LESSON PLAN OUTLINE

JMU Elementary Education Program

Kayla Morrissey
Ms. Lam, Clymore Elementary
February 15th, 2017
Submitted February 8th, 2017
Presenting February 15th, 2017

A. TITLE/TYPE OF LESSON: Word Study with Decoding, and Splat!/ Word Study Lesson

B. CONTEXT OF LESSON

What pre-assessment did you do that tells you the students readiness, interests, and/or
learning preferences?
These students will be ready for this lesson because they are currently working
on developing fluency and quick word recognition with the particular words I
will be using. They have been using decoding strategies for this in a
differentiated group, so this will help reinforce those concepts. These students
also love the game Splat!, as I have seen it used in the classroom for other
reading activities. This will increase their engagement with the lesson and I
think they will be excited to play this game!
Why is this an appropriate activity for these students at this time?
This is an appropriate activity for these students because these students are
currently working on decoding as a specific group, because it help supports
their needs at this time. Students are working with different kinds of strategies,
and my game will help reinforce what they work on with my CT on the days
that I am not there.
How does this lesson fit in the curriculum sequence?
This lesson fits with the curriculum sequence at this time because students will
be asked to think about what each of these words sound like, as well as using
their knowledge of roots, affixes, synonyms, antonyms, and homophones.
How does this lesson fit with what you know about child development?
This lesson fits with what I know about child development because this
activity will be engaging, hands on, and appropriate for small groups.

C. LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand what are the broad Know what are the facts, rules, Do what are the specific thinking
generalizations the students should specific data the students will gain behaviors students will be able to do
begin to develop? through this lesson? through this lesson? (These will also be
assessed in your lesson.)
Students will begin to understand Students will know what the
what words sound, look like, and words repeat, refer, relay, remit, Students will use their hands break apart
mean. Even though the words restore, and russet mean and know each word, tell the teacher a similar
might sound similar they dont how to use them in a sentence. sounding word, and use the word in
mean the same. Students will their own sentence.
understand that there are strategies
to decode words.
D. ASSESSING LEARNING
What will your students do and say, specifically, that indicate every student has achieved your
objectives?

I will use an assessing learning chart to assess whether the students have met the objectives or
not.

Name Uses hands to Says similar word Uses word in a

decode can say the sentence
word (demonstrates
knowledge of meaning
of the word)
Autumn

Jacob

Kayla

a. RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING (and NATIONAL STANDARDS

if required)
i. Reading4.4a:Usecontexttoclarifymeaningsofunfamiliarwords.

ii. Reading 4.4 b: Use knowledge of roots, affixes, synonyms, antonyms, and
homophones

E. MATERIALS NEEDED:
Students will need a piece of paper, and a pencil.
I will provide the splat game from Ms. Lam.
Index Cards with the words on them

F. PROCEDURE
(Include a DETAILED description of each step. Write what you will SAY and DO.)
i. Preparation of the learning environment: Get the splat hands out, index cards, and
word list at the table. We will talk about what we do when we do not know how to
pronounce a word, which will lead into decoding strategies such as covering up parts
of the word to combine them into one. I will ask students what they do if they do not
know the meaning of a word, and how we can figure it out (looking for: using a
dictionary as they just had a unit on this and using context clues in the text). Students
already know the rules of Splat! as they use it in the classroom as a resource game. I
 will get out the index cards that have the words remit, restore, repeat, relay, russet, and
refer.
ii. Implementation of the lesson: The selected students will come to the table with me,
and we will go over what we will be doing for the lesson. I will tell them we are going
to be practicing making sentences with words that we are learning about. I will have
the first student break apart the first word using their hands (re-peat), and put the word
together as one. I will ask that student if there are any words that sound like that word.
I will ask the student if they know what this word means, and prompt content such as
where would we hear this word being used? I will do the same thing with the next
student, and so on until we go through all of the words. Next, we will play splat. I will
put out index cards with the words on each. I will say a word, such as refer, and
whoever slaps their slapstick on the word first will get that card. I will ask that student
for the meaning of the word, and for them to write a sentence with that word. After we
play a few rounds, I will ask students what they think the affix RE means, as we have
been developing a meaning of these words. I will ask them to look for any patterns
between the definitions of the words to figure out what re means. We will keep
playing until time is up.
iii. Closure: When we are done, I will ask the students to tell me one thing they learned
about a word, or if they would use this decode strategy if they came across a word
they didnt know.
iv. Clean-up (if required): I will collect the index cards, game features, and put them back
where they belong.

G. DIFFERENTIATION
The students that I will be working with are already differentiated in terms of ability
with word recognition. If one student is struggling more than another, I will encourage
the students to keep using their hands to decode. If a student is moving ahead and
easily decoding words with their hands, I will ask them not to use their hands. If that is
still easy for them, I will ask them to tell me the word without breaking apart the word
at all and to sound it out as best as they can. If any behavioral problems arise, I will
prompt these students to sit closer to myself and I will have them lose a turn in their
spat game if it gets too out of control.

H. WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT
IT?
i. For this lesson, I need to make sure that I have the proper pronunciation of each word
and that I know what each word means so that I can help the students and know what I
am talking about. I might not explain the game well enough, and if we are playing and
we are focusing more on the directions of playing the game and not actually focusing
on the words of the game, I would have to take a time out and re state the rules and
what I want the students to do.
Lesson Implementation Reflection
As soon as possible after teaching your lesson, think about the experience. Use the questions/prompts below to
guide your thinking. Be thorough in your reflection and use specific examples to support your insights.

I. How did your actual teaching of the lesson differ from your plans? Describe the changes and explain why
you made them.
a. My actual teaching had to focus a lot more on keeping the focus on the words. I think that since
my group was an odd number of students who ALL wanted to engage in the game part of my
lesson, I spent a lot more time on saying its _______s turn now or reminding the students not
to cut another student off. The students became more impatient than I would have thought, so I
spent a lot of teaching time also talking about being respectful to our classmates and peers. I
thought it was important to take some time to do this because the class as a whole has had some
difficulties being respectful to one another, and thought this could be a time where I could
reinforce my CTs values as well. Some of the language I had to use included letting _____ finish
their turn or if _______ asks you for help, you may but let them try to figure it out on their own
first. The students were very eager to say the word when they knew it right away, which I was
happy to see, but if the student whos turn it was didnt know the word yet, it took away from them
figuring it out on their own which was disappointing but I should have prepared more for that.
Because of this, I had to really make sure I made it explicit that whoevers turn it was belonged to
them, and that they had to try to figure it out. If I were to do this lesson another time, I would try
to get a group of even number of students so they could partner up, and play the game themselves
and I could step in when needed. These students were chosen by my CT to work with me, so I
should have thought more about how having 3 students who all want to win would impact my
teaching. Other than this, the actual lesson of decoding really didnt change. The students all were
able to figure out the words and meanings of the words.

II. Based on the assessment you created, what can you conclude about your impact on student
learning? Did they learn? Who learned? What did they learn? What evidence can you offer that
your conclusions are valid?
Name Uses hands to decode Says similar word Uses word in a
can say the word sentence
(demonstrates
knowledge of
meaning of the word)
Autumn Yes, but would try Struggled especially I will refer you to the
without doing so at with russet, but was best doctor I saw him
first. Would use able to say refer last week.
hands when she was sounds like defer, I am restoring my
struggling (restore, repeat sounds like food for winter
repeat, russet) defeat, relay sounds Ms. Lam has to
like delay repeat her directions
because nobody
listened
The potatoes were a
russet color
I ran a relay
Jacob Yes- always Not able to When Ms. Lam has
to repeat hands and
eyes we arent
listening.
I am restoring this
 jar
I will refer to the
article for the main
idea
We ran a relay at
recess
Ms. Lam didnt remit
our recess
Kayla Yes- On most words, Struggled especially We ran a relay for
but didnt need to on with russet, but was gym
relay, remit, or refer. able to say remit The builders are
sounds like commit, going to restore the
restore reminds me old building
of remake I am going to refer
the ice cream because
it was really good
When Ms. Lam
repeats herself, we
need to listen
Russet is a color
a. Based on this lesson, I would say that students were able to learn the meaning of these words
fairly well. While most struggled on the words remit, and russet, words that they heard more often
used in a daily context like relay and repeat were easily used in a sentence. I think I had an impact
on students learning because they were able to come up with some sentences for even some more
difficult words like refer and restore. I think that to improve learning, I could have gone over the
russet and remit with them more and offered a stronger definition for them. They were able to
remember that russet didnt sound like the other words, and that it was more of a color when we
were originally playing our game, but they had trouble remembering what it meant when we were
making sentences. I was surprised that Jacob had trouble coming up with words that sounded
similar, and Im not really sure why. I think that he showed knowledge of what the word meant
because he was able to make sentences out of the words with little struggle. While every student
was able to tell me what each word meant, making the sentence took a lot more time to do, and
this is where the students became impatient. I think that coming up with the actual context for the
sentence was the most difficult part for the student. I feel like they were thinking about how the
word can be used. Coming into this group, students already had the strategy of decoding using
their hands and this was supposed to be a practice of that strategy, leading into stronger fluency.

III. Describe at least one way you could incorporate developmentally appropriate practice in a better or more
thorough way if you were to teach this lesson again.
a. I think I could incorporate developmentally appropriate practice better or in a more thorough way
if I were to teach this lesson again would be to give the children choice. Since they are in 4 th grade,
I think offering options on how they learn might be more appropriate. I think we could have
played Splat all together, and then use some word study apps or games that they can choose to
play themselves. I think decision-making at this age offers that level of independence where they
can choose how they want to learn after being given the tools and guidance of the group activity to
do so.

IV. Based on the assessment data you collected, what would you do/teach next if you were the classroom
teacher?
a. Based on my assessment data, I would teach affixes next and what certain affixes mean, like in
this lesson the re affix took a while for the students to understand and while they were able to
make sentences using the words, I dont think they actively recognized the pattern of what re
meant. I would go over what an affix is, and how we can use it to determine a words meaning. I
 think that this would be important to teach next because if the students were able to focus on what
the affixes meant, it can be used as a strategy to help learn the meaning of the full word.

V. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about young
children as learners?
a. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, I have learned that with the proper DAP, engaging
activity, and appropriate amount of support children can dive into learning without thinking that
they are actually learning. What I mean by this is that DAP is critical, as we have learned in our
300 level and some students may be at different levels. It is important to know your students so
you can provide a DAP for everyone. Engaging activities like games can really bring up levels of
student involvement in in learning. Whether it is an app, hands on activity, game, video, or even
using hand gestures, students can become more invested in what they are doing and have a higher
level of learning. I learned that games are a great way for young children to learn! While it may
become competitive, it shows that students are involved and actively participating.

VI. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about teaching?
a. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, many of the things mentioned in the previous
question have reinforced my thoughts on teaching. Using engaging, hands on activities or games
are important to get students involved. I also had some other things reinforced, like remembering
that even though these students are older, they still need reminders about being respectful to one
another in terms of taking turns. I need to remember students can be actually excited to learn and
want to really jump in to the activity. I have learned that I need to also think about these students
when differentiating a lesson and planning one. I saw this in my lesson where students were
cutting each other off and answering questions for each other because they wanted to get the right
answer, or show me that they were working hard. A lot of the time, we focus on the students that
need that extra push to get involved or want to participate. Its important to remember the other
side where students might not necessarily be at a higher level of thinking, but have a higher desire
to learn and be involved.

VII. As a result of planning and teaching this lesson, what have you learned or had reinforced about yourself?
a. Something that I have noticed over the course of the 300 level and thus far in the 400 level
practicum is that I am rather shy or timid to be stern or refocus the students when they need to be.
I think its just natural for me not to come across as mean and be a people pleaser, not to mention
definitely not wanting to step on the CTs toes. However, sometimes a little push of expression can
go a long way. When this lesson was going on and students began to answer for others, I was laid
back on it. I was like this not only to assess the situation and not make it a big deal if it wasnt one,
but because I didnt want to discourage the learning that was happening or make the students think
I wasnt happy when they gave me the right answer (even though it wasnt their turn). However,
once I felt like it got disruptive to the learning of others, action on my part as the teacher was
needed. Every teacher intervenes differently, depending on the situation, the type of program the
school is, and I need to remember its ok to put my foot down even in practicum when I see fit.
My observations of the situation need to be carefully judged and assessed so I know how to best
take action or how to help the learning environment be safe, trustworthy, and make the students
want to be apart of the community. While this was not by any means a huge problem in my lesson,
its something that has stuck with me.