EDEX 546

Mini Lesson Plan #2: Plurals

Teacher: Elizabeth Martin Grade Level: 1st grade

I. Instructional Objective:

 Through intervention work on specific suffixes over a 4 –week period,

students will be able to increase fluency of reading through word recognition
and improved decoding skills.
 Students will be able to differentiate between the various inflectional plural
suffixes (-s, -es and -ies) and apply the rules of when to use each one in
order to decode and encode in text.
 Students will be able to encode the plurals of certain nouns when given the
singular noun, given their ending letter.
 Students will be able to sort plurals into the -s, -es and -ies columns by
sound and through decoding.
 Students will recognize certain irregular plurals that change entirely from
singular to plural (i.e. child -> children).
 Students will increase automaticity and fluency through word recognition and
repetition of selected plurals on a word ring.

II. Instructional Procedures:

 Before (Introduction): To introduce the lesson and to visualize the

difference of singulars and plurals, I will first show the following “plurals
song”. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAEX6_5PDRb9f3zlrY-
b1gXA6WosLmlrm They both are ELL students with a native language other
than English, which either has different plurals rules or does not use plurals.
This will reinforce the concept of plurals in English.
 Next, I will also introduce the rules of plurals through presenting the visual
Plurals cards, showing how certain plurals are formed.
 During (Teacher Model): I will present the Plurals Sort Worksheet to the
students and will model doing a few orally, talking aloud through the thought
process of which plural suffix I would add to the singular noun shown, based
on the visual Plurals cards showing the rules. I will double check
understanding of why we added a certain plural ending after we do it
 together, asking one student for each example and looking for a regurgitation
of the thought process I had used. I will then demonstrate cutting this word
out and gluing it under the appropriate column. For the “y changes to -ies”
words, I will physically cross off the “y” on the singular to reinforce that it is
dropped.
 During (Groupwork): I will have the students work together to finish up the
plurals sort worksheet as they talk through their answers. After they have
finished, we will review it and discuss any that were confusing.
 During (Individual): I will give each student a whiteboard and present the
Write the Plurals sheet. I will select about 10 words and point to it, state the
singular and ask them to write the plural on their whiteboard. I will keep track
of which ones are confusing to which student for potential further work.
 After (Lesson Closure): I will present both students with a word ring
containing the same words from the Write the Plurals worksheet we just
reviewed. Their ring will be pre-filled in with all of the correct plurals and will
contain all of these words. We will go through the entire ring once together,
saying the singular and the plural word chorally. I will clip these word rings
onto their take home folders for them to bring home and practice.

III. Materials and Equipment:

 iPad for YouTube viewing of the Plurals song

 Rules of Plurals visual charts (Appendix A)
 Sort the Plurals worksheet (Appendix B)
 A small whiteboard for each student
 A group copy of the Write the Plurals worksheet (Appendix C)
 A word ring version of the Write the Plurals worksheet for each student
 Pencils for each child

IV. Assessment/Evaluation:

 Formative assessment will be performed as students work in a pair to sort

the plural words onto the Plurals Sort Worksheet. Students will have to read
a singular, encode into a plural based on rules learned and correctly
transcribe the plural so that it can be sorted into the -s, -es, or -ies column.
Prompting will help to bring understanding if a student struggles; students will
be challenged to explain their reasoning to their partner to make this exercise
student-led.
  Student work can be assessed through the whiteboard work that we did
using the Write the Plurals worksheet, as students will be given selected
singular words and asked to write down the plural form.
 Finally, continuous assessment will be checked using the word rings, as
students will have their cards punched whenever they know one of the
words. I will check this every time I am in their class, typically twice per
week. The exceptions to the rule plurals (children, etc.) will become more
like sight words using this method.

V. Differentiation: This lesson is for 1st grade students who are reading below grade
level. Specifically, these two students are both instructionally reading at a level E
after being given Running Records, with the 1st grade end of year benchmark being
a level I. Both students are English Language Learners (ELL) who speak English
and their native language. They are proficient in English conversationally but require
intensive language support to build their reading fluency and vocabulary. They
generalize from their native languages to English for (lack of) suffix usage so this is
an area of need for them. The plurals song is specifically for ELL students to
introduce the concept of plurals since I want to first reinforce this concept that is not
typical in their native tongue, before continuing on to teach them to plurals rules.
Through instructional intervention and greater decoding and word recognition
abilities, they can increase their reading fluency and prosody.

To differentiate for ELL students, I include visual aids for lessons and utilize modeling
frequently since particular suffix usage is either not used in their native tongues or is
conjugated differently so seeing it performed will help with comprehension. I also am
making a modification for articulation, accent and pronunciation if a student struggles
with English being linguistically different than their native tongue.

VI. Technology: An iPad will be used to show the students the Plurals song when
introducing the lesson.
VII. Self-Assessment For this lesson I will have both the plurals sort worksheet and
measurable data from the whiteboard activity in order to gauge understanding of the
plurals concept and various rules for constructing plurals. I will also be able to orally
hear if the students continue to struggle with dropping plurals as they read orally. A
prior lesson on -ed endings and a subsequent lesson to provide intensive support
with –ing suffixes, will provide comprehensive intensive support on several suffix
endings that cause some struggles in class and on the DIBELS assessment.
Continued practice and reinforcement of all three types of suffixes together will
 enable me to see if the lesson is providing proper intervention support in this area
and if recognition of the suffixes has increased when the word is within context.

Weeks 3 and 4 will introduce a short Reader’s Theater that uses many suffix words.
This will be the culminating self-assessment as to whether the students: recognize
suffixes within context; have increased their ability to read these words with
automaticity in order to increase word recognition; and if prosody has been
increased, resulting in higher levels of reading fluency and text comprehension. A re-
assessment in reading fluency of the student after this 4-week intervention will
provide measurable data as to whether or not his level of fluency has progressed.

VIII. Appendices (Lesson Materials Used): See below

Rules of Plurals Visuals (Appendix A)
Sort the Plurals Worksheet (Appendix B)
Write the Plurals Worksheet (Appendix C)

References:

YouTube, Plurals Song. Retrieved from

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAEX6_5PDRb9f3zlrY-b1gXA6WosLmlrm on
May 14, 2017.

TeachersPayTeachers, retrieved from free downloads at www.teacherspayteachers,com

on May 12, 2017.