Tutor: Brittany Brown Tutee: Ashlee Grade Level: 4 Reading Level: 4 Lesson #: 4

Evaluation/Reflection from last lesson: Ashlee is getting much better at retelling me the parts that we read about during our familiar reading time. I can tell she really likes this book and is very engaged while reading. I am extremely glad that I decided to start from scratch with making inferences because I really think this helped her understand the concept and purpose of this skill. When I read her the initial passage about the old Mr. Chicken, she was very quick to tell me what happened to him. She told me that “the old Mr. Chicken got hit by the truck.” I said to her, “Ashlee, how did you know that? I never read that the chicken got hit by the truck?” She said “because you said that there was a truck coming and he didn’t make it to the other side so I knew that something must have happened.” This was exactly what I hoped she said as it made for a perfect segue into my explanation of making inferences and why they are important. That example allowed me to demonstrate this skill with her without her even knowing that she was demonstrating making an inference. Once we started reading the story together; she really demonstrated mastery in making inferences. She read her parts of the story very fluidly and had very little trouble reading the words accurately. She did struggle with the word Masa, (which referred to the dough that they were using to make the tamales) and asked me what it meant. This was a great learning opportunity for myself as I was able see that Ashlee didn’t have background knowledge in the Mexican culture and probably did not have this in her kitchen growing up so it was hard for her to make that connection. This showed me that I probably should have introduced her to the vocabulary relevant to the text so that she could have gone into the story with the necessary background knowledge. The cloze passage really put Ashlee’s comprehension skills to the test and she did a great job. I am so proud of her and how well she is doing with these strategies I’m teaching her. One idea I had for improving the cloze instruction strategy is to maybe include a word bank at the top of the passage with words for her to fill in the blank. I noticed she got stuck on a couple of sentences and skipped them so by adding a word bank, Ashlee would be able to practice this skill with ease.

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Goals: To implement strategies for long vowels. To develop inferential skills using a

variety of strategies Provide opportunities for student to show

growth in her literacy skills which will give her the self-confidence needed to have a lifelong love for reading!

Rationale:Based on the CRI, Ashlee struggled with answering inferential and problem resolution comprehension questions when asked to retell the story. By implementing a variety of strategies, I hope to achieve the goals listed and show Ashlee that reading can be fun!

Familiar Reading (5 min):

Ashlee will read “There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom” as I help guide her if needed. After we stop at the pre-selected point, I will ask Ashlee to retell the part of the story we just read. *Because this is a long chapter book, we will continue working with this book during the familiar reading section for the duration of our sessions together.

Rationale & Selection:

Ashlee told me that this is one of her favorite books; therefore, I thought this would be a good starting point for our lesson.

There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom By: Louis Sachar

Guided Reading (25 min): Goals:-To develop comprehension skills using a variety of strategies- To reintroduce and more thoroughly address the skill of making inferences using a variety of strategies. -To provide literature that presents opportunities to work on comprehension skills.

Selection:

Too Many Tamales By: Gary Soto

Before Reading Activity:

Ashlee will be doing the “backtracking a story” strategy using the book Henry’s Freedom Box*I will read the very last page of the story to her and instruct her to write about the following in her writing journal.

- What do you think this book will be about?

- Does this remind you of any other stories

- What characters did you learn about from what I read

- Which characters do you think are the most important? Why?

- What predictions can you make about the problem and/or solution?

Rationale/Purpose:

This is one of my favorite strategies as I think it is highly effective for aiding comprehension & inferencing. This strategy requires students to make predictions about a story based on the last page only. I learned about and practiced with this strategy in my Literacy Instruction II (Prof. Pam Norton) class and was amazed at how engaging and helpful this was for me personally so I decided to try it with Ashlee. I got this strategy from the PowerPoint she posted online after teaching it in class.

To continue our theme of slavery/civil rights, I decided to use the book Henry’s Freedom Box by Ellen Levine

During Reading Activity:

*Ashlee will be using the Directed Reading Thinking Activity

-Ashlee and I will take turns buddy reading the story-We will stop at the pre-selected parts and discuss if any of the questions from the before reading section have been answered thus far. If yes, Ashlee will mark which one(s) in her writing journal. -We will then discuss what she thinks is going to happen next in the story and why?-We will continue reading and repeating the previous steps throughout the book

Rationale/Purpose:

”A directed reading thinking activity (DRTA) is an instructional format for teaching reading that includes predicting what the author will say, reading to confirm or revise those predictions, and elaborating responses. Teachers and students discuss both strategies and responses.”

* Diagnostic Teaching of Reading-Techniques for Instruction and Assessment by: Barbara J. Walker pg. 196-197

Post-Reading Activity:

*Ashlee will revert back to the “backtracking a story” strategy and we will discuss the following:After reading, how did the realities of the story compare with our predictions? What did we learn? Were you surprised at how

Rationale/Purpose

I feel that this strategy is most beneficial if you come back to it after reading because it ties everything together and makes the lesson complete.

*Again, the ideas of this strategy came from

different/similar the story was to your prediction after having only read the very last page?

a PowerPoint from Professor Pamela Norton’s class. The PowerPoint does not state the source of this information.

Writing (10 min): See before reading activity.

Rationale/Purpose:

Word Study (10 min)* Rationale/Purpose:

Shared Reading (10 min)Ashlee and I will continue reading “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.”

Rationale & SelectionThis is a book that I feel almost all kids at Ashlee’s age can relate to. Ashlee told me that she got this movie for Christmas so I thought it would be fun to read it together.

Diary of a Wimpy KidBy: Jeff Kinney (Abrams Books, 2007).

*optional