Reflection 2 (10/22/12)- Montague

·      While I was teaching my lesson on what good readers do (today’s focus was on the fact that good readers think about what they already know about a topic and what they want to learn before they read) I noticed that students understood why it was important to think about what they already know before reading. I know this because I explicitly taught it and asked them several times throughout our discussion why it was important. Students were able to raise their hands and tell me why every time that I asked. The only students that I saw ‘struggle’ with the lesson was not because they couldn’t do the content portion but the behavior of them was hindering their understanding of the lesson.

·      For those who did not get a good grasp on why it is important to think about what you know before you read, I plan on teaching this over and over again throughout my unit plan therefore students should have a very good idea by the end.

·      My objectives for this unit were not very content based therefore I learned a lot about the fact that my students know a lot about frogs already! Some have some very good questions or things they would like to learn during this unit, which is good, as it, will help guide my teaching.

·      All of my students could use additional support; therefore whenever we read nonfiction books (happens several times throughout the day, not only when I am teaching my lessons), we will review the importance of drawing upon background knowledge so that students get a better idea of why it is important.

·      If I were to teach the lesson again, I would love to know that I only had 30 minutes to teach it! I thought that the full hour was for the reading lesson but it turns out, my teacher needs to do writers workshop during the last 30 minutes that I had initially planned on. This takes quite a chunk out of the time I had to teach and left me in a hurry to get through everything that we needed. Therefore, if I had to re-teach this, I would do it in a time when I had more time to get all of the students thoughts on what they already know and want to learn instead of having to cut some short.

I learned that explicit teaching of comprehension skills is important, as students do in fact need to be taught it. I know that the more I practice teaching comprehension strategies explicitly that the better it will flow and the more ‘convincing’ I will sound to my students which will hopefully impact their learning in a more positive way.