RICA DOMAIN 4

TC NAME: Melissa Pitcher

RICA Domain: Vocabulary, Academic Language, and Background Knowledge

RICA Competency: Instruction and Assessment

Grade Level: Kindergarten

Any Addition Descriptors: SEI Class

I observed Ms. F. demonstrating an instructional activity to support what students have learned through listening and speaking. Ms. F sat in a chair in the middle of the carpet while the students sat at their group tables. She turned out the most of the lights to calm the room and the students could focus. Ms.F.  did a quick “book walk”, she read the title, asked what they thought the story was going to be about, they were to raise their hands if they had an idea, she called on them to share. Then she looked at the front cover picture and asked the student to tell their “eye” partner what they thought the picture was about. Then she read a story while the students sat quietly activity listening. When it came to a new vocabulary word she would write it on a board that was next to her, ask the students if they knew what it meant, reminded/gave a quick definition then moved on to the rest of the story. The students could draw pictures of key ideas they had from the story to refer to later. After the story was done Ms.F. asked the student to “think in their brains” (close their eyes, touch their temples and lead forward) about what they had just listened to and how they want. When she gave the cue they turned to their elbow partner and they each had a turn recalling the story.  She walked around the class and listened to what the students were telling each other.

Instructional Setting:

Ms. F. then had the students open their journal and write two sentences trying to use the new vocabulary the she had written on the board. The students could talk, look around the room for more ideas and refer to the white board to finish their thoughts. When the class was done, she called on the students that wanted to sharetheir work that the teacher would display on the doc.cam for the whole class to see, then they would discuss the idea as a class.

RICA DOMAIN 3

TC NAME: Melissa Pitcher

RICA: Fluency

RICA Competency: Fluency

Grade Level: Kindergarten

Any Additional Descriptors: SEI class

I observed Ms. E teaching Fluency. The teacher sat at a rainbow shaped table-she sat on the inside and the students sat around it. There were 6 students at her table and there was a white board behind her to draw, write and put up pictures. Ms E. first gave each student the same book. It was an “I See a_____,  The______ eats_______” book. The teacher looked at the front page and asked what  the students  thought the book was about in their heads. She modeled reading the book with fluency, she spoke clearly and at a slow pace for every student to follow along. She also used a lot of expression. She repeated to the students that she was looking for them to read just like the way she did and wrote on the board the key ways she wanted them to read: Clearly, slowly and with Expression. One at a time she read with the students. The students that were not reading with her at that time were to read in a whisper voice until she got to them.  The whisper voice was for them to still hear themselves and she could keep an eye (ear) on them too. Ms E. would make markings on each students page of their book, where they had trouble with a word, if they tried sounding it out, said something else, skipped a word, etc.( a modified running record). If the students read too fast she held up her hand a fanned it forward at the reader(hand signal “slow down”)to slow down. If the student got stuck on a word, the teacher would say” look at the picture” or “think about what you just read or what word do you think will be next”. She gave instant feedback. This would happen fast so the student would correct the mistake and not have enough time to think about the mistake or dwell on it. Ms. E had the student read a sentence, she would repeat it the way she wanted it to sound, then student would repeat the teacher again the right way. When the students were done reading one on one with Ms. E, she would have them read to each other.

In this lesson the teacher read first, had the students read-she gave immediate feedback if needed, repeated what the student read (correcting if needed ), the student repeated the correct way and then  let the students read to each other.

Ms. E had many different level reading books and gave each student the appropriate one. Some had shorter sentences, smaller words, one sentence, fill in the blank and bigger print. Each group was at similar reading levels.

 

INSTRUCTIONAL SETTING:

The activity that I observed was for all the students. Ms.E  had five sentence strips that were from the books they had just read that were also numbered. Each student received one strip of paper with the number and sentence on it. The teacher numbered five tables with a numbers one through five. She then explained that she will play music for the students to dance, when the music stops then she wants the students to make their way to the table with the same number on their paper sentence strip. When everyone gets to the table they see their names on a list, this will tell the students the order in which the students can say their sentence. All the other students had to look at the paper and read along in their head while the student read it out loud, if they had a mistake the other students would help correct it immediately. The students felt confident in reading their sentence because it was specially picked for each students reading level.