Literacy Lesson 2

Instructional Decisions:

I think that my second literacy lesson went well!  Like last week, I started this tutoring session by doing the survey assessment.  This weeks survey assessment was the names and the sounds of the alphabet.  I had notecards with capital letters and notecards with lowercase letters.  We went through the letters, and I had L say the name and the sound of the letters.  I was really impressed with L’s ability to recall the names and sounds.  There were a few that L missed, but that is something we can work on in future lessons.  For example, the letter “y” was a challenge.  L pronounced it as “E.”  Knowing just a little about his background and that he is an English language learner, I can understand why this pronunciation could be a challenge.  Interestingly, both the upper and lower case “U” presented a challenge.  L called this letter “up.” As L was saying the sounds and letters, I kept track on the printed sheet I had with me. I checked what was correct and circled what was incorrect.  After the lesson, I went through the scoring paper to write down what L said.  

This is the official scoring sheet for L. 

The check marks show a correct response.  I labeled
the incorrect letter responses above
the letters and the incorrect sounds below.

After the survey assessment, we moved to reading and the mini lesson.  This week, I focused on fluency.  To practice this, I used echo reading as the technique to allow L to practice reading.  We looked at the book “A Stick is a Wonderful Thing,” which is a book of poetry about outdoor games and activities.  Before reading, I asked L to predict what he may think the book was about.  He thought the book would be about sticks, which I thought was a really great prediction to have.  L used the images and the words in the title to make this prediction.  Although the book is not only about sticks, he was using what he knew to make his prediction. 


During the book, I started by reading a poem to L.  I just read one poem by myself first.  Then, we worked on reading a poem together.  In the second poem, I read it first.  Then, I had L echo the lines I said.  We practiced doing this together for the rest of the time.  During this part, I think that a lot of it was just L repeating what I was saying.  I tried to have him point to the words, but I think I ended up pointing to most of them.  Even if L wasn’t reading all of the words, I was really proud of his ability to listen and repeat.  Just hearing the sounds is a great thing, especially since L is an English language learner.  

The book of poetry we read!

A poem that we used during echo reading.

After the poems, I asked L a few questions about what he likes to do outside.  This was a good opportunity to learn a little more about L.  Since he was so quiet the first week, I was happy that he was willing to share with me.  In the last few moments, we continued to work a little on our ABC thematic unit book. 

I decided to once again use this format because it seems to work well.  Doing the assessment first helps to make sure I’m not rushing L.  It also leaves enough time to end on the activities that L finds more enjoyable.  


Differentiation: 

I think that the book I used was helpful for L.  Again, it had vivid images that matched the text, which helps L understand what is happening.  Using a book of poems was actually a great fit because the poems were short, yet fun with just enough challenge.  The shorter length of the poems helped keep L’s attention.  It also made the task of echoing more doable.  The shorter poems also seemed to allow L to better understand what was happening in the poem.  I think a longer book could have been used to practice fluency, but I think that some of the understanding would have been lost.  Throughout the lesson, I did more modeling with the echo reading than I had originally planned.  I also ended up pointing to the words instead of having L point to the words.  


Goals: 

Next tutoring session, I would like to work with L on a few of the letters he missed.  I would specifically like to review the "u," "y," and "g." I would also like to continue working on some FAST words with L.  Finally, I would like to continue to help L build confidence in his speaking.