Kerry Gleason EPS 541 March 18, 2013 Planning Paper

1.Knowledge of the Content Focus and Standards. Discuss the central focus of the content in the learning segment. Refer to and unpack the relevant standards. What insights do you have regarding your own content knowledge and its relationship to teaching? What challenges do you anticipate? The central focus of my learning segment is third grade reading. There are many standards that are relevant to this segment, so I am going to name a few that I find the most important regarding the topic. The Illinois learning standards are broken down into three categories. As far as third grade goes I am going to pick the standard from each category that we seem to study the most. First, apply word analysis and vocabulary skills to comprehend selections. 1.A.1b comprehend unfamiliar words using context clues and prior knowledge; verify meanings with resource materials. This standards in so important because students

need to be able to read words they are unfamiliar with and then be able to make meaning of them based on their context clues. This can be a huge challenge if my students do not have an extensive vocabulary. Second, apply reading strategies to improve understanding and fluency. 1.B.1a establish purposes for reading, make predictions, connect important ideas, and link text to previous experiences and knowledge. I would also like to speak to this standard; 1.B.1c continuously check and clarify for understanding (e.g., reread, read ahead, use visual and context clues, ask questions, retell, use meaningful substitutions). These two standards are important because they help promote understanding and give examples of skills that we constantly use in the classroom to improve comprehension. A challenge that I see in this category is that students need to be able to think in a metacognitive way in order to reach some of these goals on a regular basis. If we can teach our students to think about their thinking, then we are heading in the right direction. Third, comprehend a broad range of reading materials. 1.C.1d Summarize content of reading material using text organization (e.g., story, sequence). In this standard being able to retell and summarizing is huge. This shows that students are able to understand. Taking it a step further, when students are able to transfer their knowledge from one area to the next by comparing and contrasting we as educators know they have a deep understanding of the content. The challenge I encounter here has to deal with students not thinking about what they are reading as they are doing the act of reading. We need to get our students to go beyond reading words and

comprehending words. All three of these categories are extremely crucial in building the foundations for reading not only third grade students, but also every student. 2. Knowledge of Students relative to the Content. Discuss your students knowledge and skill relative to the content focus. What do they know, what can they do and what are they are learning to do? Also, consider their academic language, experiential/cultural backgrounds, learning strategies, and habits of mind. I have a wide range of students in my third grade classroom that range from pre-kindergarten reading levels to fourth grade. With this in mind, differentiation during workstations in the most important piece of instruction. It is crucial to know your students in order to effectively connect and teach them. When it comes to academic development class wide assessments help inform teachers on their students academic strengths and weaknesses. This gives teachers the idea of where they need to start with their lessons and how deep the need to dive with certain topics. The specific knowledge I gained from these test was that more than 75% of my students are not at a third grade reading level. Most of them are at a first grade, kindergarten, and pre-k level. This means the students are still working on letter identification, blends, digraphs, and other pre-reading skills. The need to be able to read at a third grade level to start developing their concept of print, word recognition, fluency, vocabulary, and more. As an educator I know I need to go back to some basic skills and explicitly teach them to my students so they can hopefully gain those skills now before they move on in their education. Being able to know background information about my students has helped me out a lot when it come to planning and thinking of student responses. If students are interested in a specific topic they are more likely to buy into what the teacher is teaching. Because of this, I can choose reading material that relates to my students

lives to help them build background knowledge and expand their schemas. Understanding my students social and emotional needs can help me plan my lessons. I can see what students prefer to work in groups or alone. For example, my students seem to be more engaged and motivated when working in a group. I can see all my students participating. Sometimes when students are working independently it can be tough to get started. They sometimes shut down if a task is too difficult, so working as a group can ease that initial issue with getting to work. Thats why I ask my students to think-pair-share a lot during my mini-lessons. They get many chances to discuss with each other before doing independent practice. I can also see what they need, so I can provide a positive learning environment where students feel free and safe to express their thoughts. In my current classroom we say that our classroom is our home and that we are a family. This helps students understand that even though we might be upset with each other sometimes we still love each other and that we can all learn from one another. Observations and the parent survey sent out at the beginning of the year have been the most useful to determine the social and emotional needs of my students. I think working in small groups with students of the same ability has been really helpful. The students in my class are grouped by RIT band score from the MAP test. Students are engaged by the lesson because it is at their exact level. The students are able to build off each other to better understand the objective. It also helps students feel successful because kids at a higher academic level do not overpower the lesson. As far as key language arts skills for the class I taught my lesson to, they are at a second grade level, they can problem solve most new words

on-the-run and sustain meaning while reading, they can recognize and discuss connections between different parts of a text, and use evidence from the text to support answers and respond to other opinions. 3. Knowledge of Instruction and Assessment relative to the Content. Discuss effective instructional strategies to support your students learning relative to the content focus of the learning segment and what you know about their knowledge and skills and the learning process. Draw on course readings to provide a research base. How will these strategies engage prior knowledge, facilitate conceptual connections, or address potential misconceptions? How will you monitor students to ensure they are progressing? What evidence will you look for to know that students are making progress? There are many instructional strategies that support my students knowledge and skills, and the learning process. Based on the text Effective Teaching Strategies that Accommodate Diverse Learners I found the learning strategies portion the most relevant to my students. Research shows that we can only learn as much information based on what we already know. This is why making connections through learning is so important. By exposing students to a wide variety of material that they can relate to their own lives teachers can build upon what their students already know and push their thinking further. One way I monitor my students learning is by having them track their thoughts on post-it notes when they read. This ensures that they are actually focusing on the text rather than just reading the words. By providing many examples of think-alouds and by giving explicit explanations I can guide my students to being able to think through steps so that they can do it on their own. I look to see progress in thoughts and my students level of comprehension, along with the ability to make deep connections with texts across curriculum.