FIELD 620 RATIONALE

Background
In my field placement for 620 I was placed during a summer enrichment
program. The summer program was in the Wauwatosa school district at
Underwood Elementary. During the summer program I implemented reading
enrichment activities to strengthen and progress students grade 1-3rd
reading abilities. The reading program was broken up into three different
groups. Two of the groups consisted of four students and the third group was
a young lady who needed individual attention in reading. The summer
program of consisted of students who were of various ethnicities and of
middle to upper socio economic status. I had one students who was
identified as needing special education services. She was labeled with
Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD). The students who make up the summer
program participate based on invitation based on reading abilities.
The curriculum I used for my Field 620, was designed from Fountas and
Pinnell a leveled literacy intervention. The specific reading group I
implemented in this lesson plan was with the young lady who needed
individual attention. In this lesson I first would introduce a section of
phonological awareness to the students. We worked on syllables and word
families: AY and ENT. In this lesson I decided to use magnet letters as
manipulatives for her to use while creating new words belonging in the
specific word families. The young lady then did a quick reread of the The
Three Bears, as we had already read this story the day before. After the
reread she then created another word family EE, where she picked out
words that fit this word family and wrote it in her journal. As we finished
discussing the word families we introduced a new book called Puppets. In
this lesson I instructed the young lady to do a picture walk and discuss what
we think the book will be about. The young lady then started reading the
book while I was asking her comprehension questions. After we finished the
book we discussed the similarities between the story The Three Bears and
Puppets and checked if there were any similar words from out word
families from the word families.
Rationale
The purpose for this field is to apply reading comprehension strategies being
studied. In this program I was decided which lessons I thought were best for
the students I was working with. I first assessed my student by completing a
running record with her to determine which reading level she should be at.
The original reading level she was at seemed to hard, and she was easily
frustrated. After the running record I determined she needed her level to be
reduced and she was much more comfortable and successful at this
particular level. From there I chose specific lessons from Fountas and Pinnell
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that address the needs of this young lady. I chose this lesson to work on
building sight words, word families, and word decoding skills.

Common Core Standards

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.4 Identify words and phrases in stories or poems
that suggest feelings or appeal to the senses. This standard was applied by
the guidance through comprehension questions. While the young lady was
reading the story Puppets I asked her guiding questions, as suggested by
Fountas and Pinnell lesson plan. The questions consisted of questions asking
how she thinks the puppet feels, and what lead her to this conclusion. I also
asked this question in the story The Three Bears, how did the Bears feel,
how did Goldie Locks feel, and what about the story lead her to this
conclusion. The second Common Core Standard I used was
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.3 Describe characters, settings, and major events
in a story, using key details. I addressed this standard when we were reading
the story The Three Bears by asking comprehension questions of who the
characters are, where the setting was, and describing the main events
happening in the story: Goldie finding the Bears house, eating their food,
sleeping in their bed, and the Bears finding Goldie Locks. This standard was
also addressed during this lesson in our introduction of the second story
Puppets. During the introduction when we did a picture walk and
discussed what we think is going to happen during the story. In the story we
discussed to relationship from our picture walk to what we read. I asked her
questions based on the story, What did this puppet feel when he said..?,
How do you know? What do you think will happen next? What details are
given to make you think this? The purpose of the questions was to develop
the connection between the pictures and what we read in the story and
developing comprehension of what was being read. The third Common Core
Standard that was addressed in this lesson was
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.6 Identify who is telling the story at various points
in a text. This standard was addressed during this lesson by discussing who
was telling the story, narrator, first person, or third person. In both stories
The Three Bears and Puppets she was able to determine it was a narrator
who was telling the story and gave reasons to why. We also discussed what
it would look like if it was first or third person telling the story.
Teacher Standards
 FIELD 620 RATIONALE

Teaching Standard #4: The teacher understands and uses a variety of

instructional strategies to encourage students' development of critical
thinking, problem solving, and performance skills. I used different mediums
while teaching this lesson, I implemented white boards with magnetic letters
for manipulations while creating word families, we verbal discussions of the
story through the use of comprehension questions, and the use of a journal
to write thoughts and new words from the story.
Teaching Standard #5: The teacher uses an understanding of individual
and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that
encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and
self-motivation. During this lesson I using encouraging guiding words to
encourage my students self-motivation to correctly decode the unknown
word in her story. This young lady is a struggling reader who is easily
frustrated with her abilities to decode unknown words. Providing her with
positive feedback allows her to feel good and keep trying to decode correctly.
At the end of one of our stories, The Three Bears, there was a play for the
readers to act out the different parts. The young lady was very excited to
read this part of the story so I read the story with her acting out the
characters she selected for me. I changed my voice for different characters,
creating a fun environment for her to engage with the reading and see
connections between the story and the play.
Teaching Standard #6: The teacher uses knowledge of effective verbal,
nonverbal, and media communication techniques to foster active inquiry,
collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom. During this lesson
I used nonverbal cues when we were going over the sight words, along with
reading the story. While going over the sight words again I would double tap
a word she read incorrectly, this told her to try it again, when she read it
correctly I would uses verbal cues and say good for her to know she did it
successfully. While reading I would double tap words, give a thumbs up, or
give head nods to determine if she was correct or need to try again. The
nonverbal cues worked for corrections and the verbal cues were good to
reaffirm she was correct. When she needed prompting I was here to help her
break up her words into sizeable chunks to read. We were able to determine
different syllables and smaller words inside bigger words and I supported her
with her decoding abilities in this lesson.
Teaching Standard #7: The teacher plans instruction based upon
knowledge of subject matter, students, the community, and curriculum goals.
In this lesson the curriculum was laid out for me to determine how I wanted
to implement the lesson based on my knowledge of my students needs. In
this lesson I gave her manipulatives which gave her abilities to be creative
while creating word families. In this lesson I allowed time to read the play,
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since this was a reread I know she enjoys reading the play. Allowing time for
reading the play in my lesson attributes to the knowledge I gained from
working with my student.
CEC Standards
CEC Standard #4: Instructional Strategies. I used multiple instruction
strategies to help build her weaknesses using her strengths. I instructed the
young lady with tactile movement through the use of manipulatives. I
allowed the young lady to lead discussions through the use of
comprehension questions directing her attention to what she thought was
important in the story. In this lesson we also used the use of a journal to look
back in the story and write new groups of word families, EE. The different
instructions would allow the young lady to develop comprehension on
different levels throughout both the stories.
CEC Standard #7: Instructional Planning. I used instructional planning by
reading what Fountas and Pinnell had laid out and conceptualize how I
wanted to teach the young lady and implement the different lesson
techniques in this lesson. When the curriculum stated for the students to
create word families, I decided to use manipulatives for the first group and
keep the activities diverse by writing the new discovered word families in a
journal, after the story. I added comprehension questions as I felt they were
needed for my students individual growth and comprehension as a reader.
CEC Standard #8: Assessment. The assessment abilities were done by
observations of my students ability to correctly identify words belonging to
word families, correctly identify the answer to comprehension questions, and
her ability to decode unfamiliar words. In this lesson I was able to assess my
students ability identify sight words, and determine if new sight words were
needed based on difficulties while reading the old story. I determined that
the student needed to add a couple word to her sight word list based on her
consistent mispronunciation and struggle to read the words: Cold and Right.
My assessments determined the student consistently struggles with these
words and would benefit from adding it to the list of sight words she is
already studying.

Alverno Abilities
Conceptualization: During this lesson I was able to conceptualize how I
wanted to implement this lesson with my student to keep it interesting,
active, and engaging. Once I read the curriculum I started brainstorming
best practices to implement the activities that would be most beneficial to
my student. Once I was able to determine the amount of time I would need
 FIELD 620 RATIONALE

to implement the lesson, the different activities I would place in my lesson I

was able to successful instruct my student with the best practices to keep
her actively learning and engaged in the stories we were reading.
Communication: The communication I used in the lesson was verbal and
nonverbal cues. I verbally instruction the young lady to what activities we
will be completing and gave her direct instruction for her to complete the
activities accurately. Non-verbal cues were given to the young lady as to
correct what she read, by double tapping words, give her signals such as
thumbs up or head nods communicated with her if she needed to try again
or if she was correct. Communication is an important part of instructing this
lesson. I needed to use my abilities to relate to this young lady in talk to
ways that was polite, encouraging, and supportive to help her gain
confidence and progress and a learner. I was supportive in this lesson by
helping her use strategies to decode unknown words. I was encouraging in
this lesson by positively redirecting her by telling her to try again and giving
her plenty of praise when she was successful.
Educational Framework
The educational framework used in this lesson was based on Seymour Paperts
theory on Constructionist Learning Theory. This theory is based on the student
learning through projects being facilitated through a teacher like a coach instead of
a lecture. I was this young ladys coach. I helped guide her through the lesson
making her own decisions to direct her learning. She made all the decisions which
words to create in the word family, how she wanted to answer the questions, and
how she wanted to read the play. I allowed the young lady to make decisions to
play an active part in her education. Having a partnership in her education helped
her make meaningful connections to what she was learning. Following Paperts
Theory allowed me to make meaningful connection to the information we were
learning.