Lesson Title: Combine Letters: Learn to Do Magic!
Grade Level: 1st-grade level
Main Subject: Reading
Subjects Integrated: Phonics, Science
Time Constraints: 60 min. (1 hour)
Goals: By the end of the lesson, the students should be able to differentiate between short- and long-vowel sounds in one-syllable words (e.g., “bat” – “bate,” “kit” – “kite,” etc.), as well as read such diphthongs as “th” and “ea” properly.
Material/Setup:
TEKS/STAAR: a1, 2A, 2B (Texas essential knowledge and skills for Social Studies, 2011)
ELPS: 1A, 2A, 3A (Austin Independent School Curriculum, 2014)
Prerequisite Skills: It is expected that the students should know the alphabet by heart and differentiate between the letters. The learners must be able to recognize the change in the word once a new phoneme is added to it or removed from it, as in the following example: “r/a/w – d/r/a/w.” Finally, the students are expected to be able to generate a series of rhyming words by using certain phonograms, such as “-ake,” “-ain,” etc., as well as a combination of consonants (e.g., “st-,” “cr-“, etc.) (State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, 2013, p. 2).
Focus: A short cartoon showing a misunderstanding occurring due to the mispronunciation or misspelling of a word containing a complex phonogram.
Rationale
Learner-centered
While knowing the basics, such as the alphabet, provides first-graders with an ability to decode the basic and the most essential information when reading it, to learn to read fluently, they will have to learn to pronounce the key diphthongs, such as “th,” “ea,” etc., as well as distinguish between the short- and long-vowel words. Once the students learn to recognize and read the basic combinations of letters, they will be able to handle
Professional
As a teacher, one must be able to approach the needs of the learners and develop flexibility in teaching, at the same time complying with the standards of the curriculum. Even though the topics combined in the given lesson plan are traditionally viewed as the subjects for two separate lessons, as long as the teacher feels that their students are capable of embracing a more complex theory and handling more complicated tasks, the teacher should provide the students with an opportunity to evolve as learners.
Connections
Past and future learning
For the students to be able to acquire the new information and process it to handle new assignments, it will be crucial to connect the theme of the lesson to the previous one, i.e., learning the alphabet. At the very start of the lesson, the students will be provided with an activity that will help them recall the previously acquired information (alphabet as the graphic symbols) and link it to the new topic (the combination of symbols and the change in their sound).
Community
The social function of reading will be explained to the students.
Culture
Seeing that the community, which the students belong, is quite diverse, the class is represented by members of quite several cultures. Apart from an average middle-class American student, there are African American learners from various family backgrounds, a Latino student, the children that come from financially unstable families, a couple of Asian students, etc., not to mention the fact that the learners belong to different religious confessions (i.e., ten children from Protestant family background, seven Catholic students, and one student, whose parents are atheists). Therefore, it will be reasonable to choose the topics that are not related to religion in any way not to spawn misunderstanding in the class.
To make connections to the students’ culture, it will be necessary to incorporate the concepts of American, African American, and Asian cultures into the small sentences that the students will be supposed to read in Activity 3 and at the same time avoid resorting to stereotypes. For example, knowing the significance of family values in the Chinese culture, which two students in the class belong to, the teacher must come up with such a sentence as “Xu loves her mother,” etc.
Student interests
To help the students get engaged in the learning process, it will be necessary to integrate the words that are somehow related to the activities that the students are most excited about. For instance, it would be a good idea to incorporate the words that are related to playing games and using modern methods of communication, including social networks (e.g., the words “bit” and “byte” can be used as the primary example of the difference between a short and a long vowel). More to the point and integration of the elements of modern culture that the students find interesting and entertaining into the lesson (e.g., the inclusion of characters from popular TV shows for children into the design of the lesson) will motivate the learners as well.
Integration with another student
Apart from the tasks that must be performed individually, the students will be provided with the assignments, which will require teamwork. Thus, the premises for integration among students can be facilitated.
Teach/Active Engagement
To engage the students, a classroom interaction model will be used. The students will be engaged in a dialogue by discussing the significance of correct spelling.
Evaluation of Learning
To evaluate the progress, the teacher will provide the students with a short test. They will be provided with sheets of paper with different objects and characters on them, and, listening to the words pronounced in the recording, will fill in the gaps; e.g., after the word “mouse” is pronounced, the students will fill the gap in “M__se” with the diphthong “ou.”
Closure
The students will play a game of jumbled letters and will be suggested to write short (2 lines) poems with words containing diphthongs as rhymes.
Description of the Learning Environment
The activities will be carried out in a typical classroom setting. The students will be able to write their answers on the whiteboard. Also, the teacher will provide the learners with the equipment for listening tasks.
Transitional Activities
In between major activities, the students will be encouraged to take a short break from sitting and make a series of short exercises (i.e., stretching, doing breathing exercises, hopping, etc.). Thus, the students will be able to channel their energy the right way.
Special Needs Students Accommodation
Since each student has their unique specifics of the learning process, the Individual Education Plan (IEP) will be used in the course of the lesson as well. For ELL students, parallels will be drawn between their native tongue and English. For gifted students, complicated tasks will be designed. To help students with disabilities to acquire the necessary skills, various aids, including visual and aerial will be used.
Reflective Phase
In the course of the lesson, the students seemed to be most responsive during the activity, in the course of which they were supposed to share their experience in reading. The part that presupposed the integration of modern media, however, needs improvement, since some of the students lacked the skills required for working with such IT tools. The fact that some of the ELL students could not differentiate between short and long vowels was quite unexpected. Using visual media to support the rule was an appropriate solution to the problem. The understanding of the learning objective was evaluated by involving the students in a discussion about the significance of reading and the difficulties that they have in the process. With no major obstacles in the way, the learners handled the tasks quite successfully.
Reference List
Austin Independent School Curriculum. (2014). The Texas English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS). Web.
State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. (2013). Texas essential knowledge and skills for grade 1. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Texas essential knowledge and skills for Social Studies. (2011). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.