Original Lesson plan for the Early Childhood Experience
Objective: By the end of the lesson each student should be able to read words presented to them quickly and accurately.
Materials: Timer
High frequency word cards consisting of fifty words.
Pencils
Resources: Teacher’s notes and text book.
Lesson 1 Title: Speed and accuracy reading practice.
Assignment and Activities: The teacher will explain to the student the activities that they will be required to participate in.The students are then divided into small groups of six and supplied with materials to use.
1. First the students place the cards facing down in a stack. The timer is placed at the center.
2.Students take turns with one student setting the timer for one minute, picks up a card from the stack and reads it then places it under the stack, if unable to read it on a count of five places it under the stack.
3. Once the card has been placed in the discard card, the next student quickly picks a word card and the procedure is repeated until all the students in the group have had a chance to read.
4. One student that the group members choose records the number of words that each student has been able to read correctly in one minute on the student sheet.
5. The students repeat the activity, in an attempt to increase speed and accuracy.
Evaluation
The students take part in peer evaluation of how each member performed in the speed and accuracy activity. The teacher highlight the correct pronunciations of the words that the students failed to read well.
Notes: A list of the words that the students were to read.
Revised Lesson plan for the Early Childhood Experience
Objective: By the end of the lesson each student should be able to read words presented to them quickly and accurately, by correctly reading ten words in one minute.
Materials: Digital timer
High frequency word cards consisting of fifty words.
Pencils
Resources: Teacher’s notes and test questions from Basic English Grammar page 67 to 69
Lesson 1 Title: Speed and accuracy reading practice. Time: 9am to 9: 40 am
Assignment and Activities: Explanation on the student the activities that they will be required to participate in. Division of students into small groups of six and supplying them with materials to use.
1. First the students will place the cards facing down in a stack. The timer is placed at the center.
2.Students will take turns with one student setting the timer for one minute, picks up a card from the stack and reads it then places it under the stack, if unable to read it on a count of five places it under the stack.
3. Once the card has been placed in the discard card, the next student will quickly pick a word card and the procedure is repeated until all the students in the group will have had a chance to read.
4. One student that the group members choose will record the number of words that each student has been able to read correctly in one minute on the student sheet and when it is his turn to read another member of the group records.
5. The students will repeat the activity, in an attempt to increase speed and accuracy.
Evaluation
The students will take part in peer evaluation of how each member performed in the speed and accuracy activity. This will be done with the help of the teacher; the teacher will then highlight the correct pronunciations of the words that the students failed to read well.
Notes: A list of the words that the students were to read.
Reflective Analysis of the Lesson
My overall assessment of the lesson is that the lesson was successful; the students were able to practice their reading skills as I had planned in the lesson plan. I can therefore conclude that the objective of the lesson was met. One characteristic of a good lesson is that it must meet the stated objectives (Dehn, 2011).However most student found the task too easy and I should have included more words that are more difficult to pronounce. When a teacher has proper class control this goes ahead to facilitate success of the lesson (Sheinker, & Sheinker, 1988).Initially I had good class control as the students were attentive and followed instructions and settled in their groups however towards the end of the class noise cropped up due to excitement from the outcomes the reading exercise.Time management is one thing that each teacher should put into account if a lesson is to succeed. When time is not well managed the objectives of the lesson may not be achieved (Tyner, 2009 ).This was a big challenge during my lesson, I could have spent more time organizing the students into groups and providing them with materials that we were forced to rush toward the end of the lesson. The materials which mainly consisted of word cards, timer and student sheets were very relevant in achieving the objective of improving the student’s reading skills. They were also easy to use by the students hence they had minimum challenges arising from the materials. The form of assessment applied also contributed to achievement of the main objective. If a lesson was to succeed then the materials of instruction must be appropriate (Tyner, 2009).In general the lesson was basically a success and when the few shortcomings are addressed more success will be realized in future. The improvements to be made include better time management, improvement on class control and revision of the instructional material to include a few more difficult words to address the students with higher command of the English language. A good instructional material should be able to meet the needs of all the students in class both the high and low achievers in a mixed class (Diller, 2007)
References
Dehn, M. J. (2011). Helping students remember: Exercises and strategies to strengthen memory. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Son
Diller, D. (2007). Making the most of small groups: Differentiation for all. Portland, Me: Stenhouse Publishers.
Sheinker, J., & Sheinker, A. (1988). A metacognitive approach to social skills training: MASST : a program for grades 4 through 12. Rockville, Md: Aspen Publishers.
Tyner, B. (2009). Small-group reading instruction: A differentiated teaching model for beginning and struggling readers. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
