Blog: The Learning Academy
Week 2
Day One: The Learning Academy
Date: 1/20/2016
Author: Lezza Merrill
Classroom of: Mrs. Chandler
Classroom Observations:
Today, was the first day in this new classroom. The first thing when I walked in, I noticed that this class is particularly small and the students very quiet. I have never been in a classroom that was so calm. It was a change that more or less came as a shock. I have never worked with a class that wasn't full of noise, and students roaming the room. To me, it was hard to differentiate as to whether the students were this way because of classroom management or, because it is a small class of 7, they were just that well behaved. The students worked well individually. The relationship between the students and teacher was also of the calming sort. The class went smoothly, transitioning from one thing to another with no problems.
Reflection:
Not having ever dealt with a class this calm, for me was difficult. I am a very active person and have never been able to sit still. I have always needed that extra chaos in the classroom. The teacher was very relaxed in everything she did, there was no need for yelling or even raising her voice at all. The kids too were overly calming. It was a great atmosphere, but it will take some time to adjust.
Week 3
Day Two: The Learning Academy
Date: 1/27/2016
Author: Lezza Merrill
Classroom of: Mrs. Chandler
Classroom Observations:
Today in the classroom, the students participated more then last week. Most of them still lacked the energy to participate up to normal requirements of the teacher. Mrs. Chandler made the students get up and participate in a group tracing activity to not only get them up and moving, but to use their muscle memory routines. This allowed for the students to be more involved in what was going on. The kids joked around with the teacher and she joked back but it distracted a few students. There is not much for me as a pre-service teacher to do in the classroom. Monitoring the room for students who need help, is the only thing to do. Mrs. Chandler stated that there will be more activities to do with the students in the progressing weeks.
Reflection: I am still getting used to the fact that the class is so small and so quiet. I am getting to know my case study studnt better though. During whole group instruction she tries to be the center of the classroom, but also gets frustrated when she is wrong. Watching the other kids is also interesting because they are all so different. It is a classroom that will take some time to get used to.
Case Study Interactions: Ashley
My case study student attends the Learning Academy. She is a high level student in her classroom. She does well in reading, but struggles in math. Today I helped her with a failed math test, and she became frustrated when she could not figure the problems out. I had her only pick out the numbers, and what the question actually was. When working in a group, she took charge, and became upset, when the other students had trouble following along with her. Today I gave a spelling inventory. She did well, only missing 5 out of 25 words. She struggled most with words like, growl and crawl. The -wl was her issue.
Reflection:
My case study student seems to be extremely smart, but becomes easily discouraged. This seems to stem from her wanting to be the center of attention. During whole group instruction, she blurts out, trying to be funny, but some instances is just disruptive. On her spelling inventory, she seemed to do well on most of the words. the -wl was the only part I really think she had a problem with.
Week 4
Day Three: The Learning Academy
Date: 2/3/2016
Author: Lezza Merrill
Classroom of: Mrs. Chandler
Classroom Observations:
This week the majority of the class was out sick. Out of 7 students only 4 showed up. Mrs. Chandler stated that having fewer students, can make it both easier and harder to teach. During whole group instruction, because there was only four, the enthusiasm level, was little to none. Flexibilty is a large part of being a teacher. Mrs. Chandler didn't have to change her lesson, but she had to change the WAY she taught it. She had to involve the students more, in order for them to stay awake. During instruction of Orton Gillingham Instruction, Mrs. Chandler had the students show us how to properly code words. She also had them explain the differences between Tiger and Camel words, and then explain how to code words with prefixes and suffixes.
Reflection:
The students don't really seem to interested in being there. There are only 7 students, so when 3 don't show up it messes with the routine on how things are done. Not all of the kids are social, so getting there participation, sometimes is also a problem. Getting the students up and moving around seemed to help a little bit, but not enough to encourage full participation. As a pre-service teacher, I asked the students questions and concerns that I had with Ortan Gillingham, this helped with the participation, as now they were able to teach what they have learned.
Case Study Interactions:
My case study student was absent today. I had planned on reviewing the ou, ow, oi, and oy sounds. I found a game on FCRR.com that helps review phonemics and phonics. The game was set up like Candy Land, with cards and moveable characters. Each space was marked with either ou, ow, oi, or oy. On the cards were words that contained on of the sounds, the student had to say the word, tap out the sounds, and move to the nearest space that had the corresponding sounds.
Reflection:
My student did not show up today. This made it hard to see if what I had plannd might help her. Being a teacher though, is all about how flexible a person can be. This was important today. I inquire with the teacher about her home life, and her interaction with other students. I thought this would help me get a better understanding of my student.
Week 5
Day Four: The Learning Academy
Date: 2/10/2016
Author: Lezza Merrill
Classroom Observations:
This week in the classroom, flexibility was a big part of the classeoom environment. Today was picture day, but they also had tennis. We had to work around the schedule so that pictures were before tennis. This cut into OG and Math time. The kids were anxious to go to pictures, but also wanted to keep their normal routines. Due to the fact that their OG time was cut into the teacher had them read on a program called, Read Naturally. This program helps develop fluency and comprehension.
Reflection: Having to deal with flexibility can create a hard time for the classroom teacher. The teacher and the students adapted well to the picture schedule and having to move around their classroom routines.
Case Study Interactions:
Today I implemented the above lesson with my student Ashley . I reviewed the words with the student. She struggled with words that consisted of the sound of oi. Other sounds that were worked on were ou,oy and ow. Oi and oy, sounds the same, so I had the student differentitate why they are spelled and used differently. Also, ow, has more then on sound, so I had her again differentiate the sounds, and how they are used. She tends to have difficulty with words the are R-controlled.
Reflection:
With my case study student, it is difficult to truly know what she knows. In the middle of giving her assessment, she got lost in her thought process. Next week I will do a variety of things so that she is not focusing on only one thing for too long.
Week 6
Day Five: The Learning Academy
Date: 2/17/2016
Author: Lezza Merrill
Classroom Observations:
Today we worked more on OG. There is not much differentiation between the weeks in the classroom. We had a student shadowing today, so they did more Read Naturally and OG. The new student seemed slightly discouraged because in public schools they are not introduced to OG. He knew that the did testing on fluency, but struggled with the concept of it being on the Ipads. During OG he struggled, he seemed to undersand the basics, and understand how to follow along, but the why was where he was lacking.
Reflection: During the instruction, the students were more distracted than usual, and I think that was because of the shadowing student. Several of the students, tried to help him follow along, but in the meantime, were not paying attention themselves. This created a little bit more noise then usual.
Case Study Interactions:
There was not much time to work with the case study student today. I had her read two Chapter of the book we have been reading, and we worked on picking out words that have the vowel teams we have been working on. I reviewed the game that i initiatied in the first session of working with her. She is still struggling with OI, and OY placements. During Reading, she lost her focus for a few minutes, but instead of worrying like usual, she paced herself, and reread a portion to make sure she was on track. She was able to pull some words out on her own that she struggled with and sounded them out using what she had learned. In a few weeks I will go over the words she missed on her spelling inventory, to see if she still struggles with the same words.
Reflection: She has become better able to self-monitor her reading, and to pick out the vowel teams on her own. She has been picking out the words, and exlpaining the uses without me even having to ask. She still struggles with R-controlled words, but the teacher said they are working on those through speech.
Week 7
Day Six: The Learning Academy
Date: 2/24/2016
Author: Lezza Merrill
Classroom Observations:
Lesson: Today I taught my first lesson of the semester. I taught a lesson on Fluency. before my lesson I had previously talkedt o my teacher, and found out reading levels, and who could work together, and who couldn't. I was able to split the class into to groups and it worked out fairly well.
Observations: During the lesson, I noticed that in the first few minutes of the lesson, the attention of the students was there, but not at 100%. They had already reviewed what Fluency was the day before, so this was nothing new to them. I was nervous to give them the stories I had picked, because my teacher had suggested soccer related, but to fit the reading levels, I picked two science/space stories. When the students started reading, their engagement level increased. I could see this not only while they were reading their passages, but when they were asked to summarize. There was a bit of humor to each story, and though I did not realize it at first, the students were the first to point it out and again, I saw their engagement rise. To me, the more the students want to emerge themselves into the lesson the easier it is for the teacher to teach. When the students are engaged, higher order thinking also because easier to create, and question. After summarizing their story, we use voice cards to that the students could practice using fluency. This for the first few students was frustrating. They were sure how to use the voice, and were shy about having to do it aloud. The rest of the class encouraged, and gave examples, to help those who struggled. This boosted confidence in the students, and allowed for an even and fair work space.
Reflection:
I was nervous about this lesson, because there are so few kids in the classroom, and also because the majority of the kids are not huge talkers. When we started the lesson, I was dreading continuing, because the students engagement was lacking, I am glad, that they were able to work together, and show that the classroom was a judge free zone. To me this is the best way to run a classroom.
Case Study Interactions:
There was not much time allotted to work with my case study students. I took several approaches in her evaluation today. We started with Fry Sight words, she made it through the entire first list without any mistakes. I then reviewed the vowel teams she had trouble with when we first started. (OO, OU, OI, OI, and OW) In the first session, she wasn't sure with OI, and OY on where the placement was and why they needed to be placed there. Also, OW, she knew there was two sounds, but did not understand. We have been working on the placement. She knows now, that if it comes in the middle, it is OI, except in some cases like loyal, where with oi, it would be oia, if oi was correct. OW, she knows now, that, with this, you just have to play around with the sound and ask yourself..."Does this sound right?" In the word bow, it could be said both ways, but the word cow, only one. Every week we have been reading a chapter of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School. IN this, I listen to her read, I write down words with all the vowel team sounds we have been working on, and then have her work through the words, when she is finished reading. Also, we have been working on R-controlled words.
Reflection:
Working with this student, I have seen a growth in her ability to use her vowel teams better. The class had not learned all of the ones, we have covered yet, but her classroom teacher, said it would help her when the time came. She has improved in her reading fluency quite a bit, now that she can recognize these specific vowel teams. She has been reading her chapters, and even on her own now, if she comes to a word with a vowel team we have been working on, she will stop and ask me about it, and review that words and the vowel teams. Next week we will work more on R-controlled words and work on comprehension questions from the story.
Week 8
Day Seven: The Learning Academy
Date: 3/2/2016
Author: Lezza Merrill
Classroom Observations:
Over the past few weeks it has been the same, monitor and walk around the classroom, because we are preservice teachers, our cooperating teacher decided to let us run th show for a day. We were able to work with the students on OG. There were places here and there, where we still were unsure about some of the OG skills and saying. The students do really well when learning OG and when they are introduced to new sounds and or words. I have never really understood how they decode, so the teacher let a few students show us, and explain what certain things. There are so many hand movements that help the students.
Reflection:
During the instruction, the students were a little more focuesd then ususal. I think that having the pre-service teachers go over OG, and the fact that the got to teach us was a motivator for them to pay attention more. They became the teachers and we became the students. This boost morale, and their want to both learn and teach.
Case Study Interactions:
My case study student has been working her way through Diary of a Wimpy Kid: old days. She has been working on comprehension and fluency. As well as working on the vowel teams of OO, OI, OY, Ou, and OW. While she reads i followe along, and find words with the vowel teams. When she finishes her chaper, we go over the words, and any differences the vowel teams make among the different words. As well as going over words from the story, I went over the first full list of words from the Fry sight words. From that she got a 100/100 on the words. She knew the word pretty well and mentioned we had used some of the words, while reading the book.
Reflection:
She has improved in her reading fluency and comprehension. She has improved in her use of Ow, and OO vowel teams and ways they are used. She still struggles when finding the differences in the uses of OU,OI, and OY. We have also been working on r-controlled vowels teams and blends that have r in them. She struggles to identify words when spoken that have the r influence sounds.
Week 9
Day Eight: The Learning Academy
Date: 3/16/2016
Author: Lezza Merrill
Classroom Observations:
Our class gained a new student this week. The students always respond slightly differently when there is a new person in the room. The teacher also, responded differently, and did extra stuff during her instruction, that not only reviewed items from the beginning of the year, but also went over a few new things. The new student was very versed in what she already knew about the OG instruction. Due to the fact that she was so well versed, the other students were highly engaged in the lesson. Usually the students drag out the lesson, and or no one talks. Today not only did the lesson go more smoothly then usual, but it was like the students had a new reason to engage in the learning. After OG instruction, Mrs. Chandler split the class into groups, a reading group, a decoding group, and an OG sounds and words group. The new student struggled in the group of OG sounds and words, her listening and decoding skills are where she struggles on the words. The other students were quick to help her, adn to help her find ways to memorize sounds, and the way words pattern should be followed.
Reflection:
The students all work very well together today. I think that the new student helped boost morale in the classroom. They have had students sit in the classroom in the past, but this one came in with slight prior knowledge, which kept the students on their feet for the majority of the class. Also, the students could not be more helpful to her when she didn't understand something. t
Case Study Interactions:
I talked to my teacher today, more about my case study student. Over the past few weeks, though she has been doing well in her grades, he distraction level has sky rocketed. Keeping her focused has become more a priority then attempting to work on specific items. She has been reading a chapter book, and has no problems with that since she reads on a 6th grade level. She has been working on her vowel teams as well, Every time she gets about 80% of the words and their vowel teams correct. She struggle in the different phonemes and sounds that OU is composed of. Words like obvious, house, and through all have different sounds associated with the OU. The more sounds the vowel team has, the harder it is for her to grasp the team. I started her on the 2nd list of Fry words, and i only gave her 40 words, instead of the previous 100. She got 40/40 on this set. She still rushed through the words, but went back and corrected herself.
Reflection:
I that if we can work her focus, and work on changing up the way she approaches different topics, we can work on getting her back focused, and learning again. She is doing well in her sessions with me, but her teacher thinks that home issues may be causing other issues to travel into the classroom, adding to her distraction level, which in turns distracts the other students.
Week 11
Day Nine: The Learning Academy
Date: 3/30/2016
Author: Lezza Merrill
Classroom Observations:
Today I taught an ELA lesson using different takes on classic fairy tales. We worked on comparing and contrasting the two types of stories, including elements such as; characters, setting, problem, attemopts to resolve and resolution. The students already knew a lot about comparing anc contrastin which made the lesson easy. I overplanned for the lesson so we did not get to finish everything, but the students were really engaged in the lesson. The students were able to identofy the elements of each of the stories. I provided three stories for the students to use. I provided two versions of Beauty and the Beast, Jack and the Beanstalk and Snow White. The students were provided with a shortened version of original stories, along with newer twisted stories. The students were asked to read each story and complete a graphic organizer to compare and contrast. Overall the lesson went well, and the students were well engaged.
Reflection:
The students were very much engaged, when I am usually there, the students participate in class, but they are never fully engaged in the lesson. At the learning academy their lessons are very repetative from day to day and i think the students lose a great deal of interest in participating. I tried to make sure my lesson was as engaging as possible.
Case Study Interactions: My case study students has achieved a great deal since we started working on the vowel teams she was missing, as well as word parts and fluency. We review every week the vowel teams; OO,OU,OW,OI and OY. For the most part she can tell me the sounds of each team, and if they have multiple sounds, what they are. This week I gave her words to sort into the vowel sounds. It was important for her to know that some of the teams make the same sound depending on the word they are in. She did well on this managing 18 out of 20 words. Also, she had been having trouble with her R sounds, so we work on beginning sounds such as; str, br, pr, that have the sounds in them. From this we could combine the two skills and make words that she could put together. We also have been reading the book "Diary of a Wimpy Kid; Old School." I have been reviewing fluency and her words per minute with her while she reads, as well as finding our vowel teams in words from the book.
Reflection:
By working on the vowel teams and the various sounds the teams make, the student can better place them and words, using the correctly. When we first started, she kept mixing up the sounds and couldn't correctly pronounce them in words. Also, with her R sounds, my teacher noticed that she was still having trouble, and informed me that she is going to speech for this, but that it is also a re-enforcer when we work together on the sound.
Week 12
Day Ten: The Learning Academy
Date: 4/6/2016
Author: Lezza Merrill
Classroom Observations:
Today we mostly did math. On normal days, we are not there for math time, so it was a change of pace for me as a pre-service teacher, and for the students. Usually during this time the students work through the OG lesson and or their Lexia program. During the math lesson, the teacher only gave a short 10 minute introduction, and then immediately split the class into small groups. Each of the three teachers in the room were given a group, and we were in charge of a set of numbers in the math book, that the classroom teacher wanted us to help the student with. For me, the problems delt with propotions, probability and elapsed time. These were all things the students struggled with. They missed the questions, even afer redoing them. I had to have the students use manipulatives in order for the students to understand the probability and elapsed time problems. There were even some questions, that because of the wording were slightly confusing for me, the students were very helpful in assisting each other when I was not sure of the answer myself. They worked together as a team to talk about way to solve the problems and decide on an answer.
Reflection:
The students work well together and are not afraid to talk about the answers. I wasn't sure on a couple of the questions, on how to get the answer, but as a team we worked it out. The problems about probability in the book were not worded quite right creating a slight confusion in the problems. Instead of saying in all or how many total, it just asked" how many students ate cereal." there was a venn diagram that show just eggs, just cereal and then both, so the students became confused on having the total number of students that ate cereal not just the one that ONLY ate cereal.
Case Study Interactions:
Toady my case study student was not there, it was arranged with the classroom teacher for me to come in on another day, but every day that we scheduled, there seemed to be one thing or another that prevented me from being able to work with the student.
Reflection:
Week 13
Day Eleven: The Learning Academy
Date: 4/13/2016
Author: Lezza Merrill
Classroom Observations:
Today the schedule for the students was switched around, the students had there annual concert for the parents and used the time we spend with them to rehearse. During the rehearsal, students were not together and or organzied. The studens were all over the place trying to figure out what to do. When they came back from rehearsal they were just as confused in the classroom. The teacher attempted to teach a math lesson, but the students were not focused enough. The teacher split the students into their math groups and let each teacher take a groups and work through the problems with the students. During the time of math, the students were rowdy and didn't get much done. They would go back and forth between questions, and not work well together.
Reflection:
During this time, the kids start to loose focus in school. The students don't have very long before school gets out. When the students are not on there nomral schedules, things becomes new and different for them, and they start to take advantage of that. They often loose focus as the did today. Most times this does make it hard to teach a lesson.
Case Study Interactions: My case study student had seemed to be improving from her first meeting with me. Toady though,it was like we were starting all over. She kept confusing all of her vowel teams that we had worked on as well as, couldn't correctly sort the words. I had her re-take the primary spelling inventory from our first meeting. The first time she took the test she made a 20/26, which was still not bad at all. She was missing sounds such as; oi, ou, ow, and the use of double consonants. When i regave the test, she got a 25/26, only missing the word riding. She simply just added letters where the dind't belong. Due to the fact that she did so well on the primary spelling inventory, i also gave her the Elementary spelling inventory, which is used more for the middle school grades. On this test, she scored a 15/ 25. For me, I thought this was a great score considering the words. She missed words such as; cellar, pleasure, fortunate, confident, civilize and opposition. I asked the teacher, how i could help the student better learn these words, and she told me that these are more or elss words that just need to memorized.
Reflection: Considering that the student could not remember much about what we had been working on in the past, she did exceptionally well on the test that she was given. She was not too happy about missing as many questions as she did, but when i told her we would work on them all together she became very happy. She wasn't too overly happy to even be at school that day. I had talked to the teacher about it, to see if she had also noticed this. She told me that the students home life isn't the best, and parental support isn't always there. TO me this makes it hard on children sometimes. If there parents wont help them they find it hard to be able to push through anything or accomplish anything. much less for them to even want to.
Week 14
Day Twelve: The Learning Academy
Date: 4/20/2016
Author: Lezza Merrill
Classroom Observations:
Reflection:
Case Study Interactions:
Reflection: