Analysis of Lesson and Teaching
Lesson Context:
I was the first one of my partners to implement our lesson. It was the day before Thanksgiving break and the very last instructional period before dismissal, so I knew it could be rather challenging to get these students engaged and focused. I had pre-selected a diverse set of students to participate but many students did not come to school that day and so I selected some students on the fly that were interested in staying behind from Art with me to do a reading lesson. I figured perhaps the fact that these students chose to be with me would help the engagement level. It ended up being a small group of six girls who are diverse in terms of their reading and writing ability level. I had two girls who are below level for first grade, two who are at about a first grade level and two more who are almost above level.
What Happened:
We gathered on the rug after the class had packed up their belongings and headed to the Art room. First and foremost we had to review my expectations and ground rules (sitting on our bottoms and raising our hands to speak).
I hooked them by sharing the special piece of clothing (funky socks) that I had worn specifically for the occasion of this activity. The hook went swimmingly, the girls were engaged and interested and I was even able to use the hook later as a classroom management strategy (they didn't want me to put my shoes back on and I let them know that I'd have to put them on if we couldn't behave appropriately).
After using the socks to hook them into the lesson, I pulled out the book Duck Sock Hop and asked the students to make some inferences about what this book could be about based on the title, cover art and the fact that I was wearing special socks. It was a useful quick assessment because I could know very early on in the lesson who could read the title words (repeated many times in the book) as sight words. During this discussion of the title and book topic, I had to stop repeatedly to remind a few students about my ground rules. The girls we clearly restless and were having trouble sitting still.
I hooked them by sharing the special piece of clothing (funky socks) that I had worn specifically for the occasion of this activity. The hook went swimmingly, the girls were engaged and interested and I was even able to use the hook later as a classroom management strategy (they didn't want me to put my shoes back on and I let them know that I'd have to put them on if we couldn't behave appropriately).
After using the socks to hook them into the lesson, I pulled out the book Duck Sock Hop and asked the students to make some inferences about what this book could be about based on the title, cover art and the fact that I was wearing special socks. It was a useful quick assessment because I could know very early on in the lesson who could read the title words (repeated many times in the book) as sight words. During this discussion of the title and book topic, I had to stop repeatedly to remind a few students about my ground rules. The girls we clearly restless and were having trouble sitting still.
I was just as eager to begin the read aloud as they were so I proceeded to open the book to begin and one student asked me if they could read along with me. I told them not this time but maybe we could do that if we had extra time after we were finished. Another student asked me if they could also take the shoes off. I was thinking to myself "Oh man, I should've addressed that right away!" and I responded to her that right now we needed to leave them on but I suggested that over Thanksgiving break they have a sock party with their family.
I then introduced the idea that there were lots of rhyming words in this book and asked for a definition of rhyming words. I got plenty of responses from each of them that were examples of rhyme such as one girl saying, "when you like rhyme frog and log, that's rhyming". So although they could not define it by talking about similar sounds, they had some understanding of the concept.
The girls were restless again and some were calling out so we had to pause yet again to wait for students to get themselves under control. Once they were all sitting nicely and listening, I instructed them that when they hear a rhyming word they should not say it or raise their hand but show me with the secret quiet signal of putting a finger on their nose. We practiced what that would look like together and then began the read aloud.
As we read together, I stopped periodically to verbally recognize and commend the students who were actively signaling that they noticed the occurrence of rhyme. I did have to briefly remind them that after hearing the word they should put their fingers down (otherwise their fingers would've been on their noses the entire book!). As the read aloud went on they did a great job with the signaling although I had to remind them at one point what the signal was for because one girl seemed to be forgetting and just think it was fun to do whenever. Also the read aloud was interrupted by a request for the bathroom (this became an issue for the rest of the lesson).
I then introduced the idea that there were lots of rhyming words in this book and asked for a definition of rhyming words. I got plenty of responses from each of them that were examples of rhyme such as one girl saying, "when you like rhyme frog and log, that's rhyming". So although they could not define it by talking about similar sounds, they had some understanding of the concept.
The girls were restless again and some were calling out so we had to pause yet again to wait for students to get themselves under control. Once they were all sitting nicely and listening, I instructed them that when they hear a rhyming word they should not say it or raise their hand but show me with the secret quiet signal of putting a finger on their nose. We practiced what that would look like together and then began the read aloud.
As we read together, I stopped periodically to verbally recognize and commend the students who were actively signaling that they noticed the occurrence of rhyme. I did have to briefly remind them that after hearing the word they should put their fingers down (otherwise their fingers would've been on their noses the entire book!). As the read aloud went on they did a great job with the signaling although I had to remind them at one point what the signal was for because one girl seemed to be forgetting and just think it was fun to do whenever. Also the read aloud was interrupted by a request for the bathroom (this became an issue for the rest of the lesson).
After finishing the read aloud we discussed how we felt about the signal and how often we ended up signaling because of the high quantity of rhyme in the book. I then asked students to give me examples of rhyme they could recall from the reading. I recorded the examples on the whiteboard and after getting few down asked them to discuss what they noticed about the rhyming words. This was an excellent formative assessment moment because I got a good sense of which students could identify the part of the written word that was causing the rhyme and which students we just looking for similarities in what letters were present. One unexpected teachable moment was when a student realized when we listed "hop" and "shop" that if you took the "s" from "shop" and added it to "hop" you would make the word "shop" also. Another great moment was when one of the students suggested "clocks" that was not in the book as a word that also rhymed with "socks" and I was able to praise and recognize her for that effort.
I realized that we had more time left than expected so I told them we could try reading the book together. Although they had at the beginning of the lesson asked for this opportunity they now seemed distracted and uninterested. After a few pages of this, the afternoon announcements came on interrupting our lesson and I took advantage of this break in our reading to decide to move on the the other activity after announcements were finished.
I told the students that we would practice thinking about rhyming words by playing a game called "memory". I showed the students the stack of index card words, introduced the first word shown and told them in the pile there is another word that rhymes with this word (I didn't have it available so I wasn't able to show them it). I explained that they would be finding matches of rhyming words and recording the pairs of words on the paper I distributed. I then split the students into three pairs and had each pair go to one of the table groups in the room and told them I would come around and help them get started. I should have at least handed each pair the envelope with words on index cards suggesting that they spread them out to start trying to find matching rhyming words. Instead, I made the mistake of getting each pair started one at a time which was more difficult. I originally tried to get the students to play actual "memory" where the cards are face down and they one at a time try to find a match, but I didn't take time to explain the rules of the game well enough and they were too wound up and impatient so I decided to let them put the cards face up and just work on finding matches together by trying out various pairs. I started out with each pair having one sheet to record on and quickly changed to provide a sheet for each student. After a few minutes of settling in the students began finding matches and with each match that was celebrated they became more engaged and interested in the activity. They continued with this activity until they had to pack up and be dismissed for the day. Before leaving the room, I let each of the students write one pair of rhyming words on the whiteboard almost like an exit ticket assessment.
I told the students that we would practice thinking about rhyming words by playing a game called "memory". I showed the students the stack of index card words, introduced the first word shown and told them in the pile there is another word that rhymes with this word (I didn't have it available so I wasn't able to show them it). I explained that they would be finding matches of rhyming words and recording the pairs of words on the paper I distributed. I then split the students into three pairs and had each pair go to one of the table groups in the room and told them I would come around and help them get started. I should have at least handed each pair the envelope with words on index cards suggesting that they spread them out to start trying to find matching rhyming words. Instead, I made the mistake of getting each pair started one at a time which was more difficult. I originally tried to get the students to play actual "memory" where the cards are face down and they one at a time try to find a match, but I didn't take time to explain the rules of the game well enough and they were too wound up and impatient so I decided to let them put the cards face up and just work on finding matches together by trying out various pairs. I started out with each pair having one sheet to record on and quickly changed to provide a sheet for each student. After a few minutes of settling in the students began finding matches and with each match that was celebrated they became more engaged and interested in the activity. They continued with this activity until they had to pack up and be dismissed for the day. Before leaving the room, I let each of the students write one pair of rhyming words on the whiteboard almost like an exit ticket assessment.
Key Decisions:
Assigning a Task/Signal During Read Aloud
I believe this task focused students during the read aloud and successfully emphasized the purpose of reading which was to recognize rhyme (see video above). My goal was that by having students physically signal when they heard a rhyme, not only would I be able to do formative assessment of their ability to recognize rhyme but it would also be a way to help students recall after the reading the rhymes that they heard. This was very successful because my students were able to recognize and then also recall four examples from the book without my help. I believe the signaling task also supported their ability to recognize and read the words on their cards during the matching activity. What supported this signaling being so successful was the fact that I allowed myself to interrupt my reading to verbally and visually recognize the students who were signaling at appropriate times. I felt that because the purpose for this read aloud didn't have to do with comprehension or fluency that these interruptions were warranted and okay.
Using the Whiteboard to Record Rhyming Pairs
The whiteboard was an important tool for collecting and making visible student responses. Although I was asking specifically for students to list rhyming pairs from the book, I am glad I decided to recognize and record the "happy accidents" that came from students thinking about the rhyming. When one student suggested "clocks" a word not in the book, I could've said it wasn't from the book and moved on but clearly this student was using her phonemic awareness to help her think about rhyme, so I wanted to recognize her for that and share that kind of thinking with the rest of the group. Also when a student recognized the connection between "shop" and "hop", I think it was crucial to stop and appreciate the good thinking about phonics that this student was doing. Writing the words allowed students to start to literally "see" the phonics connection to rhyming.
I believe this task focused students during the read aloud and successfully emphasized the purpose of reading which was to recognize rhyme (see video above). My goal was that by having students physically signal when they heard a rhyme, not only would I be able to do formative assessment of their ability to recognize rhyme but it would also be a way to help students recall after the reading the rhymes that they heard. This was very successful because my students were able to recognize and then also recall four examples from the book without my help. I believe the signaling task also supported their ability to recognize and read the words on their cards during the matching activity. What supported this signaling being so successful was the fact that I allowed myself to interrupt my reading to verbally and visually recognize the students who were signaling at appropriate times. I felt that because the purpose for this read aloud didn't have to do with comprehension or fluency that these interruptions were warranted and okay.
Using the Whiteboard to Record Rhyming Pairs
The whiteboard was an important tool for collecting and making visible student responses. Although I was asking specifically for students to list rhyming pairs from the book, I am glad I decided to recognize and record the "happy accidents" that came from students thinking about the rhyming. When one student suggested "clocks" a word not in the book, I could've said it wasn't from the book and moved on but clearly this student was using her phonemic awareness to help her think about rhyme, so I wanted to recognize her for that and share that kind of thinking with the rest of the group. Also when a student recognized the connection between "shop" and "hop", I think it was crucial to stop and appreciate the good thinking about phonics that this student was doing. Writing the words allowed students to start to literally "see" the phonics connection to rhyming.
Starting and Then Stopping a Second Reading
I was trying to be flexible and let the lesson be a bit more student driven when I sat down after the activity of recalling rhyme to re-read the book with the students. They had asked to read with me the first time, so I believed they would be engaged with this and we had time to do it. However, I quickly realized it was not working. Although they like shared reading, the book was too small and the print was too little for them to really be able to follow along with me.There was also vocabulary that they struggled with a bit too much for a shared reading experience. Instead of continuing to struggle through it with them, I was glad I decided to stop it short and move on to the game activity.
Allowing the Game to be Simultaneous Matching Instead of Memory
My students were too wound up and energetic at the end of the last day before Thanksgiving break. I clearly could see that waiting patiently to slowly reveal matches as with the game "Memory" was not going well. So I quickly informed the students that they could go ahead and turn the cards over and just work together to try to find matches.
I was trying to be flexible and let the lesson be a bit more student driven when I sat down after the activity of recalling rhyme to re-read the book with the students. They had asked to read with me the first time, so I believed they would be engaged with this and we had time to do it. However, I quickly realized it was not working. Although they like shared reading, the book was too small and the print was too little for them to really be able to follow along with me.There was also vocabulary that they struggled with a bit too much for a shared reading experience. Instead of continuing to struggle through it with them, I was glad I decided to stop it short and move on to the game activity.
Allowing the Game to be Simultaneous Matching Instead of Memory
My students were too wound up and energetic at the end of the last day before Thanksgiving break. I clearly could see that waiting patiently to slowly reveal matches as with the game "Memory" was not going well. So I quickly informed the students that they could go ahead and turn the cards over and just work together to try to find matches.
Student Learning:
Through formative assessment, I could tell that students had some knowledge and initial understanding of the concept of rhyme because they were able to give examples and then recognize and recall rhyme from the book. However, it became clear in the activity that recognizing rhyme from their own reading and investigation of words was more difficult but achievable. All students were able to successfully identify at least one pair of rhyming words. I made a point to share the first successful match of each partner group to emphasize that success should be shared and celebrated by our entire classroom community.
The worksheets above demonstrated that students were able to correctly identify rhyming pairs. However, it does not really help me to know if the students understand why those two words rhyme. The worksheets did not assess how students were determining rhyme, and does not necessarily show me any real insights into their phonemic awareness. This causes me to rethink my worksheet for future implementations (as can be seen below).
Reflections and Revisions
Ways to Differentiate Better or Just a Different Emphasis?
As you can see in the above worksheet, the pairs of words used were rhyming words that were all very similar in terms of what letters made the rhyming sound. I think I may be doing the students a disservice in making them think that rhyming words should all share the same letters. "Week" and "beak" from the read aloud are a great counter example that I should've included to be able to assess who would get tripped up by the different letter combinations making the same sound. To make matters more confusing, the same exact letter combination can make two completely different sounds, for example: "low" and "cow". I'm concerned that I unintentionally gave them the impression that as long as they share the same combination of letters they are rhyming words and if they do not share the same letters they don't rhyme. In particular, I did this by circling the similar letters in rhyming pairs after students recalled them from the book. I believe this put too much emphasis on the letters and took away from focusing on the sound students heard.
Perhaps this could be a way to differentiate the deck of rhyme pairs that the students worked with. You can see in the student work that some students struggled to come up with one pair while others found them easily. However, I wouldn't want the students who struggle with reading and/or rhyme to then have a deep rooted misconception that I perpetuated by not exposing them to diverse examples. Therefore, I would want to give all students pairs that have multiple letter combinations but also take more time before the activity to provide explicit instruction with diverse examples that would help emphasize that rhyming is determined with similar sounds and not necessarily a similar letter combination in words. I would want to follow more closely the organized structure for direct instruction involving rhyme that Lorraine Wilson describes in Reading to Live, "ask them to add other words that rhyme with those on the list...next ask them to identify the rhyming sound of all these words. Finish by having them name the letters representing the rhyming sound in each word, for example ill for pill, il for until, and yl for pterodactyl" (Wilson, 2002, p. 68).
Extending their Learning and my Assessment
Additionally, in order to extend the assessment of their understanding and identification of rhyme, I should have had more opportunity for students to produce their own examples that weren't in the book. This happened by happy accident once during our recall of the book's rhyming pairs. A student couldn't remember the word from the book that rhymed with "socks" and another student responded "clocks" (which isn't actually in the book). I also had a brief glance at this when I gave an exit ticket type of assessment right at the end of the lesson where they wrote their own pair of rhyming words on the board before leaving. In order to elicit this more formally next time, I would change the worksheet they used during the lesson to add a designated space for finding their own rhyming word that matched the pair they found. I would also make sure to provide an example for them. Some of the students would've wasted less time trying to figure out how to use the worksheet if an example had been provided for them to follow.
As you can see in the above worksheet, the pairs of words used were rhyming words that were all very similar in terms of what letters made the rhyming sound. I think I may be doing the students a disservice in making them think that rhyming words should all share the same letters. "Week" and "beak" from the read aloud are a great counter example that I should've included to be able to assess who would get tripped up by the different letter combinations making the same sound. To make matters more confusing, the same exact letter combination can make two completely different sounds, for example: "low" and "cow". I'm concerned that I unintentionally gave them the impression that as long as they share the same combination of letters they are rhyming words and if they do not share the same letters they don't rhyme. In particular, I did this by circling the similar letters in rhyming pairs after students recalled them from the book. I believe this put too much emphasis on the letters and took away from focusing on the sound students heard.
Perhaps this could be a way to differentiate the deck of rhyme pairs that the students worked with. You can see in the student work that some students struggled to come up with one pair while others found them easily. However, I wouldn't want the students who struggle with reading and/or rhyme to then have a deep rooted misconception that I perpetuated by not exposing them to diverse examples. Therefore, I would want to give all students pairs that have multiple letter combinations but also take more time before the activity to provide explicit instruction with diverse examples that would help emphasize that rhyming is determined with similar sounds and not necessarily a similar letter combination in words. I would want to follow more closely the organized structure for direct instruction involving rhyme that Lorraine Wilson describes in Reading to Live, "ask them to add other words that rhyme with those on the list...next ask them to identify the rhyming sound of all these words. Finish by having them name the letters representing the rhyming sound in each word, for example ill for pill, il for until, and yl for pterodactyl" (Wilson, 2002, p. 68).
Extending their Learning and my Assessment
Additionally, in order to extend the assessment of their understanding and identification of rhyme, I should have had more opportunity for students to produce their own examples that weren't in the book. This happened by happy accident once during our recall of the book's rhyming pairs. A student couldn't remember the word from the book that rhymed with "socks" and another student responded "clocks" (which isn't actually in the book). I also had a brief glance at this when I gave an exit ticket type of assessment right at the end of the lesson where they wrote their own pair of rhyming words on the board before leaving. In order to elicit this more formally next time, I would change the worksheet they used during the lesson to add a designated space for finding their own rhyming word that matched the pair they found. I would also make sure to provide an example for them. Some of the students would've wasted less time trying to figure out how to use the worksheet if an example had been provided for them to follow.