Langauge Arts Day Four

REFLECTION & REVISION (This part is to be included in your daily reflections after teaching the lesson. How did I feel about my lesson today? If I feel successful, what did I see the students saying and doing that made me feel that way? What changes to tomorrow’s lesson need to be made as a result of today’s class):

     Today went well today for language arts. The activity that I did with each group was that they all had to take turns reading a page out of the book and reading that page with expression. I first asked them when they thought they would read with expression. Most of them said when there is a question mark and when there is an exclamation point. This was great because they already have some prior knowledge about reading with expression. I then said we were going to take turns each reading a page from the book and they would try to read with expression. I had a variety of readers. I had one group that read without expression at all, I had one group where about of quarter of the students read with expression, then I had a group where all the students read with expression. What was not successful was that most of the time I had to work with classroom management issues. Second graders have a tendency to move around, be impatient, and blurt things out. It was a constant battle on whether I ignore the behavior or if I address the behavior. Pretty soon I could not ignore it any longer and had to address the misbehavior. Afterwards, I reviewed why we read with expression and why we read with the right expression and the students were able to remember why. This is why explained to them it is not only important to know to read with expression, but we need to know how to apply reading with expressing and that is why we do this activity. The groups definitely understood reading with expression, but needs more practice. 

     If I were to do this lesson again there are a few things that I would do differently. One, I would have more time. Having about ten to fifteen minutes for a group really makes me rush through things and then I end up having about a few minutes of more time that I fill with review. Another thing is that I run out of time and students do not have a chance to get all the content. Another thing I would change is to have the students read the book before they were to read it aloud. Some students had trouble with the words and totally forgot about reading with expression. I would want them to be more comfortable with the book first. The last thing I would change is my classroom management. I would go over my expectations in order for them to behave better which would help me stop wasting time addressing their behavior. Even though these lessons are ten minutes, I have learned a lot from them.