Direct Instruction Lesson Plan Template

Grade Level/Subject: 4th/Vocabulary

Central Focus: Students will apply context clue strategies to determ

a words meaning.
Essential Standard/Common Core Objective:
RI.4.I: Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the
text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

Date submitted:
Date taught: 3/22/16

RF.4.4.C: Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and

understanding, rereading as necessary.
Daily Lesson Objective: Students will be able to use context clues to understand what they are reading.
21st Century Skills:
Communication: articulate thoughts and
ideas effectively; listen effectively to
decipher meaning

Academic Language Demand (Language Function and Vocabulary)

Confirm, self-correct: Students will be confirming and self- correct
as they tread through the text while determining what the meaning
unknown words.

Make Judgments and Decisions: interpret

information and draw conclusions based
on the best analysis

Context, understand

Students will be reading, writing, and listening throughout the guid

and independent practices and the teacher input piece of the lesson.
Students will also be speaking in the guided practice.

Prior Knowledge: The students will need to understand the context of what they are reading. Students should be
able to communicate thoughts effectively and respect other students answers respectfully.
Activity

1. Focus and Review

Description of Activities and Setting

Today class we will learn how to use concept clues to identify unknown
words in an article. Do you know any context clues that you use now to
help you decode unknown words? The teacher will allow students to
answer.

Today Im going to teach you context clue strategies. At the end of the
lesson you are going to finish reading the article and underline any
2. Statement of Objective unknown words that you come across. You will use the context clues you
for Student
just learned to help you determine the meaning of the words. After you
finish reading the article you are going to complete a multiple-choice
worksheet on what you just read.
3. Teacher Input
First the teacher will past out a check sheet with the context clues written
on for the students to glue into their reading notebooks. Then the teacher
will use an anchor chart that has the different context clue strategies

Time

4. Guided Practice

written on it.
Strategies:
Guess the meaning, based on experience and how the story goes.
Read on to see if it becomes clear later.
See if you recognize root words, prefixes or suffixes in it.
Check if it is a bit like another word you know in another
language that would make sense.
Ask someone.
Use a dictionary or Google.
He or she will go over each context clue and give examples. The teacher
will also use past examples with words students are familiar with, for
example: geo- means earth, so a word they could use would be geologista person who studies the earth. Next the teacher will hand out the article
to the class. The teacher will use the smart board to pull up the article for
the class so they can see what he or she writes when making notes.
Okay class, I need your help to figure out the meaning of words in this
article that I do not know. Read the first paragraph to the students and
underline any unknown words you come across. Once the teacher
finishes reading the first paragraph they will go back to the unknown
words they underline to try to figure out its meaning. In the first
paragraph the teacher will underline baleen and marine. The teacher will
speak aloud thoughts and explain how they figured out the meaning of
each of the words. (For example, Hmmm.. Im not sure what the word
baleen means. Let me reread the sentence to figure out if I can find any
clues within the sentence that might be able to help me. After I reread the
sentence I noticed that baleen is describing the word whales, so I think
baleen might be a type of whale. Let me reread the sentence with the
meaning I came up with in it. As with other baleen whales, a type of
whale,... Does that make sense? Yes, I think it does.) The teacher will
also tell which context clues they used. They will continue doing this
with the second paragraph.
Now that you have seen me apply the strategy I want us to do the next
two paragraphs together. The teacher will read the next 2 paragraphs to
the class and will stop at unknown words. He or she will ask the class
what they think the unknown word means and what strategy did they use
to figure out its meaning.

5. Independent Practice

For the independent practice students will continue reading the rest of the
article independently back at their desk. The students must underline at
least two unknown words in the article and use the context clues
strategies they just learned to determine the meaning. After the students
have finished reading the article they will be given a multiple-choice
worksheet that has questions about the passage they just read.

For the assessment students will be given a worksheet that they will complete after
reading the rest of the article independently. While reading the passage the students
will underline words they do not know and use their context clue strategies they jus
6. Assessment Methods
learned. The students will have to use the article to answer the multiple-choice
of all objectives/skills:
questions on the worksheet. The assessment is the same as the independent practice
activity. Students must answer eight out of the ten blanks correctly to meet todays
daily lesson objective.
Now that the lesson and assessment is over the teacher will ask students
what they learned in class today. The teacher will also ask the students
7. Closure
what they thought about the strategies and if they though the strategies
were helpful.
For this assessment sixteen out of twenty students met the objective, which was the
8. Assessment Results of
had to get eight out ten correct on the worksheet. Four out of the twenty students di
all objectives/skills:
not meet todays daily objective.
Targeted Students Modifications/Accommodations: Student/Small Group Modifications/Accommodations:

If students are having a hard time during the guided

practice the teacher can add more examples for practice.
multiple students are having a hard time learning the
teacher may need to revisit the teacher input section and
find another way to teach the strategy. Also before the
assessment the teacher can see if students are struggling
and if there are only a few, the teacher can have small
group instruction before the assessment and if its more th
seven the teacher can conduct a mini lesson.

Materials/Technology:
California Gray Whales Article
Worksheet
Cheat Sheet
References: Mrs. Brooks
Reflection on lesson: