Tutor: Brittany Brown Tutee: Ashlee Grade Level: 4 Reading Level: 4 Lesson #: 3

Evaluation/Reflection from last lesson: The familiar reading went great. I could see that Ashlee was excited to start reading me the story of There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom. I know this is one of her favorite books and you can tell it excites her to read it because she was reading with a little bit more enthusiasm in her voice with this book than she did in the last familiar reading section. The guided reading was AWESOME!! To be honest, I was a little nervous about how this strategy would work with this book but it turned out to be great. I gave the baggie of words and phrases to Ashlee and explained to her that all of these words/phrases were words that were going to be in the story we were about to read. When I told her to take the words and arrange them in the order she predicts they will appear in the story, she looked a little apprehensive. Maybe I should have clarified more about why we were using this strategy but I wanted to introduce her to the strategy piece by piece instead of explaining it all to her at once. I think this is what ended up making the strategy more engaging. I say this because when we actually got into the story and she had to arrange the words in the correct order that they appeared in the story, she was focusing intently to make sure she didn’t miss a word or phrase. She became very engaged and I felt good knowing that this strategy was working and she comprehended the story. Ashlee did have some trouble with answering the inference questions I asked her during reading. For this reason, I feel it is important for me to spend the next lesson specifically on how and why we make inferences. This is something I should have spent more time on in the first lesson & second lessons and I hope that by backtracking a little bit and breaking down the concept of making inferences to Ashlee, it will help her become stronger and more confident in this area. Because we didn’t get to the shared reading book I had selected for the last session (which I really wanted to share with Ashlee because I know she will love it); we only did half of the words for the word study and moved onto the shared reading. For this reason, I will be conducting the same sort for the word study and using the other half of the words that we didn’t get to. Ashlee really loved the book and I loved seeing her sigh of relief when the girl was reunited with her dog at the end. This led us into a discussion (which she initiated) about our own dogs and how we would feel if we ever lost our dogs. This meant that Ashlee was making a connection with the story and she was engaged… YES!!

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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

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

continue working with this book during the familiar reading section for the duration of our sessions together.

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:

I will begin today’s lesson by reading the following passage to Ashlee:

*Old Mr. Chicken was standing by the side of the road. He heard what sounded like a big truck coming. He decided to cross the road anyway. Unfortunately, he never made it to the other side. Poor Old Mr. Chicken.

I will then ask Ashlee to tell me what she thinks happened to the chicken

I will ask her how she came up with that response.

I will explain to Ashlee that what she just did was make an inference. I will then explain that, as readers, we have to do some of the work in understanding what others have written. Sometimes we have questions about what we are reading but because we can't ask the author questions directly, we have to work out the answers ourselves.

We will transition into the during reading activity by me explaining to Ashlee that she will make inferences using clues in the story and what she already knows to make logical guesses, or inferences, about the information in the story.

Rationale/Purpose:

This is a great book that provides many opportunities for students to make inferences. I chose this book, which is below Ashlee’s reading level, so that she could focus more on the inferential portion of this assignment and get through the book without struggling.

I found the following website to be of great help when I was looking for texts that support the skill of making inferences.

http://www.teachervision.fen.com/lesson-plan/reading-comprehension/48612.htm

During Reading Activity: Rationale/Purpose:

*I will read the first page aloud to Ashlee and model to her my thought process as I make my first inference. * We will switch off and partner read throughout the rest of the story.* We will stop at the end of each page and discuss our inferences. *After we’ve read the page that discusses what the problem is in the story, I will ask Ashlee to tell me what she thinks the main problem is in the story and we will talk about possible solutions. I* If Ashlee is having a difficult time coming up with an inference, I will guide her by asking a question specifically related to what we just read.

“Readers seem to “read between the lines” to draw inferences, but what they actually do is synthesize their background knowledge with the author’s clues to ask questions that point toward inferences”

*Sometimes students do draw inferences when prompted by the teacher, but it’s important to teach students how to draw inferences so that they can think more deeply when they read independently.”

Tompkins, Gail E. Literacy in the Middle Grades New Jersey: Pearson, 2004. P. 184

Post-Reading Activity:

*Ashlee will be doing the cloze instruction strategy - Ashlee will be given a passage to read with words that have been deleted and in place of the word there is a blank. -I will instruct Ashlee to read the entire passage to get a sense of the meaning of the text. -Ashlee will then be instructed to go back through and fill in the blanks with words that they think fit. - I will read the passage aloud to Ashlee and she will write in the correct word above the word she had written in the blank. - We will review the passage as Ashlee explains to me how she came up with the words that she did. - To conclude the lesson, Ashlee’s answers will be evaluated as to the similarity of meaning between the deleted word and the supplied word.

Rationale/Purpose

“The instructional cloze is a technique that develops comprehension by deleting target words from a text. It encourages the student to think about what word would make sense in the sentence and in the context of the entire story”

* Diagnostic Teaching of Reading-Techniques for Instruction and Assessment by: Barbara J. Walker pg. 178-179

Writing (10 min): In her writing journal, Ashlee will do a quick write on how comfortable she is with making inferences. She will write down any questions, thoughts, or problems she is having with this skill and name one thing she learned from any part of our session today.

Rationale/Purpose:By having Ashlee do this quick write, it will allow me to see how comfortable she is with making inferences. It will be her way of communicating with me so I can see what else we need to work on in our next session.

Word Study (10 min)* Rationale/Purpose:

Ashlee will be doing a teacher-directed two-step sort for long vowels, focusing specifically on words with long A. She will be doing the sort using the following set of words: made, name, take, bake, page, face, wave, tape and safe.

We only got through half of the words last week so we will be continuing this sort with the other half of the words this session.

The QSI assessment that Ashlee was given demonstrates that she is in the middle within word stage. This sort comes from the Words Their Way book page 212 and will help Ashlee by specifically focusing on long a sounds and patterns.

Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, Johnston. Words Their Way, New Jersey: Pearson, 2008.

Shared Reading (10 min)I will begin reading the book “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” to Ashlee.

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