Comprehension Minilesson

Turn in:
 Materials used including the book and any written products.
 A 2 – 3 page response paper discussing
o How you planned the lesson:
 How did your pre-reading activity set a purpose for reading or
activate prior knowledge?
 For the pre-reading of the book my CT had already chose
one that she was going to read for the kind of
comprehension lesson I was doing (cause and effect) “If
you gave a Moose a Muffin?” to read to the kids. Before I
read the book, I talked about a scenario that I had made up
to see what they thought the cause was and what was the
effect to start them thinking about that specific
comprehension strategy. I next said, if I give one of you a
muffin, what do you think is going to happen? All of them
answering “EAT IT!”
 How did your during reading activity keep the student engaged in
the text?
 During reading the book, I would point out key things that
were going on about the cause of giving the moose a
muffin, what happened or what was the effect?
 How did your post-reading activity integrate the new information
with what the student already knew?
 After I read we reviewed the main idea of what happened
with the cause and effect to make light of what was going
on, as a whole group then moved into small group. In the
small group we had a liitle booklet on pollution and my CT
has provided a worksheet that went along with the book for
the students to fill in as we read each chapter.
 Book/worksheet:

o How the student responded to each section of the lesson.

 I took each chapter of the book one step at a time and they seemed
to do really well with that and it also seemed to really interest
them, especially when I said this is what is happening to the earth
 when you don’t throw your trash away, litter, and what causes
pollution as the book mentions.
o What you would do differently next time or what adaptations you had to
make to accommodate classroom considerations – remember that you
must state what best practice says when you discuss deviations from
research aligned instruction.
 I really liked the flow of how things went and would honestly not
change anything. The kids did really well with the reading, like
what they were reading about, and were engaged in the cause and
effect of what each chapter was talking about.
o How will you incorporate comprehension/writing instruction into your
classroom:
 What assessment data will you need to plan lessons?
 I really like the idea of journals, which I don’t see any of
in my practicum this semester, but I would like to
incorporate this in my classroom as a way for the students
to freely write with little instruction on what they like or
their own opinions. I really like fill in charts like I did for
this activity to be able to guide their thinking to see what
they picked out of the reading, so tasks like that is
something that I want to integrate into this time during the
day.
 What grouping arrangement will you use?
 The grouping arrangement that I will use will be based on
the same small group arrangement that I have based on
their reading level, so that all people in the group have a
similar idea of what is going on instead of one person
taking over the group.
 What schedule will you implement?
 I will implement a whole lesson or whole class
discussion/reading first to them break into small group to
further discuss what is going on. I will use writing and
comprehension time as the biggest block of time
throughout the week as that is the most important reading
strategy that keeps need to be successful readers and to be
able to continue at the appropriate grade level for them to
understand what is going on.
 What materials will you need?
 I think that the materials are just based on what is going on
the specific days, but I like booklets and small reading to be
able to pull from to ready about Natural Geographic,
history reading, etc. different types of readings to interest a
variety of kids. Also, fun prompt paper for writing is
something that I have noticed that the fourth graders really
enjoy and seem to become more engaged in what they are
writing about.