literacy Lesson #2

Student: Kelly

Group Size: one to one

Objectives:

Kelly will be able to increase her voice-print matching by pointing to the words as she reads.
Kelly will be able to solve unknown words by looking for picture cues with little support.
Kelly will be able to solve unknown words by sounding out the first letter or blend of the word.
Kelly will be able to retell as much of the story as she can without looking at the book.
Kelly will be able to write a paragraph about how she builds a snowman.
Kelly will be able to recognize the last letter in words and sort them into correct column during word work.

Guided Reading: One Snowy Day

Pre-reading: Focused Mini Lesson

Do you remember what we learned that good readers do? (point to words as they read)

We are going to keep doing that every time we read now. It will help us keep track of where we are. Today we are going to learn how to figure out an unknown word by sounding it out. When we sound out the letters in a word that we don't know, sometimes we can figure it out. Watch me as I try it.

Pg. 8 & 9: Rabbit gave up a carrot. Skunk _________. I don't know this word. When I look after the word it say "the hat". I just don't know what this one word is (point to it).I'm going to try and sound it out. What does o say? /o/ f... off. I think I have part of the word, off. Let me keep going off..rrr...d. Offer...d. Offered. I think I have it. Let's put it into the sentence and we'll see if it makes sense.

Skunk offered the hat. What do you think? It looks right and sounds right, and it makes sense. I think I figured out the word. Sounding out the letters helped me figure out a word I didn't know.

Today you will get the chance to do that. Whenever you come to a word you don't know, we'll try to sound it out together and see if we can't figure it out.

Pre-reading: Book Intro

What do you like to do on a snowy day? I'll scribe a list of what she says.

What animals do you see on the cover? What do you think they would do on a snowy day? I'll also scribe these answers too.

The title of the book is called One Snowy Day and the author is Jeffrey Scherer. What does an author do?

Let's take a picture walk? What animals do you see on this page? What is the bear picking up? Branches. What letter does branches begin with? Listen to the sound the beginning makes, b. Do you see the word branches on either of these pages?

We'll continue the picture walk I will lead the discussion towards words that are in the text that Kelly can pick out.

Do you think this story is fiction (fake) or nonfiction (real)?

During Reading:

Now you are going to get a chance to read this book to me and we are going to see if your predictions were right. Remember, as you read to me, point to the words as you say them. Also, if you come to a word that you don't know you can always look to see if the picture can help you. If the picture doesn't help you, we will try to sound it together. Go ahead and read, starting with the title.

As Kelly reads I will support her by making sure she points to the words as she reads them. I will try to do this with as little support as possible. I will also support her if she gets stuck on an unknown word. I will give her some wait time to see if she can figure it out by herself. If there is no attempt I'll prompt her to look at the picture. If the picture doesn't help, I'll tell her to try to sound it out. I'll give her high support to start off with since this is a new strategy.

Comprehension:

Writing:

I will have a worksheet that Kelly and I will complete together. It will require her to make a text to self connection. In a paragraph, she will describe how she makes a snowman. I will scribe this for her, because I want to get her details and story down. When she is done I will have her read what I have scribed

Word Work:

Kelly has a good grasp on beginning sounds, but ending sounds are a little harder for her to recognize. Today's lesson will have Kelly putting pictures of words under the correct letter column that the words end in.

Words w/ -b -f -g -m -r

Bulb	Leaf	Big	Drum	Air
Cub	Off	Rug	Ham	Bear
Tub	Shelf	Bug	Storm	Car
Crab	Cuff	Mug	Clam	Door

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Lesson #2 Reflection

Today's lesson went very well today. The book introduction was interesting. I had asked her what she thought the animals on the cover of the book did on a snowy day. She didn't really take it as an implicit question. She answered by what she saw on the cover of the book. She said that a bear would hike in the snow and that a rabbit would eat in the snow. She didn't know what a squirrel would do in the snow. I just thought it was interesting because she not making any connections to what she knows about animals during the different seasons. I would think that she would know some basic knowledge about these animals, so it makes me think that she's not making a lot of text-to-world connections.

During reading I decided to not say anything about pointing to the words as she read. During the mini-lesson I reminded her that we used our fingers last time to point to the words as we read them. She started to do it at first but then a few pages in she stopped pointing and started to skip over words. I gave her a verbal reminder to use her finger and she did. She used it for the rest of the story. I think it is going to be important for me to verbally remind her every time we read to point to the words because I think it will increase her comprehension. She still has a hard time focusing on the words and reading from left to right. Without voice-print match, she will read words out of order and will skip all over the page.

I noticed today that Kelly relies heavily on the picture cues. One of the sentences in the story was, "Bear picked up the branches". The illustration was of a bear holding a branch. Kelly substituted the word branches for stick. The meaning and structure of the sentence held together, but the visual cues weren't even close. I liked how she used the picture cues, but it seemed as if she didn't look at the word at all. I stopped her and asked her to look at the last word again. She didn't say anything, so I asked her what the first letter was. She was able to identify it, so I then asked her what another name for a stick might be that starts with a b. She didn't have an answer, so I was able to help her break the word down on the white board. We discussed what blend sound br made, then she identified the word an after, and then when I pulled the ch blend out, she was able to say the word. I think it helps her see the word in isolation. I think it is because she works with sight words in isolation a lot.

The word work portion of the lesson was kind of a mess. I focused this part of the lesson on looking at the ending consonant of words. The words ended in the letters b, f, g, m, and r. I used boardmaker so I had pictures with the words. The words had the last letter off of it. Kelly was very focused on looking at the first letter of the word and placing it in that letter column. An example was she put bear in the b column instead of the r column. She did this with quite a few. I had to keep stressing that she needed to look at the last letter. I eventually asked her to spell the word to me. Once she spelled it and said the last letter correctly, she was able to place it in the correct column. I know that her IEP has her working on looking at the beginning sounds and letters of words, so I'm not sure if her doing that so much made this activity difficult or if it was because I didn't explain in a good way what I wanted her to do. Regardless of why it was difficult, it is definitely something she will work on again. The endings of words are just as important as the beginnings. I will definitely do another activity that focuses on the endings of words in a future lesson.

In my next lesson I would like to create a PowerPoint book with her. I've been thinking about doing one on safety because it is a concern of her mothers. I still want to read a text and work on the skills of voice-print match and sounding out letters in words. A lesson on possibly chunking words or maybe self-monitoring will also be considered. These are all skills that will help Kelly become a better reader.

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Literacy Lesson #3

Date: April 2, 2008

Student: Kelly

Lesson: Shared Reading 1:1

Objectives:

Kelly will be able to use picture cues with little support to try and solve unknown words.
Kelly will be able to sound out unknown words with moderate to high support.
Kelly will be able to demonstrate voice-print match by using her finger to point to the words as she reads them.
Kelly will be able to restate important information about certain topics during the story. This information will be scribed into a graphic organizer for her.
Kelly will be able to take the information she gathered in the graphic organizer and use it to create sentences about the chosen topics.

Shared Reading: Home Safety by Nancy Loewen

Pre-reading: Focused Mini Lesson

Kelly has been working on voice-print match for a few lessons. The book that we will be reading together today has a lot of lines of print on some of the pages. This will be overwhelming for her, so I am going to use a bookmark to help us keep track of what line we are on. I will still encourage Kelly to use her finger to point to each individual word.

Kelly has had one lesson on sounding out words. I am going to do that again with her today. I will first show an example and then I will have some preselected words for her to try and solve. She will be solving the words in isolation.

Pre-reading: Book Intro

Today we are going to read a book about home safety. Take a look at the cover of this book. Do you think these two animals are being safe? Why or why not?

Can you think of anything that could make you safe in your home?

Let's go ahead and look at some of these pictures.

During the picture walk, I will ask Kelly different questions to activate her background and to help her make some connections to the text.

Now, before we read this book together, I have one more thing I want to show you. As we read this book we are going to fill sheet out. It has six different topics in it. Read the topics. As you learn about things you can do to be safe at home, I'll help you write the new things you learn in the boxes. We'll use this later on to help us write our own sentences about these topics.

During Reading:

This book is above Kelly's instructional level. The reason I chose this book is because Kelly's mother is very worried about Kelly's safety. It is a big concern for her. I've decided to read some of the pages to Kelly and then have her read some of the pages to me with support. Through different observations, I've noticed that Kelly comprehends more of a story when it is read to her. I'm looking for her to be able to pick out the important facts about home safety.

As Kelly reads I will give her little support in making sure that she points to the words as she reads them. I will support her if she gets stuck on an unknown word. I will give her some wait time to see if she can figure it out by herself. If there is no attempt I'll prompt her to look at the picture. If the picture doesn't help, I'll ask her what else she could do. I'll point to the first letter in the unknown word to see if she attempts to decode the word on her own. I'll give her high support after she has identified the first letter and the sound that goes with it. I will then have her look at the following letter and support her in sounding the word out. After she has decided on what she thinks the word is, I'll ask her if it makes sense when it is read in the sentence.

Comprehension:

Throughout the book, I will be stopping Kelly to see if there is anything that she wants me to write in the graphic organizer. I will ask her leading questions to get her thinking about what she had heard or read.

Writing:

Once the graphic organizer is complete, we will create sentences to go along with each of the topics. These sentences will be scribed by me. I will show Kelly that the sentences we create will be placed in a book of her own that she will be able to read on the computer.

Word Work:

I have made no plans for word work because I believe that this lesson will take a long time and there will be no time left for this section.

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Lesson 3 Reflection

I have mixed emotions on how I think this lesson went. After completing lesson, I felt that it didn't go the way I was hoping. When I got home, I watched the tape and my feelings changed. It didn't look like the lesson had gone as roughly as I thought it did. I thought that the mini lesson was good. I knew that Kelly was able to pick out the first letter of words and sound that letter out. I wanted to take it one step further and have her continue looking at the next few letters and sound them out. It will definitely be a lesson that will have to be reviewed and worked on. I almost think Kelly would benefit from just looking at the first two letters and getting used to identifying these letters to help her solve words.

Going into the lesson, I planned on reading one page and then having her read a page. Usually every other page just had two sentences on it. There were a couple of times where there was a lot of print when she would have read. At one point I read a page and then Kelly went to read the next page, but I stopped her. There were about five lines of print and I knew it would be a lot for her, especially since there were some difficult words. Looking back on that moment, I wish I hadn't have stopped her. She was ready and wanting to read and I stopped her. I can't believe I did that! I should have let her read at least a sentence or two and then asked her if she wanted to continue or if she wanted me to read the rest. I will never make that mistake again.

Thinking about the words that Kelly had to solve, I don't think I supported her in using the sounding out word solving strategy like I planned on. Some of the words were advanced for her and I didn't want her to get frustrated so I just told her a lot of the words. Towards the end of the story, I found it to go smoother if I had Kelly repeat the words, or echo, what I had said. That wasn't the way I had planned to do it, but I didn't want her to get frustrated or to lose her interest.

Since there was so much content in the book, I was pleased with the graphic organizer I had created and how I utilized it. Once we read about one of the topics, I would discuss it with Kelly. I had to use a lot of leading questions, but I don't think that is a bad thing. She was still answering the questions on her own. It definitely helped her remember what she had read. We didn't get to the writing part that I had planned in my lesson. We spent a lot of time reading together and talking about what we read. I'm just going to move the writing part to my next lesson because we are going to create a PowerPoint book with the information we read about on safety.

I am really looking forward to creating the book with Kelly. I showed her what we were going to do on Friday and she seemed interested. I don't know how much she uses a computer (I've never seen her on one) but it will be an interesting and fun lesson to do with her.

Literacy Lesson #3 Part 2

Date: April 4, 2008

Student: Kelly

Lesson: PowerPoint Creation

Objectives:

Kelly will retell the story Home Safety by looking at the pictures of the text.
Kelly will review the graphic organizer created in the last lesson.
With support and by using the graphic organizer, Kelly will be able to create sentences that explain how to be safe at home.
Kelly will be able to use a computer to type these sentences by looking at the word on paper and transferring it to the screen by typing the letters.
Kelly will be able to record her voice on the PowerPoint.

Familiar Read:

Kelly will review the story Home Safety and the graphic organizer created in the previous session.

Guided Reading:

Due to the length of time that will be used to create this PowerPoint book, Kelly will not be reading a new text today.

Writing:

After reviewing the book and discussing the graphic organizer, I will assist Kelly in creating sentences that can go in her story. One of my goals is to create sentences where she will be able to read them independently. Kelly will get a copy of this book when it is completed.

I will scribe sentences for Kelly so that she can look at the words to help her type them. I will let her look at the book so that she can get ideas in helping her create the sentences. Once we have the story created, Kelly will transfer the written words to the computer by typing them. I will assist Kelly in finding the letters because I do not think that she had a lot of experience on a computer.

Once the PowerPoint is created, I will assist Kelly in recording her voice to the story. I have not used a microphone before and I have never created a recorded PowerPoint book so this will be a new experience for me. I'm not sure how it is going to go, but if I'm excited and positive about it, Kelly will be too.

Word Work:

Throughout the writing of the story, I will ask Kelly to spell words that I know she is familiar with. This will help her in recalling letters and the sounds that they make. It will be good practice for her. The words that she won't know how to spell, I will make their sound and she will have to identify the letter that I am sounding out.

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Reflection #3 Part 2

What a learning experience for both Kelly and me! There were some good things and there were some bad things. I am so glad I decided to spend the entire time just focused on this lesson. It would have been nice to read a new text, but we used all the time I had. It was quite the process to create this book. The good thing is that Kelly was really into this lesson. When she saw what we were going to do she was very excited. She couldn't wait to get her own copy and we hadn't even made it yet.

The creations of the sentences for the book were a lot harder than I imagined it would be. Kelly knew what she wanted to say about each topic and was awesome in telling me what we should say about being safe. She recalled a lot of information from just looking at the pictures. I found it to be extremely difficult to write the sentences at her independent level. I didn't realize how hard it would be to bring myself down to a level where she would be able to read this book independently. I wanted to make the text simpler, but couldn't. By the time we finished creating the sentences the book was at her instructional level, rather than at her independent level.

There is a good and a bad side to this. The bad side is that she won't be able to read it independently until she has read it repeatedly with someone else. The good thing is that she will have a chance to use some of the literacy skills that we have been working on. When it came to the recording of the book I had to restart it three different times. Kelly was a little scared at first to talk into the microphone. I showed her how it worked, recorded my voice, and then played it back to her. Once I did this she was fine. She struggled to read some of the words so I ended up having her echo phrases of the sentences after I read them to her. Unfortunately, you can hear my voice a little bit, but I didn't know what else to do. I thought it would be better to have her hear her voice in a fluent read, than to help her correct words she identified wrong. I'm not sure if there was anything else I could have done with the short amount of time we had spent together. If I was her teacher, I would read the book with her every day (familiar read) until she could fluently read it independently and then I would have her record her voice. Unfortunately, I didn't have that kind of time to do that.

The typing of the sentences was interesting too. Kelly had a hard time finding the keys, so I supported her by telling her what line they were in. Once I had the keys narrowed down to just one line, it was easier for her to find them. I ended up having her type a sentence and then I would type a sentence. She didn't get frustrated if she had a small break from the typing. When I typed, I had her read the words to me and it helped her in identifying some of the words. I was able to use some word solving skills as we typed the story.

Even though the creation of this PowerPoint book didn't go as smoothly as I was hoping, Kelly enjoyed creating it. I can't wait to give her a laminated copy of it. I saved it to my thumb drive and then placed a copy of it in her teacher's computer. She was going to share it with her class after lunch. I can't wait to find out on my next visit how the class reacted to it. She was very proud of the work she did.

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Literacy Lesson #4

Student: Kelly

Date: April 11, 2008

Group Size: one to one

Objectives:

Kelly will be able to increase her voice-print matching by pointing to the words as she reads.
Kelly will be able to solve unknown words by looking for picture cues with little support.
Kelly will be able to solve unknown words by sounding out the first letter or blend of the word.
Kelly will be able to begin self-monitoring skills by checking to see if what she reads makes sense.
Kelly will be able to recall the characters and setting of the story.
Kelly will be able to create her own sentence that follows the repetitive text of the story. She will then be able to put the sentences back in order after they have been cut up.
Kelly will be able to recognize ending letters and blends during a word work activity.

Familiar Read:

Kelly will have the choice between two previous books that she has read. Her choices are The Mitten or One Snowy Day. Kelly will read these out loud with no support from me. I am going to do a running record to collect more data on Kelly's reading strengths and needs.

Guided Reading: I Love Mud and Mud Loves Me F&P Level D

Pre-reading: Focused Mini Lesson

You have been doing some awesome reading the past two weeks. We have also learned a couple of things. When we point to words as we read them it helps us keep track of where we are. Also, when we come to a word that we don't know, we look at the first letter and try to figure out what the word could be.

Today, we're going to listen to what we read and check to make sure that what we are reading makes sense.

Pg.10: I'm going to read this sentence and I want you to listen and watch what I do. "Sam, why is there sand in your pillow?" He has sand in his pillow!! Well, that doesn't make sense. I see that he is in his bedroom and it looks like he is on his bed, but he doesn't have a pillow in his hands. I'm going to takes a look at that word again because it doesn't make sense to me. I will point to the word sneaker. Well, this is definitely not pillow because pillow starts with a p and this word starts with an s. Let's see. Sn..eee..k..ers. Sneakers! Let me read the whole sentence again. "Sam, why is there sand in your sneakers?" That makes more sense. It looks like he's holding a sneaker in the picture.

It's important to make sure that we listen to ourselves read because we want to make sure that what we read makes sense.

Pre-reading: Book Intro

Before I show Kelly the book, I am going to ask her what she thinks boy's would love. I will scribe a list on the whiteboard.

I will then show her the book and read her the title. I will tell her that we are going to read about what this boy, named Sam, loves. I will point out to her that the text is repetitive and will have the same words on each page.

During the picture walk, I will have Kelly tell me what it looks like this boy loves and I will scribe this list next to hers. We will then compare the list of what she thought, to the list that she discovered during the picture walk.

During Reading:

Now you are going to get a chance to read this book to me. Remember, if you come to a word that you don't know you can always look to see if the picture can help you. If the picture doesn't help you, look at the first letter and see if you can't figure it out. Also, try and listen to what you say and think about if it makes sense.

As Kelly reads I will give her little support in making sure that she points to the words as she reads them. I will also support her if she gets stuck on an unknown word. I will give her some wait time to see if she can figure it out by herself. If there is no attempt I'll prompt her to look at the picture. If the picture doesn't help, I'll ask her what else she could do. I'll point to the first letter in the unknown word to see if she attempts to decode the word on her own. I'll give her high support after she has identified the first letter and the sound that goes with it. I will also be listening to see if she is self-monitoring. If she reads something wrong and it doesn't appear as if she will correct herself, I will directly ask her if what she read made sense. I'll read it back to her and ask her the question again. We will then figure out the word(s) that were read wrong the first time and correct them.

Comprehension:

I will ask Kelly to recall the characters and setting of the story without looking back to the book. I will also ask Kelly what her favorite part of the book was. I will ask her to tell me what things Sam loved.

Writing:

I have a copy of the repetitive text on paper. "Sam , why is there ________ in your ________?" and "Sorry, Mom, but I love _________ and __________ loves me". Kelly will fill in the blanks with her own ideas. I will have the list from the introduction of things she thought boys might love to help her come up with some ideas. Once she has filled in the blanks (I'll scribe), I'm going to cut the pieces up and she will have to put them back in order and glue them onto another page. She will then have the chance to illustrate it.

Word Work:

Kelly will play the game Candy Shop. This game will help Kelly in identifying the ending letter or blends of words.

Sam, why is there

__________ on your

___________?

Sorry, Mom, but I love ______________

and ______________

loves me.

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Lesson 4 Reflection

I had a lot of fun with this lesson and I think Kelly did too. This was a fun book to read. I decided to try a new skill today that focused on her starting to self-monitor her reading. I talked about how good readers listen to themselves as they read to make sure that what they read makes sense. I did an example and she laughed at me!! By looking at the picture she knew that the sand wasn't in his pillow. I pointed to the word sneaker and asked her what letter the word began with. After that I asked her what pillow started with and she was able to identify the letter. He first said shoes but I had her look at the word again and showed her how shoes were spelled on the whiteboard. She looked at it for a couple of more seconds and then came up with the word sneaker.

She had fun with the story and relied on the pictures heavily. Whenever she read something that didn't make sense I would read it back the way she said it and asked her if it sounded right. When I read it, she said that it didn't make sense, but when she read it she didn't seem to notice. It makes me think that she may be reading the words to read words, but not so much for meaning. Kelly still needs to improve her comprehension and would probably benefit from short stories with a lot of comprehension questions asked throughout. The self-monitoring skills will need to be taught and practiced for a long period of time.

I did ask 3 comprehension questions at the end of the story and I didn't allow her to look back in the book. Kelly was able to tell me her favorite part, where the story took place, but she needed a little help with the characters name. I found that a little surprising because his name was mentioned in the repetitive text every other page. Once I told Kelly that it began with an s she remembered his name.

Kelly enjoyed creating two more pages for the book. I had Kelly think of something that was messy and she came up with markers all on her own. She also decided that having markers on her hands occurred often. I love how she made a connection to herself. Once I filled in the missing words I cut the sentence up and mixed the words up. I had the book sitting out on the table and after looking at the words she took the book and opened it up. She randomly picked a page and looked at the words. She used the print in the text to help her put the sentences back in order. I just sat back and watched her. She decided to look back at the story to help her. I think it was great that she did that. It was amazing.

The game was a lot of fun too. It was a good game to play because not only did it concentrate on the endings of words, but because there were no pictures Kelly had to use other strategies to try and solve the words. It was great to see her sounding words out and making good attempts at solving the words. These types of activities would benefit Kelly.

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