Monday, November 10, 2014
On
Thursday, I pulled a group of about four students for a short phonics lesson. I
created a small sound box for each student in my class. I allowed them to take
it home so they could decorate it. I began by having them spell the word “sat”
and I sounded each part slowly. Most of them got the word and one spelled “sai”
instead of “sat.” Then I instructed them to spell sit and gave them a hint that
there will only be one letter that changes. I sounded out both words slowly so
each child was able to hear the sounds in the word. Again, most of them were
able to spell the word except for one of the ELLs that is still struggling with
identifying letters. He calls the “s” a “c,” which indicates he has yet to
visually learn the alphabet. The next step I took was telling them to change “sit”
to “it.” I hinted that they will be taking only one letter out. The students
then began to want to write them on a piece of paper. So I allowed each student
to get a piece of paper and write it down. I got the sound box activity from
Words Their Way by Bear,
D., Invernizzi, M., Templeton, S., & Johnston, F.
Photo credit to Natalie and Rachel on What the Teacher Wants.
Professor Wulf dropped in to observe me and helped me work with the students. I observed the way she worked with them and how she pronounced each word. Then, I compared and contrasted her instruction to mine. One of the mistakes I made was not firmly deciding on whether the children should use the sound box or write it on paper. I made a mental note on having them only do one thing so it doesn’t get out of hand. Professor Wulf repeated each word and tried different techniques to get their attention when they started doing their own thing. The ELL student was writing other words and I was unable to redirect him to the activity we were doing.
