Carly Williky

11/19/15

Teaching Reading: Mini Lesson Format (Calkins, 2001)

Targeted Literacy Strategy or Skill: Reading for the Gist
Grade level: 5th
Objective: The student will be able to take notes and use a variety of strategies to synthesize while the
teacher reads a book aloud.
Common Core State Standard/ PASS Standard: Common Core State Standard RL.5.2: 2. Determine a
theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama
respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.
Prior knowledge: (What students already know): The students already know how to ask good
questions, adept at reading strategically, and practiced strategies. They know that reading is about
constructing meaning and understand that they read for that purpose.
Observations/Rationale: (Before Lesson) What did you notice in your students work that let you
know this lesson was necessary? (This will be an approximation this semester.): I noticed that my
students were able to code text, but they cant take notes during read alouds.

Materials Needed: Sticky Notes and a Pen or Pencil

Lesson from (Name your source including page number): Strategies that Work, pages 187- 188
Mentor Text: An Angel for Solomon Singer, by Cynthia Rylant
Materials: Book: An Angel for Solomon Singer
Student Groups (whole/small group/partners): Whole class
Mini Lesson Format:
Connect (AKA~ Anticipatory Set, Engagement/Pre-reading): Good Morning Class! This year we
have learned lots of strategies that help us, as readers deeply understand the texts. Can anyone list
some comprehension strategies that we have talked about? (Asking questions, visualization,
making connections, inferring, and synthesized) These strategies will help you make sense of the
book.

Teach (Model/Explain): I am now going to read aloud An Angel for Solomon Singer and we are
going to stop after each page and take a few notes on our sticky notes so we can later go back and
remember what we read about, but also talk about what strategies we used. I will read the first
page of the book aloud and then I will stop to take my own notes, after I finish my notes for that
page, I will then move onto reading the next 2 pages aloud and then I will stop and take notes.

Active Engagement (AKA~ Check for Understanding: students try it out, teacher observes): After
the class understands how to take notes while I read aloud, I will move onto the next page and
keep reading. If anyone needs extra time I will stop after the page is read and I will let the class

finish their notes. I will give them between 1-2 minutes to make sure they have all their thoughts
written down. When they are finished writing down, I will keep reading aloud with stopping after
each page until the book is finished. When the book is finished, I will go back to the pages I took
notes on to demonstrate for the class and I will read the notes again and figure out what strategies I
used. After I model that, I will ask the class to do the same thing for all of their notes.

Link (AKA~ Closing the Lesson [with accountability for the skill/process]): We are now going to
look at all the notes that we took and determine which strategies we used. As we can see, our notes
that we wrote down after each page of the book helps you get the gist of the story and it shows you
how we use the strategies that we learned to get the gist.