Samantha Pallitto

Interactive Read Aloud Reflection - Grade 4

3/14/15
On Friday, March 13, 2015, I read the book I Survived: The Battle of Gettysburg,
1863 by Lauren Tarshis for an interactive read aloud. The objective of this lesson was
that students would listen as I read aloud; make observations, wonderings, and
predictions based on evidence from the text. During this lesson students were to fill out
a graphic organizer that was set up to write their observations, wonderings, and
vocabulary from the book that he or she may not know. Students successfully met the
objective of the lesson, and were able to fill out at least one observation, wondering,
and vocabulary word in each part of the graphic organizer. Many students had more
than one in each box, which was great. I decided to use this graphic organizer so that
students would be able to write down their thoughts about the book, and things that he
or she observed as we are reading, without having to stop and interrupt the read aloud
every couple of seconds. This was easier for me to go back and talk to students at the
end of the chapter about things that were observed or wondered as I was reading. I
know that students met the objective of the lesson by collecting their graphic organizers,
having each student make a prediction for what is going to happen next in the book,
using text evidence to support their predictions, and informally assessing the students
by observing students responses to conversation during the read aloud.
Overall, I thought this lesson was a success, and personally was one of my
favorite lessons that I have taught thus far. I thought this lesson was successful
because it really made the students focus on what I was reading and it made them think
about the text. I was able to understand what the students were thinking and observing

about the text as well, which lead to great discussion. Since the book is incredibly
suspenseful, the students were actively engaged and did not want me to stop reading.
Something else that I thought was successful during this lesson was how I modeled my
own thinking for the students. This set up an expectation for what I wanted them to be
doing on their own, so as I continue to read the students can become more independent
on writing their thoughts and observations. One thing that I did not think was successful
about this lesson was not having the students understand what the tricky vocabulary
words he or she chose actually meant. I should have gone back in the text and had
them read the sentence with the word in it to understand the meaning, or I should have
had a student look up what the words meant. As I read on I will stop to discuss the
vocabulary that students do not know. I also should have displayed my chart on either
the SMART Board, or a document camera so the students could see how I was filling in
my chart. It was hard for some students in the back to see my writing on the chart, so if
it was zoomed in on a document camera or on the SMART Board, it will definitely be
easier for students to see. One thing that I would change, if I was to do this lesson in
the future, would be to read the synopsis on the back of the book to the students after
they are done looking at the cover and making predictions on what they think the story
will be about.
For my next lesson I am unsure if I want to do an ELA lesson or a social studies
lesson. I would like to incorporate technology into the lesson since I know that is a
weakness of mine, and something I am trying to improve on incorporating into my
lessons.