Reflection six- Explicit and Systematic Phonics Article

          In searching www.readwritething.org for a great lesson to teach phonics I stumbled upon a lesson called “The Big Green Monster Teaches Phonics in Reading and Writing” by an educator in Arizona named Maureen Gerard.  The reason that I liked this lesson is that it covers three 45 minute sessions and is very interactive. The students begin the lesson together and then move to literacy stations. I think lessons like this are great ways to get students to work with a text. This lesson is recommended for K-2 but I would say that this is more of a K-1 lesson, only because it seems to really focus on sight words, which is something strongly focused on in Kindergarten.

            The preparation for the lesson includes writing out the text of “Go Away, Big Green Monster!” using colored markers to match the colored words in the story.  The teacher would also need to gather index cards, or card sheets for a memory game station. Finally the teacher would need to gather crayons for students to make their own monsters. The final optional step given I think is great, it is making your own monster pointer. In my experience, students love when teachers go the extra step, even in high school students like seeing that you care and aren’t just making them do something you haven’t thought through. So I would not make this step optional.

            This lesson has several parts because of the literacy stations, each part should take about 30 minutes, but the writer’s workshop may take up to 45 minutes. The lesson begins at the large group area in the classroom. The teacher introduces the story and students read through the story chorally. While reading you should point out the words in color and ask if they can recognize the work from the color. Furthermore you should review the sight words from the word wall in your room (hopefully already established by this time, if not you could add words to the wall).  After reading the story through once you would re-read it several times. The site recommends doing just boys, then girls, left side, right side etc. finally ending for any individual volunteers, claiming “Reading the story multiple times in alternative formats builds fluency, adds interest, and speeds word recognition.” After the group station students go to one of three stations: literacy work, artwork, writer’s workshop.

            At the literacy station students will rotate through mini-stations based on needs. They will listen to an online version of the story and read along with the tape to build fluency skills, build and play a memory game with color words that will increase their familiarity with these words. The third station is my favorite; it is the word family station. At this station students will choose words from the text to generate word families. The site encourages you to “Direct the students to begin their word family lists by selecting words from the story that they already know. Have them drop the beginning letter (onset) and create a list of new words by substituting different beginning letters to the word ending (rime). Students can then add these words to their personal dictionaries.” The final mini-station at the literacy station is sentence strips. At this station students will pair up and reconstruct the story in the right order. This station “encourages rereading of the story in an alternative format to build word recognition, oral reading fluency, and understanding of story sequencing. The center provides an opportunity for self-assessment as the pairs of students can compare their sequencing of the strips to the actual story.”

            At the second station, students will go to the artwork station. At this station students will re-read the story and as they will recreate the monster with crayons. The final products can be displayed. This is a great station for students who are creative and love to draw and color. It allows for students to show their creative side.

            The third station is writer’s workshop. Students will imagine their own monsters and write about what they would say to the monster. They also need to use color words to describe the monster. They will plan individually and then share orally stressing the correct words.  Finally they will write down their version. From here you could take this lesson in a variety of ways depending on how you teach writing. The editing and finalizing would be up to you as a teacher.  The final stories could be displayed, or turned into a book.

           

            I enjoyed this lesson. I think it focuses on several components of literacy which is good. When you have finite time with students you need to maximize your time. I feel that the literacy stations, especially the word family, will help students learn the phonetic cues associated with certain words. I also like the idea of giving the student scaffolding in learning the sounds of color words.  This lesson may not be the purist phonics lesson; however, I feel that the elements are all there and as an overall lesson, students would be engaged and would love doing the creative parts of the lesson. I especially like the writer’s workshop component. I love teaching writing. It is something that I hang my hat on. I view writing as a “sport” ; it is something you need to practice often. No one wakes up and is good at writing. Writing is really hard, but it can be mastered. And, in my opinion being able to write well really shows a mastery of a subject, so the student’s final stories would help the teacher assess the students and help meet the teacher meet the student’s needs.