Shandel Sedgwick

EDUC 540
Drexel University
12 March 2020

Lesson 2 Reflection: Go Wild

This second lesson was an ELA comprehension lesson focusing on main idea and

supporting details. This lesson was a little challenging because teaching main idea, a very

abstract thing, to six and seven year olds can be tough. I wanted to make sure all of the

students were engaged in all aspects of the lesson. I began the lesson by activating the

students’ prior knowledge. To do this, I brought up the story from last week and had

students converse about what we read about. Then I asked students what we found out

from the story, which was the main idea. I presented a visual aid (anchor chart) to help

jog the students’ memories. I further engaged the students by playing a fun rap song

about the main idea that they could dance and sing to. Next, I reviewed the main idea

concept and how to find it with the whole class. Afterwards, we played a game to get the

students even more involved in the lesson. For this game, I hung several papers on the

board with different simple, main ideas. Each student got a square cutout of a picture and

had an opportunity to paste their “detail” onto the main idea mat they felt fit the best. We

went over each of the main ideas to make sure the details were in the best spot possible,

and that each of the details fit the main idea of the mat. Once the game was finished, we

reread the story together as a class. Then we worked together to establish a main idea for

the story we read. I placed key words as we worked through the steps of finding the main

idea on the board, and had the students collectively come up with one sentence for the

main idea. Then I passed out graphic organizers. Students were instructed to fill out a
graphic organizer with three (or four) details that support the main idea we just decided

on while teachers walk around and offer support.

There were a lot of positive and strong components of my lesson this time around.

Weeks had gone by since my last observation and felt that I was much more into the

swing of things. I developed the entire block of comprehension time in the classroom, as

the students were not focusing on comprehension prior. I think that amount of time for

the lesson was perfect. I also think that the flow of the lesson was very nice and the

students did not have many opportunities to get lost or lose focus during the lesson. I also

think that I presented a nice scaffolding model in the lesson by adhering to the I do, You

do, We do model. Including a video and song was a perfect way to make sure the

students were excited and energetic about learning. Often times, it is difficult to teach

main idea, especially to young learners. The song provided the students with an

opportunity to use a more concrete example to help them remember concepts about the

main idea in a fun way. Another strong aspect of the lesson was the main idea matching

game. This got students up, out of their seats, and actively engaged in the lesson. Not

only were students engaged, but they were active learners and not just sitting down

listening—they participated in their own learning experience. The students enjoyed being

able to guess where their details belonged, and it gave the whole class a good opportunity

to practice matching details with main idea. This also gave me a great opportunity to see

what the students were learning at this point of the lesson. At this point, were students

correctly identifying appropriate details for main idea examples? Many of them were.

This let me know that we were ready to move on to the second part of the lesson.
 Reading the lesson as a whole group made me a little nervous when I did a lesson

before this. Sometimes as a whole group, it can be difficult to keep everyone in earshot to

assess reading skills. It can also be hard for all of the students to follow along at the same

pace. There are a few positive reasons and results why I choose to go along with whole

group reading. During my first comprehension lesson with the group, I told the students I

would read the story aloud to them as they followed along. However, when I started to

read, all of the students began to read with me. This was a very organic response that let

me know the students were excited to read and be part of a reading community. I decided

we would do this at least once for each story. During this particular lesson, the same

reading community was formed, and it helps the students learn pacing while reading.

Furthermore, they can model my inflection. With a group with low reading levels, often

times they are focusing on decoding the words. With this instructional technique, they

can model appropriate inflection that is modeled to become better readers. Finally,

another positive benefit of doing this is so that all of the students can be engaged.

Popcorn reading and similar styles are great too, but the other students often get lost

while we are reading or lose interest quickly, so this allows for all of the students to be

participating throughout the whole lesson.

Providing a visual aid for the students with the anchor chart was a great idea too.

The students referred back to the chart while completing their graphic organizer, which

was helpful. Another great thing was walking around to observe the students and offer

support as they completed their independent work. I also differentiated the graphic

organizer task. I allowed the students the option to draw their details, or write them. This

allowed the lower students to still complete the task, and I allowed the higher students to
write their details with text evidence. This gave each child the confidence they needed to

complete the task effectively.

There is one aspect that could have gone better in the lesson. For one, I wish I had

provided a mini version of the anchor chart for each student to have at his or her desk.

This would have made the anchor chart more accessible.

Overall, I think that I had a very strong lesson. I enjoyed the outcome of the

lesson and I feel the children really enjoyed it and comprehended it, even though it is a

tough topic to master. I think the students were engaged in the lesson throughout, and

their graphic organizers definitely showed how much they understood this concept. As a

class, we enjoyed this lesson and we learned a lot about animals!

Observation Live Link

https://berksiu.zoom.us/rec/play/BQnnQb7VpsN7ZZk2PJjLEhUq8k0nycHSUGRG08RF

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continueMode=true&_x_zm_rtaid=Nzvk-QgLQX-

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=648