Classroom Modeling

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Emeline Phipps

Reading Lesson Plan #2

Name: Emeline Phipps  Date: 3/21/18 

Classroom Location/Teacher:    Topic/Subject: Non-fiction 

Blacked out names  Comprehension - Science 
Curriculum Standards 
 
SOL(s):3.6 The student will continue to read and demonstrate comprehension 
of nonfiction texts. g) Identify the main idea. h) Identify supporting details.  
 
Essential Question(s): How do main ideas and details help us make meaning 
from text? 
 
Lesson Objectives:​ ​A statement or statements of what the students will be 
able to do as a result of the lesson. Need to be observable and 
measurable.(ABCD format) 
The student will be able to accurately identify the main idea and 3 supporting 
details in a nonfiction text. 
 
Assessment of Objectives:​ ​Describe how you will collect evidence that 
individual students have indeed met the lesson objective(s). These need to be 
tied to the degree or criteria from your objectives. 
I will assess the student on their main idea and detail answer card using the 
rubric. See rubric below 
 
 
 
BEFORE (Content, Viewing or Listening):  
Teacher:​ Focusing attention, laying the groundwork, creating interest, 
sparking curiosity, students understand the purpose “the why” (set a purpose, 
explicit explanation of expectations, modeling) 
Student:​ Strategies to obtain prior knowledge, similarities, connections, 
analogies, think about thinking “metacognition” (discussing, organizing, 
writing, vocabulary) 
 
Set a purpose - “Why do we read non-fiction? What strategies do you use to 
help you comprehend non-fiction? 
 
Introduce book cover and say you selected it to go along with their science 
studies. Have them make predictions about the book based on title - Oceans 
and Rivers in Danger and the huge piles of trash in the photo. Have students 
cite evidence from cover to support predictions. 
 
Introduce “Add Up Facts to Determine Main Idea” anchor chart 
 
Model using the strategy with the section - What Are Oceans and Rivers? And 
completing an index card with the main idea and details that “connect to the 
BIG Thing” 
 
Main idea: Oceans and rivers are bodies of water that cover most of the earth. 
Details: 1. There are 5 salt water oceans in the world. 
2. Rivers are fresh water streams that flow across the land. 
3. Oceans and rivers are in danger because people dump waste in them.  
DURING (Content, Viewing or Listening): ​Strategies for active engagement 
with new content, what are students doing while reading, viewing, or 
listening? (set a purpose, modeling, discussing, organizing, writing, 
vocabulary) 
 
Each student will read an assigned section and complete their own index card 
as modeled. Teacher will support as needed.  
Prompts: 
What is your thinking about the main idea? 
What do all of these facts have in common? 
Put that in your own words. 
Go back and reread. 
That’s the topic, what is the main idea? 
 
 
AFTER (Content, Viewing or Listening): ​How will students apply new 
knowledge? How will students check their understanding? How will students be 
prompted to reflect on what they have learned? How will students be 
prompted to reflect on how they learned it? 
 
Have students share their cards and discuss how finding the main idea and 
details helped us learn about the topic.  
 
If time allows work together to identify the main ideas and details for the 
entire book as a whole. 
 
Rationale: ​Why teach this lesson in this way? Why give these objectives, are 
these the BEST strategies to choose and use? Explain why this sequence of 
activities leads to cultivating the behaviors or performing the skills or 
displaying the knowledge called for by the objectives. 
 
This strategy was selected to aid students in making meaning from non-fiction 
text. The book was chosen to correlate with their science unit, to aid with 
background knowledge and bolster their performance in the content area. By 
beginning with a shared reading the students can “see” the teacher’s modeled 
thought process, before applying it to their own reading. The end goal is to 
help the student transfer these skills into their independent reading. 

Reflection:

This lesson was selected after conferring with the classroom teacher. She was concerned that
based on data her struggling group of readers did not have a strong grasp of main idea and
details and wanted help with strategies to strengthen these skills. Together we reviewed a few
possibilities of main idea and detail reading strategies and settled on “Adding Up Facts to
Determine Main Idea” from ​The Reading Strategies Book​ by Jennifer Serravallo. The teacher
was drawn to this because she thought the hand graphic that goes along with it would help the
children visualize. I encouraged this selection because the second component in the strategy is
adding main ideas and details together for whole books or when completing research. She was
excited about this feature and stated that she would like to continue with the extension portion of
the strategy after I modeled the initial process.

The struggling readers in this class and consequently in this group were at varied levels. I hope
that the teacher understood the varying levels of assistance I offered to differentiate. I also hope
that she understands that a couple of the children need more guided practice with the initial
phase in small passages before compiling the ideas to create a whole book main idea.
I would encourage the teacher to provide more guided practice with the struggling students who
have still not mastered the strategy. Then have these students serve as experts and teach the
basic concept using the anchor chart to the whole class. Being a tutor and expert will not only
allow them to further solidify their knowledge, but provide a confidence boost for these students.
Following a whole class lesson on the basic strategy the teacher can then implement whole
class instruction on the extension of adding main ideas and details together as notes.

As continued support, I would meet with the teacher to review student data from the small group
sessions to determine if further small or individual instruction was needed. I could help her
prepare and co teach the extension lesson as well as offer support to pull the “student expert
group” to practice teaching their lesson.

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Reading Lesson Plan #2

Name: ​Emeline Phipps  Date: ​3/28/18 

Classroom Location/Teacher: ​Blacked out  Topic/Subject: ​Cause and 

names  Effect 
Curriculum Standards 
 
SOL(s): 6.6 The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of a variety 
of nonfiction texts. k) Identify cause and effect relationships.  
 
Essential Question(s): How does understanding cause and effect relationships 
help me as a reader and a writer? 
Lesson Objectives:​ ​A statement or statements of what the students will be 
able to do as a result of the lesson. Need to be observable and 
measurable.(ABCD format) 
1. The students will be able to accurately match causes with effects 4 out of 5 
times. 
2. Students will be able to identify the cause and effect in a short passage in 
dependently. 
Assessment of Objectives:​ ​Describe how you will collect evidence that 
individual students have indeed met the lesson objective(s). These need to be 
tied to the degree or criteria from your objectives. 
1. Correct matching of cause and effect sort cards will serve as the assessment 
for objective 1. 
2. The completion of a short cause and effect graphic organizer will assess 
objective 2.  
BEFORE (Content, Viewing or Listening):  
Teacher:​ Focusing attention, laying the groundwork, creating interest, 
sparking curiosity, students understand the purpose “the why” (set a purpose, 
explicit explanation of expectations, modeling) 
Student:​ Strategies to obtain prior knowledge, similarities, connections, 
analogies, think about thinking “metacognition” (discussing, organizing, 
writing, vocabulary) 
1. Discuss the learning target and essential question with the students. 
2. Pass out one sort card to each student, have them read and think about 
whether it is a cause or effect and what its match might be. 
3. Have students read out and show cards. Encourage them to help each 
other find matches. 
4. Once cards are matched go through, check and discuss. 
 
DURING (Content, Viewing or Listening): ​Strategies for active engagement 
with new content, what are students doing while reading, viewing, or 
listening? (set a purpose, modeling, discussing, organizing, writing, 
vocabulary) 
1. Then present the refugee article with its 3 headings. 
2. Model reading and determining the cause and effect from the first 
section and recording it on the graphic organizer. 
3. Guided practice, work together as a group to read and identify cause 
and effect in the second section. All students record in their organizer. 
 
AFTER (Content, Viewing or Listening): ​How will students apply new 
knowledge? How will students check their understanding? How will students be 
prompted to reflect on what they have learned? How will students be 
prompted to reflect on how they learned it? 
1. Review the essential question and how it applies to them. 
2. Have students return to their seats and independently identify the cause 
and effect and record in the graphic organizer. 
 
Rationale: ​Why teach this lesson in this way? Why give these objectives, are 
these the BEST strategies to choose and use? Explain why this sequence of 
activities leads to cultivating the behaviors or performing the skills or 
displaying the knowledge called for by the objectives. 
The teacher noted that students were having some difficulty with this 
task. Using the sorting cards first removes the difficulty of finding the 
cause and effect in the passage and focuses on the relationship between 
the cause and effect. Once students have experience with this the short 
article sections are scaffolded with model, guided practice, and 
independent practice to aid students in transitioning this skill to reading. 
In the event that the students struggle greatly with the sort I will bring 
index cards which we can use to make our own cause and effect cards to 
further explore the relationships before moving on to the passages. 
 

Reflection:

This lesson was selected because the teacher identified a student deficit in making connections
between causes and effects. The teacher was excited to start the lesson with a cause and effect
sort to enable students to focus on the connection between causes and effects before adding
the aspect of locating them in the text. The students are also familiar with the concept of sorts
as they completed a QAR sort during my observation, this decreased the time needed for
instructions in this activity. To then increase the complexity of the task I selected an article on
their reading level, divided into three sections, and on a topic they have background knowledge
of. The three short sections within the article provided the opportunity to model one, provide
guided practice for the second, and allow for independent application with the third. Relevant
background knowledge decreases the complexity of the reading for the students, allowing them
to focus on locating identifying causes and effects. This was all implemented in small group
rotations (approximately 8 students at a time), exposing all students to the lesson and
experiences while providing greater opportunity for all students to actively engage and be
monitored for success.

I believe it is important that the teacher reviews the essential question and learning targets at
the beginning (unless it is inquiry based) and ending of the lessons. Some of the students had
difficulty identifying how finding causes and effects aided in their comprehension prior to the
lesson, but were better able to discuss it at the end. Reviewing the essential questions and
learning targets helps them set a focus for their learning and begin to think about how their
learning applies to their lives outside of school.

I would encourage her to increase the level of difficulty with the graphic organizer in following
lessons. I provided the teacher with an additional graphic organizer that has the reader identify
the overall problem or topic, then connect the causes and effects related to the topic. As the
students became and continue to become adept at identifying specific causes and effects I
believe it is important for them to grasp how the causes and effects relate to the main idea,
topic, or overall problem. Incorporating this increased complexity will assist the students in
comprehending more complex text.

The teacher is doing very well and has great structure and routine in her classroom. The small
group rotations go nicely with her whole group instruction and individual conferencing. However,
the class is quite large and 3 small groups breaks into groups of 8 or 9. These groups do not fit
around the “guided practice/teacher” table at all. Working to adjust some grouping and
scheduling to break the class into four groups or offering more targeted groups so not every
group meets every day are a couple of ways to create a more manageable group size.

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