Reading Lesson Reflection 1 (Fluency)

• What did you notice about your students’ participation and learning in relation to your objectives?
• I was absolutely thrilled by the level of participation that the students in my group showed. I could tell that they were very excited to work with me, and were very eager to answer my questions and do what I asked of them to the best of their ability. The objective of my first lesson was that the students would read with accuracy and expression, and I believe that they did this very well. I timed each of the three readings that they completed for the lesson, and each rendition took less time. The first reading took 6 minutes and 16 seconds, the second 5:38, and the third 5:20. I told them that I was going to time them, and they were very excited to hear that their times improved so drastically during each reading.
• Reading the same script but assigning each student a different role for each rendition was a very effective way of helping these students read with more expression. I was very explicit about the goal of the lesson, and asked the students how they thought they were doing with regards to reading with expression and keeping their audience interested after their second reading. Eli answered, almost immediately, "I think that Adam is sounding a lot more expressive now than he was at the beginning". It is remarkable that even in so short of time there can be a noticeable difference in fluency for these three students.
• What were the strengths and limitations of your lesson for supporting your students’ learning?
• I thought that one of the major strengths of this lesson was choosing a text that was at a lower level than what these three students are capable of reading. This allowed them to focus more on how they were reading instead of what they were reading. Although I provided them with a highlighter to mark any words that they were unsure of pronouncing, accuracy was not a problem for these students. They were able to pronounce every line without any trouble; the biggest problem that they had was losing their place and not knowing which lines were theirs since their role changed before every reading.
• Along with the major strength of this lesson came a limitation. Because these students had already mastered the vocabulary used in this script, I was not able to teach them any additional information about the background of the story. I know that the focus of this lesson was fluency, and I wanted them to learn how to be more expressive readers, but I wish that I would have been able to help them make connections between reading with fluency and knowing the content of what they are reading. I believe that if the reading would have been a little more challenging, more learning could have potentially occurred, and there also would have been more opportunities for the students to learn from each other.
• What did you notice about yourself as a teacher? What questions do you have?
• One of the main things that I have noticed about myself throughout this course and 401 is that I tend to talk too much. The lesson that I taught today was no exception. I found myself talking for long periods of time and telling the students information that they would have been able to figure out themselves if I had chosen to pose a few questions to them instead of simply presenting them with the information. I do not believe that I give students enough credit for the knowledge that they already possess before I teach them. I would like to challenge myself to become a teacher who is more aware of what my students already know and build off of their interests in order to teach them the most effectively.
• I suppose the main question I have right now is about where I should go from here. I know that these students still have a long way to go when it comes to fluency, and I would like to know some ways that I can use the same play to allow the students to express themselves more completely through reading. What other strategies exist to teach students fluency, and more specifically, how to read with expression no matter what text they are reading?