Three Lessons - Reflection

1. What did students learn and which students struggled with the lesson?

After teaching my three consecutive literacy lessons, I am able to conclude that the majority of students learned what the reading comprehension strategy of visualization is. Furthermore, I think my students learned how to use the strategy, visualization, to help them better understand and enjoy what they read. For most of my students, using visualization while reading was a strategy they were introduced to in second grade. I assessed my students understanding of this concept by looking at their use of textual support to describe their mental pictures. Throughout these lessons, I had three students who struggled with the concept of visualization. They continued to say that they were not able to create any mental pictures while I read the text to them. They said their minds were blank while listening to the text being read to them. When I pulled these students aside, I had them practice closing their eyes and to really focus on the words and phrases the author uses in the story. This seemed to help them understand how visualizing works. I also made sure to read each of the words slowly and with inflection in my voice. That way, these students could really hear the words emphasize in a way that would support their visualizing.

2. What are alternate reads (interpretations) of your students’ performance or products?

My students were able to support the drawings of their mental pictures by listing the helpful words and phrases from the text. These words and phrases came directly from the text and they supported the students visualization process, which was apparent in their drawings. Underlining the text and then generating a list of those words/phrases took the visualizing process to another level. Students were not only asked to draw what they saw in their minds, but also refer back to the actual text and author's words for support. As far as working together well and being respectful of one another, we are still working on that. My students performance during whole group discussions and partner discussions need a little more practice. Although my students have made tremendous improvements in respecting our community of learners, we need to work on being good listeners while others are speaking.

3. What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?

After teaching these three lessons, I learned a little about my students’ literacy practices which extend beyond my objectives. I learned that my students are enthusiastic about drawing and coloring pictures to express their ideas and thoughts. They demonstrated intrinsic motivation when I told them they were going to be drawing their mental pictures. My students could not wait to express their ideas and thoughts through artwork. I also learned that my students need work on their listening skills. Listening is a skill which needs to be modeled, taught, and practiced. In order to continue to progress into more student led discussions, my students need to practice listening skills.

4. When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support?

For these three lessons, I did not have any students who needed to have the material re-taught to them. However, as I mentioned above, I had three students who were confused during the lesson. I pulled these students aside during the second lesson (students drew their pictures in this lesson) and talked to them in a small group setting. After a few minutes and an exercise which involved closing their eyes, these students began to understand what visualizing meant and how it could be used. One of them even said they used visualizing all the time while they read; this student used the strategy naturally and did not even realize it. That was the case for a handful of my students. Some of them used visualizing naturally while they read, while others needed to think and focus in order to consciously use the strategy.

5. If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?

If I were to teach these three lessons again, I do not think I would do much of anything differently to be honest. I was very happy and impressed with the way my lessons went. The students did an excellent job and I feel as though they met the learning objectives for the lessons. I have even created a bulletin board outside of our classroom to display my students beautiful artwork and textual support examples. The bulletin is all about how they visualized to help them better understand the book, Cherries and Cherry Pits. The one thing I would do differently, however, is be more strategic about which students are partners during partner discussions and shares. I thought my students could handle being paired up at random, but they need some more guidance next time. I think this simple change would improve all students' learning because students would be less apt to talk out of turn and be disruptive. The ability to stay on task would positively influence partner and whole-group discussions.