Plan lesson sequences using knowledge of student learning, content and effective teaching strategies.
Standard 3.2
Classrooms that promote active literacy burst with enthusiastic and engaged learners. Students contribute their opinions, thoughts, and ideas. They talk to each other, have inner conversations with the text, leave tracks of their thinking, and take part in literature circles. In this classroom, students are actively questioning, connecting, inferring, discussing, debating and inquiring. In essence, they are surfacing their thinking by talking and writing about it.
Beginning the teaching and learning sequence
To what extent do students possess the skills, abilities and background knowledge needed to begin the teaching and learning sequence?
By determining what students already know and can do, new learning can be organised and presented so that it builds on this base. A variety of sources were considered including; Tests of Reading Comprehension (TORCH) scores, consultations with my mentor teacher, advice from the learning support leader, listening to students read and examining previous work. As a result, students were placed into one of three groups.
Group 1 - can answer comprehension questions that are located in the text
Group 2 - can answer questions that require them to infer meaning from the text
Group 3 - can answer questions that require them to infer meaning from the text and are able to synthesise and apply meaning to other contexts.
Planning
My planning will consider the range of possible learning opportunities that will enable students to demonstrate their learning against the curriculum standards. My planning will be guided by current best practice. Sound assessment principles, learning and management questions and an understanding of effective learning will be accounted for when planning and designing assessment.
Where does the learner need and want to be?
Each group has there own success criteria to follow. Students are encouraged to regulate their own learning in order to achieve success (e.g., using their learning logs, conferencing, think-pair-share, goal setting etc.). Students are able to negotiate their assessment activities. Students are continually reminded of how a particular task fits into their learning journey, for example, students will be given a flow chart of comprehension strategies.
How do my learners best learn?
How will I inform learners and others about the learning progress? How will I check the learner has made progress?
From assessment to instruction
Framework for checking to see whether my learners have achieved targeted outcomes?
Strategy groups
Goal: Comprehension
Strategy: Check for understanding
Group: 1
This is a comprehension strategy that teaches children to stop frequently and check, or monitor, whether they understand what they are reading. Children who struggle are so aware of reading accurately that they forget to take the time and think about what they are reading, checking to see whether they understand the text. Advanced readers can develop the habit of reading through text without monitoring whether they were unaware of the Check for Understanding strategy as beginning readers. This is a good place to start with our Group 1 readers.
Modelling during our read-aloud I stop periodically and say, 'Let me see if I remember what I just read. I am going to start by thinking of who the story was about and what happened.'
I continue to stop periodically and talk through the 'who' and 'what,' usually about three or four times during each read-aloud. After two or three times of modelling this for students, I start asking them to answer the 'who' and the 'what' through 'listen and talk,' asking one student to do it for the whole group and then expecting children to do it on their own.
The language I use includes:
Success criteria
I haven't quite made it?
I've made it, where to next?
Assessment
I look for evidence that:
Differentiation
When modelling an interactive read-aloud, I am doing much of the reading, therefore, students are free to think about the ideas, because coding doesn't interfere. In this way, all students have access to the text. Those who are less developed writers are encouraged to draw a picture or use a short code to represent their thinking. If students seem to be monitoring and using a number of strategies, such as questioning, connecting, and inferring, I review these and move on to teaching a more sophisticated strategy.
Goal: Comprehension
Strategy: Infer and support with evidence
Group: 2
Readers figure out what the author is saying even though it might not be written down. Using their background knowledge, clues from text, illustrations, and captions, the reader makes meaning of the selection. Students learn to be detectives by looking for clues or evidence in the text to figure out or guess what is happening.
The most effective way to teach any strategy is by modelling my thinking out loud and labelling it for my students. Students that are not entirely proficient at inferring can play the Inferring Game. This game helps children understand the concept of inferring when they read.
The Inferring Game
Success Criteria
I haven't quite made it?
Iv'e made it, where to next?
Assessment
I look for evidence that:
Differentiation
Inferring can be taught in many contexts outside of text. Playing cherades is a good way for learners to get a concrete idea of what it means to infer. Role playing and drama also encourage learners to act out their understanding of what they read. Sharing unfamiliar items objects like kitchen utensils and old fashioned tools, requires learners to use inferential thinking to make sense of them and infer their purposes.
Goal: Comprehension
Strategy: Summarising and synthesising information
Group: 3
Identifying and understanding main ideas along with determining importance are prerequisite skills to summarising text. Readers summarise the most important aspects of the text by determining the details that are significant and discard those that are not while stating the main idea in their own words, thus improving comprehension and understanding what is read.
I start by establishing a common language as I teach and review with my students the following terms: topic, main idea, theme, and supporting details. When students understand these terms, it helps them to move forward.
During a chapter book read-aloud, I begin modelling how to summarise. Before I begin the second chapter, the class helps summarise what happened in the previous chapter, stating the main ideas and using story elements to organise the summary. I model the difference between important and nonimportant information. I then model the process of determining the main idea, pointing out that one person's view of the author's main idea may be different from another. When we determine the main idea we always support our claim with evidence from the text.
Th language I use includes:
Success Criteria
I haven't quite made it?
Iv'e made it, where to next?
Assessment
I look for evidence that:
Differentiation
During the teaching and learning sequence
On which learning tasks are students performing satisfactorily. On which tasks do they need help?
How will I inform the learner and others about the learner's progress?
Formative assessment
I will gather ongoing evidence of learning in a variety of ways including; reading conferences, student interviews, reading logs, learning logs, personal reading reports, analysis of retells, miscue analysis, cloze analysis and analysis of word indentification strategies. Running records will provide information regarding metacognitive and comprehension processes and strategies. I will provide continuous oral and written feedback to students. I will make standards explicit and, through the use of anchor charts, they will be made visible throughout the learning sequence.
Summative assessment
The TORCH could be re-administered and scores could be compared against previous performance. I could identify growth over time by creating a line graph based on scores out of ten that are assigned during conferencing. I could use a graded rubric for an end of term assignment. I could identify growth within a band using balanced judgement.
End of the teaching and learning sequence
I will identify which students have achieved the expected learning outcomes and prepare them to proceed to the next comprehension strategy in the sequence. I will identify which students need extra help and provide extra scaffolding for this group. I will determine which grade or performance level should be allocated to each student.
Feedback
I will offer a variety of feedback including corrective, alternative, clarifying, encouraging, evaluative and/or instructional feedback. I will use a feedback model to guide classroom discourse (e.g., Where am I going? How am I going? What progress is being made toward the goal? Where to next? What activities need to be undertaken to make better progress?)
Reporting
Emerging, solid and comprehensive descriptors can be used when making judgements about student learning. Any judgements identifying the growth and quality of student learning will made using multiple samples of evidence of learning.
Reflection
The following questions will provide a framework for refective practice.
To what extent do students possess the skills, abilities and background knowledge needed to begin the teaching and learning sequence?
By determining what students already know and can do, new learning can be organised and presented so that it builds on this base. A variety of sources were considered including; Tests of Reading Comprehension (TORCH) scores, consultations with my mentor teacher, advice from the learning support leader, listening to students read and examining previous work. As a result, students were placed into one of three groups.
Group 1 - can answer comprehension questions that are located in the text
Group 2 - can answer questions that require them to infer meaning from the text
Group 3 - can answer questions that require them to infer meaning from the text and are able to synthesise and apply meaning to other contexts.
Planning
My planning will consider the range of possible learning opportunities that will enable students to demonstrate their learning against the curriculum standards. My planning will be guided by current best practice. Sound assessment principles, learning and management questions and an understanding of effective learning will be accounted for when planning and designing assessment.
Where does the learner need and want to be?
Each group has there own success criteria to follow. Students are encouraged to regulate their own learning in order to achieve success (e.g., using their learning logs, conferencing, think-pair-share, goal setting etc.). Students are able to negotiate their assessment activities. Students are continually reminded of how a particular task fits into their learning journey, for example, students will be given a flow chart of comprehension strategies.
How do my learners best learn?
How will I inform learners and others about the learning progress? How will I check the learner has made progress?
- Negotiate success criteria with students in each group
- Students record their success criteria in their learning logs
- Help students set goals for this learning sequence
- Show students how they can monitor their goals
- Use the two stars and a wish method to keep track of their goals
- Conference with each student and provide descriptive feedback
- Record progress at each meeting
- Provide visual reminders of various comprehension strategies for students to refer back to
From assessment to instruction
- Assess individual students
- Discuss finding with students
- Set a new goal and teach new strategy to student
- Student declares goal on a class goal sheet and in their notebooks
- Teacher fills out indiviudal reading conference form
- Teacher fills out strategy groups form
- Instruction
Framework for checking to see whether my learners have achieved targeted outcomes?
- What is the planned outcomes of this task?
- How has this been made explicit to the students?
- What is the expected end product?
- How will the task be implemented?
- What is the task requirring the students to demonstrate?
Strategy groups
Goal: Comprehension
Strategy: Check for understanding
Group: 1
This is a comprehension strategy that teaches children to stop frequently and check, or monitor, whether they understand what they are reading. Children who struggle are so aware of reading accurately that they forget to take the time and think about what they are reading, checking to see whether they understand the text. Advanced readers can develop the habit of reading through text without monitoring whether they were unaware of the Check for Understanding strategy as beginning readers. This is a good place to start with our Group 1 readers.
Modelling during our read-aloud I stop periodically and say, 'Let me see if I remember what I just read. I am going to start by thinking of who the story was about and what happened.'
I continue to stop periodically and talk through the 'who' and 'what,' usually about three or four times during each read-aloud. After two or three times of modelling this for students, I start asking them to answer the 'who' and the 'what' through 'listen and talk,' asking one student to do it for the whole group and then expecting children to do it on their own.
The language I use includes:
- 'Stop often to check for understanding before you read any further.'
- 'Who did you just read about and what just happened?'
- 'How often did you stop to check for understanding? After each sentence, after each paragraph, at the end of each page?'
- 'Was your brain talking to you while you read?'
- 'Are you finding you are understanding what you are reading?'
- 'What do you do if you can't remember?'
Success criteria
- I stop frequently to check for understanding or to ask who and what.
- I think about what is happening in the story.
I haven't quite made it?
- Focus on accuracy, fluency and increasing vocabulary strategies.
I've made it, where to next?
- Back up and reread
- Monitor and fix up
- Retell the story
- Making connections
Assessment
I look for evidence that:
- Students follow their inner conversation and leave tracks of their thinking. I look for evidence of the reader's thinking, including their reactions, questions, connections and inferences.
- Students notice when they stray from the inner conversation and repair comprehension - use fix-up strategies. I look for evidence that the reader understood why meaning breaks down and how to go about repairing understanding.
- Students stop, think, and react to information as they read. I look for evidence that the reader is stopping frequently, thinking about the information, and jotting down thoughts and reactions.
Differentiation
When modelling an interactive read-aloud, I am doing much of the reading, therefore, students are free to think about the ideas, because coding doesn't interfere. In this way, all students have access to the text. Those who are less developed writers are encouraged to draw a picture or use a short code to represent their thinking. If students seem to be monitoring and using a number of strategies, such as questioning, connecting, and inferring, I review these and move on to teaching a more sophisticated strategy.
Goal: Comprehension
Strategy: Infer and support with evidence
Group: 2
Readers figure out what the author is saying even though it might not be written down. Using their background knowledge, clues from text, illustrations, and captions, the reader makes meaning of the selection. Students learn to be detectives by looking for clues or evidence in the text to figure out or guess what is happening.
The most effective way to teach any strategy is by modelling my thinking out loud and labelling it for my students. Students that are not entirely proficient at inferring can play the Inferring Game. This game helps children understand the concept of inferring when they read.
The Inferring Game
- Your mum came home with a bag from a Nintendo store.
- You hear a truck in your neighbourhood that is playing sweet music on a very hot day.
- Your dad stomps into the living room, turns off the TV, and frowns at you.
- The baseball game is on and you hear loud cheering.
Success Criteria
- I can slow my reading down and write clues or evidence of meaning on a sticky note.
I haven't quite made it?
- Inferring the meaning of unfamiliar words
- Inferring from the cover and illustrations as well as the text
- Inferring with text clues
Iv'e made it, where to next?
- Recognising plot and inferring themes
- Visualising and inferring to understand information
- Use main idea and supporting details to determine importance
- Inferring and questioning to understand historical concepts
Assessment
I look for evidence that:
- Students visualise can create mental images to make sense of what they read. As students listen to and read text, I look for evidence that they draw and write about their mental images to support understanding.
- Students infer the meaning of unfamiliar words. I look for evidence that students are using the context to figure out the meaning of words and concepts that elude them.
- Students use text evidence to infer themes and bigger ideas. I look for evidence that students are merging their background knowledge with clues in the text to surface themes and bigger ideas.
- Students infer and draw conclusions from informational text using features and text structures. I look for evidence that students enhance their understanding and think beyond just the facts as they read textbooks and other nonfiction text.
Differentiation
Inferring can be taught in many contexts outside of text. Playing cherades is a good way for learners to get a concrete idea of what it means to infer. Role playing and drama also encourage learners to act out their understanding of what they read. Sharing unfamiliar items objects like kitchen utensils and old fashioned tools, requires learners to use inferential thinking to make sense of them and infer their purposes.
Goal: Comprehension
Strategy: Summarising and synthesising information
Group: 3
Identifying and understanding main ideas along with determining importance are prerequisite skills to summarising text. Readers summarise the most important aspects of the text by determining the details that are significant and discard those that are not while stating the main idea in their own words, thus improving comprehension and understanding what is read.
I start by establishing a common language as I teach and review with my students the following terms: topic, main idea, theme, and supporting details. When students understand these terms, it helps them to move forward.
During a chapter book read-aloud, I begin modelling how to summarise. Before I begin the second chapter, the class helps summarise what happened in the previous chapter, stating the main ideas and using story elements to organise the summary. I model the difference between important and nonimportant information. I then model the process of determining the main idea, pointing out that one person's view of the author's main idea may be different from another. When we determine the main idea we always support our claim with evidence from the text.
Th language I use includes:
- 'In a few words, what is this selection about?
- 'What would you sayis the most important idea about this topic?'
- Did you find the main idea stated in the passage or did you have to infer it?'
Success Criteria
- I can identify the main ideas about what is being read.
- I can summarise the most important aspects of the text by sorting out the details that are significant and discarding those that are not.
- I am able to state the main idea using my own words.
I haven't quite made it?
- Summarise text; include sequence of main events
- Predict what will happen, use text to confirm
- Reading for the gist
Iv'e made it, where to next?
- Determine and analyse author's purpose and support with text
- Recognise and explain cause and effect relationships
- Synthesising to access content
- Trying to understand: seeking answers to questions that have none.
Assessment
I look for evidence that:
- Students summarise information by retelling. I look for evidence that students can summarise by picking out the most important information, keeping it brief, and saying it in their own words.
- Students become aware of when they add to their knowledge base and revise their thinking as they read. I look for evidence that students are learning new information, adding to their background knowledge, and changing their thinking.
- Students synthesise information through writing. I look for evidence that students pick out the most important information and merge their thinking with it to come up with responses that are both personal and factual.
- Students use a variety of ways to synthesise information and share their learning. I look for evidence that students use authentic questions, inferences, and interpretations to synthesise information and teach it to others through a variety of projects and products.
Differentiation
- By giving students choices about how to organise and present their new learning to others ensures that they are interested and engaged in the process.
During the teaching and learning sequence
On which learning tasks are students performing satisfactorily. On which tasks do they need help?
- Individual conferences will quickly identify which students are having difficulties that require remedial work or other interventions.
How will I inform the learner and others about the learner's progress?
- Students will be able to evaluate their progress and determine future learning goals from this task? At the end of each conference students will be given feedback and assigned a learning goal. Students are required to reflect on their learning (reflection template to be glued into their learning logs). Students will be given ample time during discussions to reflect on their learning.
Formative assessment
I will gather ongoing evidence of learning in a variety of ways including; reading conferences, student interviews, reading logs, learning logs, personal reading reports, analysis of retells, miscue analysis, cloze analysis and analysis of word indentification strategies. Running records will provide information regarding metacognitive and comprehension processes and strategies. I will provide continuous oral and written feedback to students. I will make standards explicit and, through the use of anchor charts, they will be made visible throughout the learning sequence.
Summative assessment
The TORCH could be re-administered and scores could be compared against previous performance. I could identify growth over time by creating a line graph based on scores out of ten that are assigned during conferencing. I could use a graded rubric for an end of term assignment. I could identify growth within a band using balanced judgement.
End of the teaching and learning sequence
I will identify which students have achieved the expected learning outcomes and prepare them to proceed to the next comprehension strategy in the sequence. I will identify which students need extra help and provide extra scaffolding for this group. I will determine which grade or performance level should be allocated to each student.
Feedback
I will offer a variety of feedback including corrective, alternative, clarifying, encouraging, evaluative and/or instructional feedback. I will use a feedback model to guide classroom discourse (e.g., Where am I going? How am I going? What progress is being made toward the goal? Where to next? What activities need to be undertaken to make better progress?)
Reporting
Emerging, solid and comprehensive descriptors can be used when making judgements about student learning. Any judgements identifying the growth and quality of student learning will made using multiple samples of evidence of learning.
Reflection
The following questions will provide a framework for refective practice.
- How well did I teach and assess this learning?
- What strengths did this teaching and assessing have?
- Did the achieved learning of the student reflect the intended curriculum?
- Did I adapt my teaching focus strategies to meet the needs of the learner?
- Did I allow the opportunity for the learner to refelct on and take action about their learning?
