Location: Third Grade Class B.
Time of day: 12:50-1:30pm Classroom Activity: Daily 5 reading
block
This observation occurred during the
second day of implementation of the treatment group. I arrived early to allow time for observation
before the thirty-minute small group. As
I entered the classroom, I noticed that this classroom was more active in
moving around the class than Class A (the class from the first observation and
treatment group). This classroom was participating
in the “Daily 5” literacy structure where students “work on writing,” “read to
self,” “read to peers,” “listen to reading,” and “work on words.” Students were placed throughout the
classroom; some were on the floor reading with peers, some lying under tables
reading alone, while others were working in their journal or completing
independent centers for word work. Students in the classroom seemed to be less
independent than the previous classroom often going to the teacher to ask questions. While the students were working
independently, the teacher worked with 5-6 students at the kidney-shaped table
in the back left corner of the classroom (exactly the same as the previous
classroom). The teacher was working with
small groups based on student needs concerning the use of reading
strategies. The majority of students were
quietly working with peers or alone but a few students required instructions
and redirections from the teacher to stay focused and complete their
center.
This is the special education
cluster classroom and the teacher has supported the independent work of
students by creating posters to guide them through the steps of the “Daily 5”
activities. When the special education
students returned to their classroom from the resource room, they required
brief instructions from the teacher (stated from her seat at the table) to use
the posters to find their station. The students
were able to select the activity they needed to complete and independently
moved throughout the classroom to begin their activity. The posters seem to be a strong visual
support for all students in the classroom.
The rules and expectations of the classroom were clearly posted where
all students could view them.
The classroom was clean and brightly
colored with teacher made posters and decorations. The class library was categorized by interest
or topic, which increases ease of finding interesting texts for students. Talk in the classroom consisted primarily of
students interacting with each other during their centers and was focused on their
activity. In this classroom, students
were more energetic but they were able to stay on topic within their
collaborative pairs.
Following observations in the
classroom, I asked five students to move to a table to the right of the
classroom, where the fewest students were working, to begin the first
meeting. This group required additional
time to introduce the concepts and strategies, as well as, to stay focused and
wait their turn to talk. This was the initial meeting of the group and
instructional interaction with the researcher seemed to excite the students,
which increased engagement but made it difficult to focus them on the tasks
while they were asking me questions and telling me about their new toys or
summer vacations. I assumed that my
background with these students, as a collaborating teacher in their early
primary classrooms, would be a strength but it seemed to be more of a
distraction during this sessions. The students
in this classroom had more difficulty with the motor aspects of the
multisensory cues than the verbal prompting.
Students required physical assistance to isolate their pinky finger in
order to begin finger tapping decodable words; by the end of the session all students
made progress with this skill. The
students were able to tap out the sight words on their arms with little
difficulty and were able to pound out sentences for segmentation. The sentence editing strategy was novel to
the students are required prompting, modeling, and support through all three
dictated sentences. Students with limited language, one special education
student and one ELL student, were able to successfully participate in the group
and complete the tasks with assistance. Following the completion of the writing
sample where students were asked to write three CVC words and three sentences
as they were dictated, I praised the students, discussed the next session, and
supported their transition back to the classroom literacy structure.
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