Catch Me If You Can

Focus: To emphasize the use of making inferences using all aspects of a book as a means of thinking about and comprehending texts. Introduction/Connection: To begin the lesson the teacher will begin with a discussion on review reading strategies the children already know and discuss how these strategies can help them as readers. Then the teacher will explain to students that when reading we have learned to infer what a character might be feeling based on the illustrations in the text. She will ask the children what they think the word infer means. After a few student responses she will explain that infer means to understand what is happening in the text without the author actually telling us. She will explain that inferring is about reading faces, reading body language, reading expressions, and reading tone as well as text. She will ask the children if they can think about the word inference, what it means, and any examples of inferring that they may know. After a few student responses she will explain that Inferring is a reading strategy to be used as a means of ensuring that we understand stories we read. We will then discuss inferring in our everyday lives (the weather, how our mom or teachers might be feeling). It will be emphasized that when we make infer we use our brain to really think about what we already know; in books when we infer using the pictures and text we can get a better understanding of what is happening in the story. Key Questions: * What are reading strategies? * Why do we have reading strategies? * Where can you find the reading strategies if you get stuck? * What reading strategies do you know and use already? * Why do you use them? What do you think the word infer means? * Can you think of examples of when you have made an inference? * Why might good readers make an inference? Whole Group Teaching/Active Engagement: The teacher will focus the children’s attention on the selected book, Bully. She will ask the children to look at the book and think about what they see depicted on the cover. She will t them what they can infer just by looking at the cover an d reading the title. Then ask the children to listen carefully as she reads the first two pages of the book. Once completed the teacher will ask the children to close their eyes and think about what they just heard in the first two pages of the text. After a few moments she will ask them to make an inference about what they think is happening in the story. She will ask the children to â€Å"turn and talk† to share their inference with their shoulder partner on the carpet. The teacher will listen to the partnerships and their responses and get a quick assessment of what the students’ inferences sound like (whether they are on target, missing key information, etc). After the share time, she will call upon several students to share their answers with the class. The teacher will then comment on the children’s abilities to infer the story parts based on their observations of the cover and listening to a few pages. She will then read a few pages of the story to give the children an idea of whether their inferences were on target or not and allow them to give â€Å"yes† or â€Å"no† signals to indicate if they were correct or not. Key Questions: * What do you see on the cover? * What can you infer from listening to the first few pages in the book? From what you saw on the cover and the pages, what can you infer will happen in this book? * Why did you make that inference? * What in the book made you think of that? * Were you correct? How do you know? Differentiation: * Depending on the student who is called on to respond during the whole class instruction, questioning will be scaffold in order to meet the child’s specific learning needs (IEP, ELL support). Children will also have been paired in reading partnerships based on current reading levels. There will be a variety of books available for the different reading levels * Students will be allowed to use pictures or words (preferably both) to show that they understand inference. * Students will be given the opportunity to â€Å"act out† their inferences/predictions. * Students will be given the option to work independently or in pairs during one of the assignments. Small Group Active Engagement/Link: To link the mini lesson to independent, and partner reading, and guided reading time, the teacher will remind tudents to make inferences as they read their books independently. She will ask the children to re-state what their focus is to ensure understanding and clarify any misconceptions. The children will return to their tables and groups to participate in independent, partner, or guided reading time. The teacher will meet with the group select ed for that day and continue to work on the use of inferencing to enhance comprehension of stories. Independent Reading Time: 10 minutes Partner Reading Time: 10 minutes Share: After independent and partner reading, a reading partnership that was observed using the inference strategy will be asked to come up at the end of the reading workshop time to share with the class what inferences they made while reading their book and explain how this helped them to better comprehend or understand the story. They will also be asked what they feel they can improve upon for share time the next day. Key Questions: * Did you make any inferences while you were reading? * How did you use this strategy? * Were your inferences correct? * How did you know? Closing: The teacher will commend the entire class on their reading stamina and employment of their first grade reading strategies! Everyone will give himself or herself a pat on the back! Resources: * Read Aloud – Bully, by Judith Caseley * Post-its * Leveled Books _____________________________________________________________ Observations / Comments: Next Teaching Points/Subsequent Lesson: * The subsequent strategy on the Reading Strategies – Comprehension: Retelling. Will be explored in the next day’s reading workshop lesson. Next Teaching Points Alterations (Based on Observations):