EDEX 546

Mini Lesson Plan #4: Reader’s Theater

Teacher: Elizabeth Martin Grade Level: 1st grade

I. Instructional Objective:

 Through intervention work on specific suffixes over a 4 –week period,

students will be able to increase fluency of reading through word recognition
and improved decoding skills.
 Students will be able to encode the practiced inflected suffix endings –ed, -
ing and plurals, in context while reading.
 Students will increase oral reading fluency using a Reader’s Theater with a
high number of –ed words, –ing words and plurals. They will increase level
of prosody through listening to me read the parts fluently and repeating after
me with expression.
 Incorporating very simple motions for new vocabulary will help to increase
comprehension and word recognition. All new vocabulary words in the
Reader’s Theater have been introduced for the previous 3 weeks during
exercises to familiarize them with the words, especially since they are ELL
students.
 Students will have improved text comprehension as a result of increased
reading fluency and word recognition.
 Students will present the Reader’s Theater to their class.

II. Instructional Procedures:

 Before (Introduction): As a review of the prior three week’s lessons, I will

present the new vocabulary words within the Reader’s Theater in on the
white board in singular or present tense form and will review the words and
have them write an –ing, -ed or plural on their personal whiteboards for each.
This will be a good formative assessment as to what has been retained and
understood and also a good review of the vocabulary.
 During (Teacher Model): I will present the Reader’s Theater to the students
and will have them echo read in unison after me, line by line. I will be sure to
model prosody as I read and to accentuate intonation, expression and tone,
as well as the inflected ending which we have been learning.
  During (Groupwork): I will have the students echo read with me one more
time, this time with only one student reading each part. The parts have been
colored coded for ease and to reduce confusion. The part that I select for
them to read will be their official part for the Reader’s Theater. A few simple
motions will be shown for some of the more challenging words that they and
classmates may not have in their word banks so far, in order to increase
comprehension.
 After (Lesson Closure): To close for this session, we will have the students
do an antiphonal reading of the Reader’s Theater, practicing prosody as they
read and incorporating their motions. We will have three more sessions to
practice our Reader’s Theater before we present to the class, the Reading
Specialist and the Principal on Thursday 6/1.

III. Materials and Equipment:

 A large whiteboard
 Individual whiteboards and markers
 Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens Reader’s Theater (Appendix A)

IV. Assessment/Evaluation:

 Formative assessment will be performed as students perform the whiteboard

activity and are asked to provide either an –ed, -ing or plural form of the
singular noun or present tense verb that is given.
 Reading fluency through word recognition of –ed, -s and –ing words will be
assessed as the Reader’s Theater is read.
 Prosody and using inflectional endings in context can be also assessed
through introduction of the Reader’s Theater. This will continue to be
monitored until the end of the school year.
 A re-assessment in reading fluency of the student after this 4-week
intervention by using a fluency passage from the subtest of the DIBELS
assessment will provide measurable data as to whether or not his level of
fluency has progressed.

V. Differentiation: This lesson is for 1st grade students who are reading below grade
level. Specifically, these two students are both instructionally reading at a level E
after being given Running Records, with the 1st grade end of year benchmark being
a level I. Both students are English Language Learners (ELL) who speak English
 and their native language. They are proficient in English conversationally but require
intensive language support to build their reading fluency and vocabulary. They
generalize from their native languages to English for (lack of) suffix usage so this is
an area of need for them. Through instructional intervention and greater decoding
and word recognition abilities, they can increase their reading fluency and prosody.

To differentiate for ELL students, I include visual aids for lessons and utilize modeling
frequently since particular suffix usage is either not used in their native tongues or is
conjugated differently so seeing it performed will help with comprehension. The
lessons have been scaffolded through echo reading and modelling to foster progress
when reading orally. I also am making a modification for articulation, accent and
pronunciation if a student struggles with English being linguistically different than their
native tongue.

VI. Technology: None is used in this portion of the lesson.

VII. Self-Assessment: Continued practice and reinforcement of all three types of suffixes
(-ed, -ing and plural) together will enable me to see if the lesson is providing proper
intervention support in this area and if recognition of the suffixes has increased when
the word is within context.

There is practice with prosody and fluency by using the short Reader’s Theater that
uses many suffix words. Key vocabulary has been presented as well as relevant
motions to be done when presenting the Reader’s Theater, in order to increase
vocabulary and understanding. This will be the culminating self-assessment as to
whether the students: recognize suffixes within context; have increased their ability to
read these words with automaticity in order to increase word recognition; and if
prosody has been increased, resulting in higher levels of reading fluency and text
comprehension.

VIII. Appendices (Lesson Materials Used): See below

Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens Reader’s Theater (Appendix
E)
References:

Prelutsky, Jack. Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens, Elementary Reader’s Theater.

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