Sarsawati Chhetri

Professor Dr. Evans

Reading and Decoding

9th April 2016

Lesson Plan for Shared/Guided Reading

Part 1

Text you will read: Spiders Weaving Wonders by Beth Geiger from National Geographic

Explorer!

Grade: 4th

Context: Small group (approximately 5-6 students) and the lesson will take place in community

area in front of the fieldwork classroom.

Duration: 35-40 minutes (I want to have time for each student to take their time to read, and

have time for us to share our thinking before, during and after reading).

Source: I had selected one book from our classroom which I showed to my fieldwork teacher

and asked her for her feedback. I showed her the parts I was planning on reading. She showed

me few of her own books but said that the book I had is good for her class since it is about

science. She said I can use her medium-high level of reading group. She said there will be 5-6

students in a group and I will be using the part about spiders (5 pages with short sections) from

the National Geographic Explorer. The chapter has four pages (or six main sections,

approximately 12 short sentences in one section). I will read the first page and share my thinking

as I read by making connections, predicting, asking questions or inferring. There are also 5 short

descriptions of different kinds of spiders and I will read the ones that are on my page and the

students will read the ones that are on their pages. I will read my parts, share my thinking and
hand the left parts to my students to read them independently. Since sharing the thinking aloud

might distract each other, I will have them write their thinking, questions, things they found

interesting, something new they learned, words they do not know (along with the sentence they

found the words on), and anything else that is related to the story (like drawing) that will help

them understand.

Materials: Yes, I am planning on buying a fake spiders (toy spiders) which would help visual

learners (even other kinds of learners) to understand the text better. If I was teaching inside the

classroom, I would also show a YouTube video about spiders. I will try showing it on my laptop

but I do not think that the school Wi-Fi will allow me to open YouTube.

Vocabularies

1. Fascinating: something interesting

2. Arachnids: They can be spiders or animals related to spiders
3. Abdomen: back half of a spiders body
4. Venom: poison (something that kills animals or humans)
5. Prey: when one animal is eaten by another animal
6. Fangs: sharp tooth
7. Tarantulas: a large hairy spider
8. Arachnologists: Scientists who study spiders or animals related to spiders

Objectives:

1. Students will identify words whose meaning is unclear to them, and practice context clue

strategies as a group for inferring the meaning: arachnids, abdomen, venom, prey, fangs,

and arachnologists
2. Students will be able to explain the definition of these words (prey, arachnologists, and

arachnids) as they relate to the text.

3. The students will read (Stamping Out Prey) (Spiders) and discuss its meaning and

significance orally including the concept of Prey, and how it relates to the passage read.

A. INTRO
 Today we will be doing shared reading which means that each of us, including me, will

read parts of the text and share our thinking as we read. While we are reading and sharing our

thinking, we will not distract the person talking. Every one of us will have our own copy of the

text (how wonderful it is). I will read the first page to get us started. While I read, I will also

share my thinking and I want you all to do the same when you will be reading independently.

After I am done with my part, everyone will spread in the room and read rest of the parts. Instead

of thinking loudly, I want you all to write whatever you are thinking on the post-it. If you are

making connections, write on the post-it, if you have questions, write on the post-it, if you find

something interesting, write it as well, and if you come across a word you do not know, write the

word along with the sentence you found it on. After everyone is done reading and writing their

thinking, we will post the post-it on the white board and discuss about each. I will have

volunteers to share what they wrote. If anyone needs help with the text, I will help.

Question that I will be asking is pulled from the book, I will only ask students to open

their book after we are done discussing about the question. How would you like living with

50,000 spiders? Another one that I made, how many kinds of spiders do you think there are

and how many have you seen so far?

After the discussion, I will again tell them that I will be reading the first page aloud to

them while they will be following and listening to me reading and sharing my thinking. While I

will read, I will also share what I am thinking about the text I am reading as I read. I know you

all are very excited in reading about the spiders so I know that there will be lots of thinking

happening on your mind as we read. While I read or anyone reads, please follow along in your

text in front of you, listen to my thinking and see what you notice without interrupting the

person.
 2 places where I will think out loud are after the first paragraph (2 sentences) and after 3

paragraphs. First, I will make connections by saying, this reminds me of when I see spiders and

how afraid I am. I also think spiders are scary and harmful and I am always afraid of them. Who

else is afraid of spiders like I am? But wait, but the text is saying, well, not really, lets continue

reading to find out what else they are beside scary and harmful like we might think. Next, I will

predict/wonder by saying, I wonder if I have seen half of the kinds of spiders that there are. I

have only seen spiders in black color, I wonder how many different colors of spiders there are.

Lets continue reading to find out.

Okay, so what I have learned so far from reading this section is that spiders are not only

scary, harmful and dangerous but also fascinating (fascinating is also known as interesting) and

they live everywhere. I also learned that there are 37,000 kinds of spiders and they come in many

different shapes, sizes and colors. There are also jumping spiders, how cute!

What else did you learn by following and listening to me read and think? What kinds of

colors do you think the spiders are in?

B. BODY

Each student will read rest of the parts independently and write their thinking on their

post-its. I am passing out the post-it notes and I want you to use them in 2 ways. One is that

when you notice that you are thinking to yourselves or wondering or connecting, write it on a

post-it and leave it in the text in the spot that made you think. Also, when you find a word whose

meaning is unclear to you, leave a post-it near the word so you can find it again (Think-Aloud

Guided Reading Assignment 2016). When you are done reading, I want you to choose 1-2 of the

unknown words or words that you are curious to learn that you found during reading and write
them on a different post-it with your name on it. After everyone has these post-its, please come in

front and post them on the wall.

If you are done with reading and posting your vocabulary words then please go back to

the reading and make notes of the important information in the story. Please come up with 1-2

important information you found to share with the group during our discussion later. You can

draw pictures, write key words or anything to help you remember the important information.

C. CONCLUSION

Would ____ please summarize what happened in the story/text? What were the main

ideas of the text and how were they related to the informational text you have read before? If one

of my student is unclear or misunderstood the text, I will not say that he/she is wrong. Instead, I

will ask the students to find the place from the text from where the information was pulled.

I will ask few students to share their drawings or important information they found and

wrote on the cards or anything that they wrote that they would want to share with the group. If a

student drew a picture, I would maybe have us all look at the text that the student used to draw

the picture.

To help students think more about the main idea, some questions I would ask (pulled

from the assignment and made by self) are; why do you think the author decided to write about

spiders and not about other insects? What are the things that you found very fascinating about the

spiders?

I will ask few students to choose 1 of their vocabulary words they wrote on their post-it

(preferably the ones that my objective focuses on) and read aloud the paragraph the word

appeared in to the group. While they are sharing, I will ask them/help them to make inferences to

the meaning from the context (what is happening in the story, pictures if there are any and what
the word might mean). Then, I will also talk about the three vocabulary words my objective

focuses on if not done already by the students.

EVALUATION

1. Students will identify words whose meaning is unclear to them, and practice context clue

strategies as a group for inferring the meaning: arachnids, abdomen, venom, prey, fangs,

and arachnologists
2. Students will be able to explain the definition of these words (prey, arachnologists, and

arachnids) as they relate to the text.

3. The students will read (Stamping Out Prey) (Spiders) and discuss its meaning and

significance orally including the concept of Prey, and how it relates to the passage read.
- Their explanations about the vocabulary words, seeing them make inferences and

knowing what the word means will constitute evidence that my students are

accomplishing my all 3 objectives. Throughout the reading and during the discussion, I

will be focusing on how students make inferences and how they explain or make

connections that extends their knowledge of the words. I will also be listening to how

they are using the vocabulary words on their sentences or summarizing. I will also be

listening to them finding the meaning of the vocabulary words through context clue, such

as re-reading the text to understand the words and their meanings, or making predictions

and inferences.