Instructional Decision Making

Instructional Decision #1:

In lesson five, one of the main objectives was to decode multisyllabic words using word

strategy skills. This is a skills several students struggle with as the words get longer and the

number of syllables in each word increases. While teaching these lessons the student was asked

to break the multisyllabic words into syllables and then read the word aloud using the decoding .

In this lesson I had not originally planned to demonstrate how to decode the multisyllabic words.

The student has been practicing this skill for several weeks but is still struggling after a

suggestion from a mentor I made an adjustment to the curriculum. For this adjustment I first had

the student continue to use the CLOVERS chart and find words from her reading book. In this

chart she breaks down the multisyllabic words and places the syllables in the correct column for

the different types of syllables. For the next part of the lesson I took several of the words from

her independent work worksheet and demonstrated how to decode the words and break them into

the different syllables. The student then completed the worksheet by herself with more

confidence and less guided instruction. The student understood the lesson much more after I

demonstrated how to break the words into the syllables. I know this because the student was able

to complete her worksheet independently with higher accuracy.

Instructional Decision #2:

In lesson four one objective was that the student would spell words based on spelling rules she

knows. In this lesson the student was asked to spell different words based on the spelling rule we

were using which was when a word ends in f or fe change those to yes when making the word

plural. For this lesson the student struggled with spelling the word wives. To change the

instruction I first the student how to spell the word wife. I wrote the letters to the word wife on

the bray tiles mat. I then asked the student what spelling rule we are working on today and she

then explained the rule. I demonstrated how to erase the fe in the word wife and then change the

word to wives. I then explained to her the definition of the word wives. This is an example of

direct instruction with modeling. After this change in the instruction I observed the student

writing the singular version of the word to determine how she would change the word to become

plural. The evidence that the student understood the concept better was demonstrated to me after

the student wrote the words singularly and the studied how she would change the words to

become plural.