Introduction:
Throughout this course, you have learned about the components of a balanced approach to literacy. Teaching reading comprehension strategies plays an integral role in a balanced literacy program. In Teaching Reading in the 21st Century: Motivating All Learners (Graves, Graves, & Dewitz, 2010), the authors recommend instruction in a variety of comprehension strategies.
In this project, you will use what you have learned about reading instruction to create a reading comprehension lesson plan that focuses on one comprehension strategy. Then, you will further synthesize what you have learned about elementary reading and literacy and discuss the literacy learning environment, an accommodation for a diverse learner, and how you, as the teacher, would facilitate further reading instruction after teaching this lesson. Finally, you will write a letter to the parents/guardians of the students in the class to inform them how you, as the classroom teacher, promote balanced literacy and to provide them with recommendations to encourage literacy development in the home.
Requirements:
A. Create a standards-based reading comprehension lesson plan for third- or fourth-grade general education students. Do the following in your lesson plan:
1. Identify one of the following reading comprehension strategies to be used in the lesson:
• establishing a purpose for reading
• using prior knowledge
• asking and answering questions
• making inferences
• determining what is important
• summarizing
• dealing with graphic information
• imaging and creating graphic information
• being metacognitive
2. Identify general lesson information, including the lesson topic, grade, student grouping, and seating arrangement.
3. Identify lesson standards and measurable objectives (i.e., condition, behavior, and criterion).
4. Identify lesson materials/resources for students and the teacher.
5. Describe prerequisite skills or connections to previous learning (i.e., What previously learned skills are necessary for students to be able to participate in and benefit from the planned lesson?).
6. Explain lesson presentation procedures for new information, guided practice, independent practice, and culmination.
7. Explain differentiated lesson instruction accommodations.
8. Explain the lesson assessment.
Note: A copy of the assessment may be submitted, or it may be explained. The assessment may be formal or informal, formative or summative.)
B. Create a standards-based early reading lesson plan for first- or second-grade general education students. Do the following in your lesson plan:
1. Identify one of the following early reading skills to be covered in the lesson:
• phonological/phonemic awareness
• word recognition
• phonics
• concepts of print
• oral reading fluency
2. Identify general lesson information, including the lesson topic, grade, student grouping, and seating arrangement.
3. Identify lesson standards and measurable objectives (i.e., condition, behavior, and criterion).
4. Identify lesson materials/resources for students and the teacher.
5. Describe prerequisite skills or connections to previous learning (i.e., What previously learned skills are necessary for students to be able to participate in and benefit from the planned lesson?).
6. Explain lesson presentation procedures for new information, guided practice, independent practice, and culmination.
7. Explain differentiated lesson instruction accommodations.
8. Explain the lesson assessment.
Note: A copy of the assessment may be submitted, or it may be explained. The assessment may be formal or informal, formative or summative.)
C. Write (suggested length of 1-2 pages) one letter to the parents/guardians of the students you created a lesson for in parts A or B, in which you do the following:
1. Discuss two different ways that you, as the teacher, support a comprehensive, balanced approach to literacy in your classroom.
2. Discuss two different ways the parent(s)/guardian(s) can encourage and support literacy development in the home.