Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812

Required: Tiered Lesson Template

The following template must be used whenever the PST is observed by their Mentor Teacher, School
Coordinator, or University Liaison.
Subject/Learning Area of Lesson: Language
Specific Topic of Lesson: Sequencing events in the story (Creepy Crawlies)
Year Level/s: Children aged 4-5 years old

Lesson Context

Students are currently exploring different types of animals in the world and the various categories they
belong to, i.e. the sub-themes: “Zoo Animals”, “Farm Animals”, “Creepy Crawlies” and “Sea Animals”. As
students discover in-depth knowledge about the theme, they not only find out about the characteristics, facts
and information about animals, they will also be involved in language and numeracy learning experiences.
This lesson will fit into the language unit under the sub-theme, “Creepy Crawlies” with the use of the book,
“The Very Busy Spider” by Eric Carle.

This particular lesson addresses the broader learning goal of “Read with understanding and for enjoyment” in
the Language and Literacy curriculum framework for kindergartens in Singapore (MOE, 2013). Children will
talk about the illustrations in the book to help them make sense of the story and uncover the characters in it.
Subsequently, in the next few lessons, they will be looking into familiar/high frequency words in the story (e.g.
spin/play/jump/go), create word families with the blend, “sp” from the word, “spider” and learn more
vocabulary words that are used in the story. The understanding of key events learnt in this lesson is an
important component for the subsequent activities in the unit.

 Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812

Learning Objectives
As a result of engaging with the lesson, students will:

Understand that
- Students will understand that reading with understanding can be fun and enjoyable.

Know (e.g., facts, vocabulary, dates, information) Be able to (do) (Skills, processes)

- A story can have different characters - Sequence events in the story
- Every story has a beginning, middle and - Retell key events using relevant key words from the story
an end
Essential Questions (1-3; these should help students engage with the “big ideas” or understandings)

- What happens next?
- What happens in the beginning, middle and end?

Pre-assessment of Individual Student Readiness
See Appendix A: Pre-assessment: Goldilocks and the three bears story sequence cards

sample of pre-assessment

During the previous lesson on “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, teachers will provide opportunities for
students to rearrange the story sequence cards during closure. Instructions provided during the pre-
assessment will be, ”Rearrange the picture cards and tell me the story.”

Students who readily complete the activity will work on the upper tier (tier 2) for this lesson while students who
require much prompting to rearrange and retell the story will work on the lower tier (tier 1). In addition, it will
be coupled with teacher’s prior knowledge of student’s readiness through assessment of their listening and
speaking skills as it involves children to listen attentively to the story and talk about what happened.
 Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812
Lesson Plan
Lesson Sequence Explanatory notes
Introduction (10 minutes)
Resources:
• Read the storybook, “The Very Busy Spider”
• Storybook, “The Very Busy Spider” by Eric
by Eric Carle.
Carle
• Some questions to ask to get the students
• Picture cards of animals
recall some events that happened in the story:
- The cow wanted to share her grass, but the • Stick puppets

spider ignored her, why? • Tier 1 Picture cards (screenshots can be

- What happened when the sheep wanted to found in Appendix B)

run with the spider? • Tier 2 Picture cards (Appendix C)

- The goat tried to get the spider’s attention, • Checklist for evaluating student’s work
what did he say? (Appendix D)

- When it was naptime, who took a nap? What • Spider structured play
did the spider do?
- Who caught the fly?
- The owl wanted to know who made the web,
but received no answer, why not?
- The spider did not answer when the animals
spoke to her, was she being rude?
• Teacher may asked, “What is your favourite
part of the story?”
• Inform children that today they are going to
retell the story, “The Very Busy Spider” later
on.

Guided Discovery (5 minutes)

• Teacher will talk about the events in the
beginning, middle and ending of the story with
the children, “What happens in the beginning?
Middle? And end?”
• Teacher may say,
Beginning- “One morning, a spider began to
spin a web.”

Middle- “All the animals tried to persuade her

to stop her spinning and go out to play. Spider
did not answer any of them because she was
too busy spinning her web.”
 Name: Koh Jia Min
End- “Eventually the web was done and the
spider caught a fly. It was nighttime and owl
asked who built the beautiful web but spider
did not answer because she was too tired after
a busy day and had fallen asleep.”
• With the picture cards of the different animals
spider met, allow children to put the pictures in
the correct sequence as a group. Teacher will
first demonstrate to students what she meant
by rearranging the picture cards, before doing
it together with them and letting students take
turn to complete.
• As students are rearranging, teacher may ask,
“What happens next?”
Exploration (10 minutes)
• The tiered activity is introduced to the whole
group. Students will be required to put in the
pictures in the correct order with reference to
the storybook. The complexity of the input will
differ depending on the “readiness” of the
students, which is gathered from the pre-
assessment.
• Teacher will now assign students to the
different tiered groups based on pre-
assessment findings on the “readiness” of the
students.
Tier 1 (Refer to Appendix B)
• Students will be presented with picture cards
with reference to the story of “The Very Busy
Spider”. They will be encouraged to rearrange
them in sequence of the events that
happened.
• Tier 1 students will focus more on the animals
that spider met as well as what happened
each time the animals talked to her, i.e. “The
Student Number: 2169812
Teachers provide clear instructions for students
throughout so that they have clear idea of what they
are learning, i.e. teacher models to children what are
the expectations and how to complete the story
sequencing. Explicit and systematic instruction
involves teacher providing clear, direct and
unambiguous language when instructing the skill to
be taught (Hempenstall & Buckingham, 2016).
The activities have been differentiated using “The
Equalizer”, a tool used in planning differentiated
lessons (Tomlinson, 2004). All students will be
engaged with the same learning outcomes
(knowledge, understanding and skills) and be
involved with the introduction, similar tasks and
lesson closure.
Using “The Equalizer” (Tomlinson, 2004)
Tier 1
This task is foundational and simpler as compared to
the other tier. Students focus only on the
arrangement of animals spider met in sequence of
events as well as what happened each time the
animals interacted with her (which remained the
same throughout the entire story). The application
from introduction to this tiered activity went from
concrete to more abstract and a greater leap as
 Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812
spider did not answer. She was busy spinning students are now dealing with specific events and
her web.” the need to recall them to retell what happened.
• Students may refer to the picture cards of
animals in sequence done earlier on as a
group.
• After they have completed the sequencing,
they will be encouraged to retell the story.
Teacher will facilitate by encouraging students
to make use of the relevant or key words from
the story, e.g., “Tell me what happened? How
did the spider respond?”
An example of the finished product

Tier 2
The tasks in tier 2 are slowly transforming to stronger
Tier 2 (Refer to Appendix C)
understanding because the students here are able to
• Students will be presented with picture cards
complete basic sequencing of stories found in the
with reference to the story of “The Very Busy
pre-assessment. It is slightly more complex than tier
Spider”. They will be encouraged to rearrange
1 because they are looking at specific details that
them in sequence of the events that
happen in the story too. At the same time, the empty
happened.
speech bubble provided for them went from more
• Tier 2 students will focus on the animals that
structured to more open-ended tasks as it involves
spider met, what questions they asked (e.g.
greater decision making for students to recall and
the horse asked, “Want to go on a ride?”) and
recreate story (e.g. questions that the animals asked)
also what happened each time the animals
in their own words.
talked to her, i.e. “The spider did not answer.
She was busy spinning her web.”
• In addition, there will be more story cards that
student has to put in such as the beginning,
towards the end of story and the ending.
• Students may refer to the picture cards of
animals in sequence done earlier on as a
group.
• After they have completed the sequencing,
they will be encouraged to retell the story.
Teacher will facilitate by encouraging students An example of the finished product
to make use of the relevant or key words from
the story, e.g., “Tell me what happened? What
did the horse ask? How did the spider
 Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812
respond?”
Anchor Activity

Anchor Activity (5 mins)

For students who have completed their tasks, they will
be invited to use spider toy to move around the spider
web.

This provides children the opportunities to have a

clearer idea on how spider moves and look at the
complexity of a web. Children will take a spider,
choose either the red/blue/green line for spider to
crawl then climb up the “spider web”.
Lesson Closure/ Check for Understanding
5 mins
• Introduce the stick puppets to students and allow them some time to explore it.
• Invite them to retell their stories again with the use of stick puppets. Both groups will now work
together with teacher’s facilitation.
• At the end of the activity, provide feedback to them such as, “Nice retelling the story to me, I like it that
you pay attention when I read so you can remember what happened in the story”.

Some main information will be gathered from the closure/process that serves as the exit card, i.e.:
1. Does the student retelling show that he understood the story?
2. Is the retelling in a logical sequence?
3. Does student use relevant or key words from the story?
Teacher will use checklist (Appendix D) to evaluate student’s work.
Tiering format adapted from Tomlinson (1999)
Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812

References
Ministry of Education. (2013). Nurturing early learners: A curriculum for kindergartens in
Singapore: Language and literacy. Singapore: Ministry of Education.
Starfall. (n.d.). Goldilocks and the three bears story sequence cards. Retrieved from
http://more.starfall.com/mi/teachers-lounge/pdf/pk-sc_Goldilocks--memberonly-pdf.php
Tomlinson, C. A. (2004). The how to’s of planning lessons differentiated by readiness. In C. Tomlinson. How to
nd
differentiate instruction in mixed-ability classrooms (2 ed., pp. 45-51). Upper Saddle River, NJL Pearson.






























Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812
Appendix A- Pre-assessment: Goldilocks and the three bears story sequence cards
Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812
Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812

Appendix B- Picture cards (Tier 1)

Tasks (Story sequence template) (picture cards for this is not shown, refer to
finished product)
Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812

Sample of finished product

Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812

Appendix C- Picture cards (Tier 2)

Tasks (Story sequence template) (pictures for this is not shown, refer to finished
product)
Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812
Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812

Sample of finished product

Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812
Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812

Appendix D- Checklist for Evaluation of Student’s Work

S- Strong understandings
E- Emerging or Developing skill
NY- Not yet acquired skills or understanding

Name Exit Card
Question 1: Question 2: Question 3:
Does the student retelling show Is the retelling in a logical Does student use relevant or
sequence? key words from the story?
that he understood the story?

E.g. Student A E S E
(Tier 2)
Remarks: Yes, he was Remarks: Yes, it was of Remarks: With some
able to narrate the story logical sequence. prompting, he was able to
clearly and accurate. recall some of the words
used by the characters.

Name: Koh Jia Min Student Number: 2169812

Appendix E- Self-Evaluation of lesson

After watching the video, I find that recording myself during my teaching can be a very useful tool for self-
evaluation, which allows me to see what I have done well and could have been done differently. I have re-
watched the video a few times and noted down some points for personal documentation purposes which I
felt could have been included in this lesson plan for your view.

Self-Evaluation:

What went well in this lesson? Why?

The students rarely have the opportunities for such language activities and I was surprised that they did
great. They were able to recall the key events from the storybook, “The Very Busy Spider” by Eric Carle
even though it was the first time they read this book. They also demonstrated attentiveness during the
storytelling and most of the times during the lesson. The lesson was smooth and materials were structured
nicely for seamlessness of tasks.

Overall, the lesson went well. The lesson objectives were met; they were able to sequence events in the
story and retell key events using some of the relevant key words from the story. Their retelling was in a
logical sequence and also showed that they understood the story. They could answer most of the questions
that were asked. For example, children could identify that the spider, rather than not answering and
ignoring the animals that spoke to her, she (the spider) could have say, “I’m too busy.”

They also spontaneously told me, “The first animal is the horse!” during the start of the sequencing activity.
It showed that they paid attention and the questions asked helped them to remember better. In addition,
when the boy placed the sequence wrongly, I told him immediately and provided feedback, hence, he
realized the mistakes he has made. Even though the girl was quite distracted when it was her turn to retell
the story, after re-directing her back, she did well and could tell me the rest of the story quite independently.
It was smooth towards the end.

During the closure, it was observed that students were engaged and enjoyed the retelling of story using
stick puppets. I enjoyed myself too. “Do you want to say hello to the “horse?” the boy said, trying to come
out with his own words/story. I stopped the boy after he did a few times as I would like him to specifically
use some of the words the animals used in the book. After telling him, he did it nicely following that. Moving
on, I could get him to use his recreate his own version of the very busy spider.

What could I have done differently?

- My language during lesson could have been improved, e.g. I said, “What do you think will happen
when she was done with the spider web?” (Instead, I could say, “What do you think will happen after
she has completed the spider web?”) And there were times where I may confused the children by
referring the spider in the story sometimes as “he” and sometimes as “she”.
- I felt like I have provided too much direct prompt such as getting them to continue my sentence.
Instead, I could have asked more open-ended questions that lead the children to answer and recall
better.
- For example, when they could not remember the sequence of the animals, it may be better if I had
described the animals to them. In addition, I should provide longer processing time for the students
whenever I asked them questions.
- The use of “Nice try” to the girl should be eliminated. Rather, I could have provided her with more
constructive feedback that leads her to find out the answers herself or what she could have said.
- When I realized that the boy was saying, “pig” (sounded like “bear), I could have said, “Oh, you
meant the Pig” so that he realized what happened (which was the way he pronounced “pig”
sounded like “bear”).

*To note: Both students fall under tier 1 of the activity, thus, they are both using the same tier 1
materials.