Part A: Class Environment

I currently teach third grade in an inner city elementary school in Major City in the USA.

The school I teach in houses children in K through 6th grade. My school is the largest in the

district, with just around 700 students. My school is considered an elevate school, in my district

this means the school is in a highly poverty neighborhood. The school in which I work has a full-

time reading resource teacher who spends her time pull small group for second graders extremely

below grade level. She also spends part of her day teaching second grade. My school always has

a full time reading coach that works and plans with classroom teachers as needed.

I am a departmentalized teacher, which means I teach two blocks of ELA. Both of my

classes are composed of bubble students (students who are on the verge of proficiency). My

homeroom class is composed of 18 five- and six-year-old students. I have 6 girls and 12 boys.

My second block of reading is also constructed with 18 students, 11 girls and seven boys. My

students come from diverse background ranging from Caucasian, African American, and

Hispanic. Many students can to me reading slightly below grade level. About a quarter of my

students came to be on or above grade level as far of a DRA. Students are expected to come to

the third grade reading at a DRA level. I have about 15% of my students that are reading on a

first grade level. Mostly every student in both of my classes have serious deficiency in the

reading comprehension. There are a few challenges I think I might encounter in teaching

comprehension strategies. The first challenge is the work ethic of my students. Coming from

second grade, the sudden change of the rigor of the text is usually a main issue. Students also

lack stamina while reading lengthy text. I plan to teach all of my comprehension strategies in a

workshop style. I plan on using my guided reading block to teach my low students

comprehension strategies as well as still teaching decoding strategies. I plan on meeting with
each guided reading daily throughout the week. For my higher group I plan on helping them

perfect their context clues skill as well as metacognitive skills. For bubble students I will work

on stamina by providing the opportunity to improve their fluency by allowing them to do fast fry

phases in morning once they arrive to my class. In this activity students have fry phrases in

which they track how many they can read in a minute. Lower level students will have second and

third grade high frequency word.

Due to changes in curriculum and scheduling this year, there is time carved out in the

scope and sequence of our school year to teach these comprehension strategies and encourage

fluency while reading. In my district there are Fontas and Pinell lessons we have to teach known

as the first twenty days. It is designed and scripted to teach students how to self-monitor their

comprehension with the use of strategies i.e. Reciprocal teaching. Therefore, I will need to find

time in my already very busy literacy block to teach these comprehension strategies.

Finally, because most students reading at a beginning of 2nd grade level, the text I use

during my readers workshop block will be rigorous and they will have to grapple and conquer it.

Therefore, I will need to teach comprehension strategies through teaching and modeling. It will

not be difficult for me to arrange my lessons around me modeling first and then gradually

releasing my students. However, I cannot be sure students will transfer this to their own reading,

and comprehension may be more difficult for students with language barriers that my English

Language Learners may experience. Just as there are some challenges I anticipate I will

encounter in teaching these strategies, there are some strengths my school has to offer in teaching

these strategies. I plan on using grade level text so students will be comfortable with difficult and

lengthy text prior to taking their grade level high stakes state standardized testing in April.
 Another strength my school has to offer is that there is a group of teacher leaders that can

help teachers with reading instruction along with a reading coach. I believe that many of the

strategies I will be teaching will be extremely beneficial to help closing students holes with

comprehension. This gives me the opportunity to teach the lesson, let students practice, and

release them to independent do whatever strategy I teach them that day or week with gradual

release. I also plan on debriefing at the end of the lesson, to see what I need to reteach and revise

to ensure the success of students.

Something else that may be reasoning behind their lack of comprehension is the skills

being taught at school, most of the time are not being reinforce at home. Students are required to

read for thirty minutes every night and complete a reading log which they rarely do. An

advantage of my school is that not only do they have a school media center they have a

partnership public library that is open to children and adults in the neighborhood. This leaves

little to no room for excuses about how students dont have books to read at home.

Part B: Comprehension Strategies

Strategy 1: Making Inferences

In Module 4, they mention an inference activity I use in my classroom every year. The

activity is Whats in my bag? It works one because kids are actually more observant them

people believe. I usually wait until at least the first month of school, so students can have a good

schema about me so they can have a good idea of things to guess are in my bag. I usually post an

anchor chart in the classroom in which there was a t-chart. One side stated what a student

thought was in my bag and on the other why they believe that item was in my bag. Afterwards, I

would reveal to students what it is in my bag. I then would show students an inference anchor

chart as shown in the below photograph.

I explain to students that making an inference is half of whats in the text and half of whats

already in your brain. Inferences is one of the only reading comprehension strategies where

students most activate their background knowledge (vocabulary is another strategy that realizes

on the activation of students prior knowledge).

Something else I use to help students make inferences is by reading riddles. I usually go

on www.superteacherworksheets.com and do both inferencing riddle activities. I start off with

2nd grade and then matriculate to 3rd grade. Another successful resource I have used in the past

and plan on using this year is showing a brain pop jr clip about making inferences, this clip is

approximately 4 minutes long.

The next day for the following lesson I would start with doing a brief review about

making inferences, I would have students copy the Making Inferences anchor chart in their
reading notebook. I have two other short games I play with students to help develop the

inferences skill. One is called Help Wanted, in this employment game I read clues about an

employment ad I read in the paper (this needs to be planned ahead of time) and students have to

guess the job. For example, I may say the Help Wanted ad stated: Must be willing to work long

hours, able to climb a ladder, cannot be afraid of heights, must be in good shape and strong

enough to carry someone if needed, and may have to use cherry pickers. Some students may

automatically be able to guess its a firefighter because of their background knowledge, other

students may think its a construction worker. I allow students to have a rich discussion on which

career they think it is before revealing it. I do something similar with For Rent/ For Sale, I

describe a house that is for sale and they have to guess the location of the home. For instance, I

read an ad that says someone is selling a beach house. They say the home is at a location where

summer is one of the only seasons they experience. The beach house comes with an evacuation

plan for hurricanes (this location experiences many tropical storms and hurricanes). One of the

benefits of the location is that it is close to the Caribbean. Some students may think the home is

in California because of what they maybe see on televisions, while others may be able to know

right off the back the location is Miami. Some students may just say Florida which is fine too.

I would them introduce students to finding the moral and/or central message of the story

by using their newly found inferencing skills. I would the anchor chart as photographed below.
I would have students focus on the main character of the story. I tell readers to track the

characters. What are their actions, their motives, what do they say or feel, how do they change

throughout the story? An old reliable text I use to teach this message is the Ant and the

Grasshopper. In this text, the character I tell students to track is the grasshopper. In the story, the

grasshopper plays instead of preparing for the winter like the ants. EVEN with the ants warning

her she still doesnt take heed Winter rapidly approaches and all the food on the ground is scare.

The grasshopper starves because she procrastinated and waiting to the last minute to get

something done. After reading the text, I ask students the following questions:

What is the lesson you think the character learned?

How did the character grow or change throughout the story?

What is a life lesson you took away from this story?

 Some other reliable text I use to teach central message is The Lion and the Mouse, Tops and

Bottoms, The Little Red Hen, and The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Once students have exhibited

mastery in identifying the central message in text, I step it up. About two years ago, I used theme

songs to help students intensify their concept of central message. I gave them a list of common

themes as listed on the anchor chart and give them theme songs to certain cartoons shows.

Students then work in teams to identify the theme of their theme song. Students must find two

pieces of text evidence in their theme song to support their claim. We then have a class-wide

discussion to state whether we agree or respectively disagree with a fellow classmate. Its a lot of

fun and I plan on implementing it this year in my classroom. Students love it because I show

them cartoons from the past and presents. Some theme songs Ive used is Proud Family, Dragon

ball Z, Sailor Moon, Kim Possible, and Pokmon.

Strategy 2: Visualization and Imagery for Figurative Language

Usually when I text figurative language I use a superhero theme to go along with it. It

makes for a great culminating activity at the end. I explain to students that simile and metaphors

are have non literal meanings. I know students are totally in love with teen titans go and there is

an episode speaking about non literal and literal meaning. I show the clip on YouTube entitled

Say Whatcha Mean, Mean Whatcha Say. This will serve as the engagement piece as I

transform into a hero, Super Reader. Im a superhero that is there to introduce students to two

other superheroes and reading, Metaphor Man and Simile Girl. I show them a Bazillions video

from YouTube entitled Metaphor Man and Simile Girl. This clip is about four minutes long. I

will explain to students that both similes and metaphors use comparisons, similes just use either

the word like or as. While in character as Super Reader still, I have students describe their

teacher using similes and metaphors. I then break students in groups of three and assign them a
superhero. Each student must create two similes and two metaphors for their superhero. If

students struggle with creating a simile or metaphor I have students look at the superhero or

think about their powers and what they are similar to.

After students complete this activity I bind the book and leave it on display in the

classroom. I also allow students to work independent to write a poem about themselves using 9

similes and 6 metaphors. I know metaphors are a little harder to understand than similes which is

why the amount of metaphors that is required for the assignment is less than the number of

similes. After this, I introduce students to poems and have them find the literal meaning in non-

literal terms.

Strategy 3: Monitoring Comprehension for teaching reciprocal teaching strategies

As I have stated in previous journal entries and discussion posts, my district requires all

ELA teachers grade levels 1st 5th teach Fountas and Pinell First Twenty Days of Reading.

Throughout the first four weeks of school, we pretty much train students how to be a reader that

can not only read but comprehension. One of my favorite mini lessons is listening to their inner

voice. I always tell students if they are reading without thinking, they are not truly reading they

are word calling. Students are encouraged to track their thinking while reading by using post it

notes or think marks. Students may circle words they dont know or place a question mark next

to a statement they dont understand.

A lesson I find extremely valuable that I make my students complete every time they read

is reciprocal teaching. A teacher models for students how to use text features such as the title and

heading can be used to make a prediction of what they think the text will be about. Students

make start off struggling to make prediction that are reasonable but through practice they
improve. The next step of reciprocal teaching is for students to ask questions while reading. I

usually motivate my students to come up with three sets of questions; before reading, during

reading, and after reading. If students struggle with coming up with questions I remind them to

think of the 5 Ws: who, what, when, why, and where.

The follow lesson shows students how they can clarify words or phrases they dont know

by sounding a word out or rereading how the word is used in context. This is the perfect opening

for teaching students how to discover the meaning of unknown words by using context clues.

Context clues are EXTREMELY DIFFICULT for students to understand if they havent been

taught how to do it before, so you will need to do a lot of probing and teaching students how to

use the words around the unknown word.

The last lesson students are taught is how to synthesize the information they have just

read and come up with a summary for the text. From my experiences, students struggle with

differentiating the main idea from a detail. Most of the time I use the comparison of a wedding

cake and cupcake. When you give the main idea, it should be short, sweet, and to the point like a

cupcake. Not tall long and drawn out like a three tier wedding cake. To ensure students dont

give a super long summary, I make students tell me the main idea of the text in 10 words, no

more, no less. This activity teaches students to use their words wisely and use key terms from the

text. Doing this has taught my previous students, how to thin out all the fluff and focus on what

is the main point (or idea).

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