1A. Background Details:
Site Visit Numbers
4
Days of the week
Days varied depending on school schedule (Day 2s)
Dates
11/4, 11/8, 11/10, 11/16
Grade Level
10th Grade
Subject
English Reading Support
1B. Students
One average, there would be a total of four students in the classroom. Typically, there were three students who were attending the class (2 girls, 1 boy) with another male student sitting in the back eating lunch (this boy was very close with the lead teacher). The roster had a total of four students but one boy did not come to school on a regular basis and was only present for one observation. The diversity of the students was more than minimal. By this I mean that all students previously lived in a Spanish speaking country, however, the country where each student was from was different (Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico).
1C. Adults
Not including myself, there was one adult in the classroom with the students. This was their ENL teacher who led each class and implemented appropriate lessons that focused on assisting students become more proficient readers in English while practicing all other modalities of English where appropriate.
1D. Summary of Observation(s)
11/4 Observation : 10th Grade English Support Class
The lesson revolved around using Achieve3000 to read and answer questions about an article titled “Wifi Not Wanted”. The students were continuing to read the article that they started yesterday and the teacher started the class by stating the lesson's objective (I can respond to written questions about a chosen reading selection). The teacher asks the students to repeat back the lesson objectives and explain what they are doing in their own words or to show what they are doing by opening the appropriate materials. The teacher reviews key vocabulary with visuals and realia (teacher showed her iPhone and my FitBit to show a smart divide and teacher had a picture of Greenland on a map to show students location of the country they are talking about). After reviewing the vocabulary, the teacher starts reading the article and has the students repeat what she says. As they progressed through the article, the teacher allowed students to try and read different parts of the article out loud on their own while giving encouragement and praise for attempting and succeeding. After the students completed the reading the students attempted to answer comprehension questions that are made to be at the appropriate level of the students through the Achieve3000 websites. The teacher and students discussed the answers with one another as review for the reading. With a few minutes remaining, the teacher gave the students vocabulary bingo cards, which they practice everyday vocabulary pertaining to different subjects, areas, and topics (school, food, animals, etc.).
Overall, the lesson aligned very well with the teachers prepared content objective and standard for English reading comprehension (CCR 9-10 Reading Standard: Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.) The students spent ample time reviewing the content they discussed the day before, the important vocabulary that is needed to understand the story, as well as thinking critically and predicting what the rest of the text might state. The students were also able to practice citing information to support an answer to the teachers questions for each section of the reading. Although students were not able to give full sentences to justify their answer, they were able to identify keywords that helped them answer the questions posed by the teacher. With Achieve3000, comprehension and reading skill questions are aligned to the reading and gives students opportunities to use the article to help find information to answer questions. Since the teacher modeled her thinking and practiced finding central points to each section of the article, the students were able to answer the questions very successfully at their own pace. When the class discussed the article all together, they practiced stating an objective summary of the text with the teacher assisting where they needed to help create full thoughts (this was usually starting the sentence as well as transitioning to their support. Although the students struggled creating full sentences, they were able to prove their understanding of the article and topic covered through the answers to questions given by the teacher and the website.
During this observation there were many meaningful interactions and opportunities to help students learn and become better readers and speakers of English. First, I found the teachers optimism, encouragement, and enthusiasm to be such a great energy to have in the classroom that helped students stay engaged and motivated with the reading. The students the teacher has in this class can not read very well so they are hesitant to speak and read out loud. However, the teacher encourages students to speak English as often as possible and is always giving positive reinforcement and praise for when students try. Her positive words while the students try to read also seemed to keep kids in a positive mind state which made them even begin to volunteer to read at certain points. Another important takeaway from this observation was the amount of modelling and repetition that the teacher implemented into the lesson. This teacher modeled the reading, thinking strategies, and finding information to answer questions. These models are great to show students the process to get to the end goal. With this in their heads students can focus less on what they have to do and more on what they are reading as well as practicing reading itself. The teacher showing students concrete examples of the vocabulary was also a great strategy to help students understand and recall the important vocabulary that was going to come up in the reading. Through realia and images, students clearly understood or knew the vocabulary words they were discussing after the visuals and realia was shown. Students would say things like “Oh, that!” when the teacher took out her iPhone to show a smart device. Other students also pointed at their phones to indicate that they too have a smart device. This quick example made an unfamiliar word to these students easily identifiable. The teacher also ensured to fill all the time in the class and gave students time to practice common vocabulary in a fun and engaging way. With ten minutes to spare, the teacher gave students Bingo boards and played vocabulary Bingo with the students. The students were able to choose the category to play, creating more engagement, and the teacher would show an image of the item and the students had to find the word on their Bingo board. As each picture was shown, the students were encouraged to say the name of the word out loud to practice their reading and phonics skills with these basic vocabulary words. The teacher incorporated a plethora of meaningful, engaging, and authentic activities that not only assisted students with the standard and objectives of the class, but assisted students in multiple English skills and modalities.
Decisions in reading instruction and assessment are essentially decided based on the students reading and speaking proficiencies. The class was established to help ENL students in reading and comprehension skills in English. The students in the class all have very limited English proficiency. The students are especially low in reading and this class revolves around reading and comprehension practice, while incorporating other modality practice during different lessons. The teacher chooses the websites and applications that are appropriate for their level and resources that have various topics with the ability to change the proficiency level of the materials. The teacher typically uses Achieve3000 and BrainPopELL to find materials that are interesting to the student while also being able to adapt the readings and questions to the appropriate level of the student. The teacher gives ample practice using these websites so students have a sense of routine when coming into class and practicing reading. Although the pace of the class is slow to help students with understanding and reading practice, the teacher is able to track progress and keep running records of the students performance while offering opportunities for students to practice with authentic and interesting materials.
Site Visit Numbers
4
Days of the week
Days varied depending on school schedule (Day 2s)
Dates
11/4, 11/8, 11/10, 11/16
Grade Level
10th Grade
Subject
English Reading Support
1B. Students
One average, there would be a total of four students in the classroom. Typically, there were three students who were attending the class (2 girls, 1 boy) with another male student sitting in the back eating lunch (this boy was very close with the lead teacher). The roster had a total of four students but one boy did not come to school on a regular basis and was only present for one observation. The diversity of the students was more than minimal. By this I mean that all students previously lived in a Spanish speaking country, however, the country where each student was from was different (Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico).
1C. Adults
Not including myself, there was one adult in the classroom with the students. This was their ENL teacher who led each class and implemented appropriate lessons that focused on assisting students become more proficient readers in English while practicing all other modalities of English where appropriate.
1D. Summary of Observation(s)
11/4 Observation : 10th Grade English Support Class
The lesson revolved around using Achieve3000 to read and answer questions about an article titled “Wifi Not Wanted”. The students were continuing to read the article that they started yesterday and the teacher started the class by stating the lesson's objective (I can respond to written questions about a chosen reading selection). The teacher asks the students to repeat back the lesson objectives and explain what they are doing in their own words or to show what they are doing by opening the appropriate materials. The teacher reviews key vocabulary with visuals and realia (teacher showed her iPhone and my FitBit to show a smart divide and teacher had a picture of Greenland on a map to show students location of the country they are talking about). After reviewing the vocabulary, the teacher starts reading the article and has the students repeat what she says. As they progressed through the article, the teacher allowed students to try and read different parts of the article out loud on their own while giving encouragement and praise for attempting and succeeding. After the students completed the reading the students attempted to answer comprehension questions that are made to be at the appropriate level of the students through the Achieve3000 websites. The teacher and students discussed the answers with one another as review for the reading. With a few minutes remaining, the teacher gave the students vocabulary bingo cards, which they practice everyday vocabulary pertaining to different subjects, areas, and topics (school, food, animals, etc.).
Overall, the lesson aligned very well with the teachers prepared content objective and standard for English reading comprehension (CCR 9-10 Reading Standard: Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.) The students spent ample time reviewing the content they discussed the day before, the important vocabulary that is needed to understand the story, as well as thinking critically and predicting what the rest of the text might state. The students were also able to practice citing information to support an answer to the teachers questions for each section of the reading. Although students were not able to give full sentences to justify their answer, they were able to identify keywords that helped them answer the questions posed by the teacher. With Achieve3000, comprehension and reading skill questions are aligned to the reading and gives students opportunities to use the article to help find information to answer questions. Since the teacher modeled her thinking and practiced finding central points to each section of the article, the students were able to answer the questions very successfully at their own pace. When the class discussed the article all together, they practiced stating an objective summary of the text with the teacher assisting where they needed to help create full thoughts (this was usually starting the sentence as well as transitioning to their support. Although the students struggled creating full sentences, they were able to prove their understanding of the article and topic covered through the answers to questions given by the teacher and the website.
During this observation there were many meaningful interactions and opportunities to help students learn and become better readers and speakers of English. First, I found the teachers optimism, encouragement, and enthusiasm to be such a great energy to have in the classroom that helped students stay engaged and motivated with the reading. The students the teacher has in this class can not read very well so they are hesitant to speak and read out loud. However, the teacher encourages students to speak English as often as possible and is always giving positive reinforcement and praise for when students try. Her positive words while the students try to read also seemed to keep kids in a positive mind state which made them even begin to volunteer to read at certain points. Another important takeaway from this observation was the amount of modelling and repetition that the teacher implemented into the lesson. This teacher modeled the reading, thinking strategies, and finding information to answer questions. These models are great to show students the process to get to the end goal. With this in their heads students can focus less on what they have to do and more on what they are reading as well as practicing reading itself. The teacher showing students concrete examples of the vocabulary was also a great strategy to help students understand and recall the important vocabulary that was going to come up in the reading. Through realia and images, students clearly understood or knew the vocabulary words they were discussing after the visuals and realia was shown. Students would say things like “Oh, that!” when the teacher took out her iPhone to show a smart device. Other students also pointed at their phones to indicate that they too have a smart device. This quick example made an unfamiliar word to these students easily identifiable. The teacher also ensured to fill all the time in the class and gave students time to practice common vocabulary in a fun and engaging way. With ten minutes to spare, the teacher gave students Bingo boards and played vocabulary Bingo with the students. The students were able to choose the category to play, creating more engagement, and the teacher would show an image of the item and the students had to find the word on their Bingo board. As each picture was shown, the students were encouraged to say the name of the word out loud to practice their reading and phonics skills with these basic vocabulary words. The teacher incorporated a plethora of meaningful, engaging, and authentic activities that not only assisted students with the standard and objectives of the class, but assisted students in multiple English skills and modalities.
Decisions in reading instruction and assessment are essentially decided based on the students reading and speaking proficiencies. The class was established to help ENL students in reading and comprehension skills in English. The students in the class all have very limited English proficiency. The students are especially low in reading and this class revolves around reading and comprehension practice, while incorporating other modality practice during different lessons. The teacher chooses the websites and applications that are appropriate for their level and resources that have various topics with the ability to change the proficiency level of the materials. The teacher typically uses Achieve3000 and BrainPopELL to find materials that are interesting to the student while also being able to adapt the readings and questions to the appropriate level of the student. The teacher gives ample practice using these websites so students have a sense of routine when coming into class and practicing reading. Although the pace of the class is slow to help students with understanding and reading practice, the teacher is able to track progress and keep running records of the students performance while offering opportunities for students to practice with authentic and interesting materials.