Week 9: Comprehension Lesson Plan

Candidate’s Name: Brandy Blanchard

Grade Level: 1st grade

Title of the lesson: Leo Lionni and “I Wonder” statements

Length of the lesson: 2 -50 minute ELA blocks

Central focus of the lesson: The central focus of this lesson is to provide students strategies to stop, think, and write about what is happening in a story, and what they think will happen next. Students will make “I wonder” statements to predict upcoming event in the story.

Knowledge of students to inform teaching: Students have already been working on ways to better comprehend a text. The strategy of stopping and making predictions will help students to organize their thoughts and better understand what they have just read, and use that information to figure out what’s next.

Common Core State Standards: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.4 Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.1.4.a Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.1 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.2 Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.3 Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.7 Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events.

Support literacy development through language: Key learning task: To work on comprehension, students will predict upcoming events based on what they have already read. Language demands (written): Students will be responsible for recording their “I wonder” statements on a worksheet and in an interactive book. They will also illustrate pictures to go along with their statements. Vocabulary General academic terms: predict Content specific vocabulary: character, setting, plot, conclusions, prediction Sentence Level Sentence structure (complete sentences starting with “I wonder…” Discourse conversation, discussion

Learning objectives: Students will participate in group discussion about characters, setting, and plot. Students will draw conclusions while listening to and reading a story. Students will create “I wonder” statements to make predictions about upcoming events in a story.

Formal and informal assessment: Students will be assessed on their participation in whole group discussion and group conversations. Students will also be assessed on the completion of their “I wonder” worksheet and stapleless book. In their books, I will be looking for statements that are clear and connect to the story, and illustrations that connect to the statements.

Instructional procedure: To start the lesson, the students and I will flip through the story Swimmy by Leo Lionni. As we look through the pictures, I will ask guiding questions to get the students thinking and talking about the story. (ex; What is the setting? Who do you think Swimmy is?). Next, I will read the story to aloud to the students. Throughout the text, I will stop and ask questions to model for students what they should be thinking about to help understand the story (ex; I wonder if swimmy will make friends?). I will jot these questions down on the board as we read, and following the story we will revisit the questions to see how some of the answers we were able to find in the story, and others we can’t be sure about. I will then pass out the“I wonder” worksheet which students will use to make predictions during the read aloud to the story The Biggest House in the World aso by Lionni. While the students listen, I will pause to give them a chance to record I wonder statements on their worksheets. Before finishing the story, I will have students stop and pick one of the statements they have recorded. Students will then draw a picture of what they think will happen next to go along with the “I wonder” statement. After finishing the story, students till go back and see how accurate or different their drawings were compared to the actual outcome. We will continue to discuss how thinking about what is happening during the story can help you decide what will come next. For group work, students will break up into small groups and choose another Lionni story to read. Before reading the story, they will create a group I wonder statement trying to figure out what the story is about based on the title and illustrations. Using a laptop, students will then work on an interactive book as they read the story. When students reach a “bookmark” they will stop and write down an I wonder statement. Afterwards, students will draw a picture of what happened next to see if they were correct in making predictions. Students will have the opportunity to share their stories, what they predicted, and what actually happened. To close the lesson, we will discuss how sometimes you can use the pictures in a story to draw conclusions and make predictions. After reading the story, you can go back and see if you were correct in your predictions.

Instructional resources and materials used: Internet ready computers Stapleless book interactive I wonder worksheet printable Variety of Leo Lionni books (including Swimmy and The Biggest House in the World).

Reflection: Questions to ask following the lesson Did I provide adequate modifications for ELL, struggling, and gifted students? Were students active and engaged throughout the lesson? What other forms of assessment could have been used?