Final Day of Language Arts

·          Today’s lesson was nothing close to what my lesson plan 5 had planned for. This week continually reinforced the importance of being flexible. The students were finishing typing their narratives today and then we were sharing them. Since some students were done, we had independent quiet reading time for the first half of class while others typed. Then, for the second half of class there was optional sharing. I was surprised by the number of students who chose to share. Before sharing, I instructed the students on how to listen and give positive comments. I also directed them to do “2 claps on 3” at the end of each reading. They did a great job listening and following my expectations. There were a few occasions when students read about silly things and some of their classmates laughed, but overall I think most students were excited to read their stories and others were excited to listen. It was great to see how proud they were of their work.

·          I didn’t get a chance to teach my reading lesson for either class today. At the end of sharing, we spent the remaining time in the library so students could get new books to read for next week. It was pretty difficult to convince some students to choose books that they haven’t read yet or that were chapter books instead of picture books. I can tell many of them are not actually reading during the independent reading times. I wonder how a teacher can encourage so many students to read when they simply don’t want too. They enjoy listening to the stories and looking at pictures, but many of them never even stay with the same book long enough to make it through a full chapter.