Meghan

HI! I am studying to receive my bachelor's in Science at Kent State University in Early Childhood. This is a site where you can find more information about me as a teacher. The navigation tabs to the left all contain examples of some of the work I've done, some of the things I've learned in my classes, and some things I would like to do in the future. A good place to start might be the introduction page. On this page, you'll find my teaching philosophy and be able to learn a bit more about me.

Shared Reading

Unit Plan Template

Your name, Grade level, Date of lesson	Meghan Keefer, Kindergarten, March 7-8, 2016
Central Focus The core concept(s) and important understanding(s) you want your students to learn	Use a Poem to understand that we can predict what will happen and identify common verbs.
Lesson Overview Purpose of the lesson Application to real-life	Help students identify verbs and realize that verbs are essential in writing.
Standards Include Ohio SS Academic Content Standards and  NCSS Themes (and Common Core & C3-if applicable)	CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.1.B Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.1.F Produce and expand complete sentences in shared language activities.
Objectives/Outcomes Actions that are observable and measurable (Students will be able to ….)	Students will understand what a verb is, identify and produce verbs, and the importance of using them in a sentence.
Classroom Environment Description of the room set up for this lesson	My classroom has a carpet area with a smart board and a rocking chair for the teacher. I will sit in the rocking chair and use the document camera to share with the children. The children will start at the carpet with me, but will move to either their tables or where ever they want to spread out across the room to identify the verbs. Then they will come back to the carpet.
Materials Include technology; Provide a brief, but detailed, list of all materials to be used in the lesson and the quantity of each (including technology). Where applicable, indicate source of the material	Poem: Sunflakes Small Post it notes Sharpie Copy of poem for each child Highlighters
Academic Language List terms and meanings. How will you help children understand and use the vocabulary?	Verb- an action word I will take out the verbs to help them identify them. Visualize- Picture what’s happening Predict- to guess what will happen next based on what’s happening
Procedure •        What the teacher will do; •        What specific questions & sequences of questions are used to solicit student thinking; be sure many are higher-order thinking... •        What you expect students to do/say in response to teacher actions and questions. •        Identify points where the lesson may not go as planned, AND describe how you will monitor and adjust (e.g., potential misconceptions). Describe these details in a way that a substitute teacher could pick up your lesson plan and teach the same day simply by reading it.	On the first day, we will read the poem before art class and after snack and daily five. This way they will have just had a break and should be ready to listen again. I will read the poem and have them visualize what is happening. This poem is very descriptive and has lot’s of things for them to visualize. As we read I will have them predict what is going to happen and only show them one line at a time. I will ask them “What else can we do in sunflakes?” I will ask them “What would sunflakes feel like?”, “What would you do with sunflakes?”, and “Why do you think that?” to help them understand visualization. We will talk about what it makes them feel like and why. Them I will dismiss them to art. The next day I will bring them to the carpet with the music, like we do everyday after snack. I will have already covered all the verbs with post-it notes. I will ask them if anyone knows what a verb is. After they answer I will explain that a verb is an action word. I will then ask and explain the importance of verbs. I will then read the poem without any verbs and ask them “Does that sound right?” and “What could we change?”. Then I will read each line where a verb is covered and ask them “What word could we put here?” I will take three suggestions each verb and then ask them to vote on which one they like and the most popular one I will write on the post-it note. Then we will read the poem the way the class wrote it. Then I will give each child a copy of the poem and ask them to highlight some of the verbs. I will walk around with a chart and write down the names of those who seem to get it and those who need more help as well as the children that highlighted some verbs and not others. Then we will come back to the carpet and talk about what was hard and what was easy about this. I will finish by asking “Why is this important?” and telling them that we need to make sure we have verbs in all the sentences we write so that the reader knows what’s happening.

Read Aloud

Read Aloud Write Up Format: 2-3 pages maximum

Name: Meghan Keefer

Date: 2/04/16

Grade Level: K

Book Title and Author: Bernstein Bears and the green eyed monster by Jan and Stan Bernstein

Indicate whether it is a whole class or small group (list how many): Whole Class

Selection

Why did you choose this book? 

I chose this book because I grew up reading the Bernstein Bears and always really loved this one. I was always jealous of my brother growing up so I felt like I could relate to this book. I thought this book would be a good introduction to me because the children love the Bernstein bears books and I love this one in particular.

       

Introduction

How will you introduce the book? Write out what you will say exactly.

I will ask the children if they recognize the book. Then I will explain that its called “The Bernstein Bears and the Green Eyed monster. The author is Jan and Stan Bernstein. What does the author do? What do we think will happen by looking at the title?

Text Interactions (During the Reading!)

Where will you stop? What will you point out?  What will you share?

I will stop when brother gets his bike and ask them if they’ve ever gotten a really cool present and if they have ever wanted somebody else’s present. Then I will stop again when the monster shows up and ask “why do you think she is green?” Finally, I will stop at the end of the book and ask them to predict what will happen to papa.

Discussion Questions (After the Reading!)

What questions will you have prepared to encourage discussion?

Have you ever felt like sister? When?

What do you think of this story?

Did you like this book?

I chose these questions, because wanted the children to connect to the text and see how they could feel a part of the story. I wanted to know what they were thinking and if they liked the book to help me choose books in the future.

Be sure to ask open ended, critical thinking type of questions (What did you notice, What did this mean to you?  What are thinking?  Etc…) along with asking the students to support their thinking within the text. It may look like:

*   Where did you find that?

*  What does the author say that caused you to think that way?

*  Are there other places in the text that lend support to your statement?

*  Can you find an example?

List your exact questions and your purpose for following that line of thinking

Reflection:  Please thoroughly answer ALL questions to get full credit!

Did the children enjoy the book?                                    How was the level of conversation?           

What worked?  How do you know?                        What might you do differently?                       

What would you like to be able to do next?            What have you learned?

The children really enjoyed the book, they were so excited to participate and answer the questions. They were all talking at once and raising their hands. The children kept predicting what would happen next and wanted to keep reading along at the repeated parts. I think working in a big group worked well, because each child had a different opinion to bring. I know that having them share worked really well, but next time I want to give them share buddies. Each child likes to have a chance to talk and often only those who demand the attention receive it. Everyone wanted to communicate and make sure they were heard. I want to give the children a purpose next time and have them look for something in particular. I have learned a lot about classroom management, the benefit of having share partners, and the importance of doing everything with a purpose.

Social Justice

Read Aloud Write Up Format:

Name: Meghan Keefer

Date: 4/1/16

Grade Level: Kindergarten

Book Title and Author: Wangari's Trees of Peace by Jeanette Winter

Indicate whether it is a whole class or small group (list how many): Whole Group (20 Children)

Selection

I chose this book because my children have been talking about cycles and the environment. We haven’t really talked about the negative part of cycles or the impact we have on the world. I thought that choosing this book would help them think about the world around them and help them realize they can make a difference. I really liked how it connected to other things we had been learning and how the children can bring what they know into the story and make connections. I focused on predicting and making connections during this reading.

           

Introduction

I will introduce this book to the children by reminding them of what we have been talking about. “What have we been learning about in Science?” “Right, Cycles, do you remember which cycle Ms. Kasburg talked about yesterday” “Yes, the trees, what do you think happens when we end a cycle?” I will then take their answers. “Readers make sense of the texts they encounter not by staying within the four corners of a text, but by using their background knowledge of the world” I will expect and ask questions of the children that have them draw on their background knowledge (Serafini, 301)I will say “Those are all good ideas, let’s see what happened in this book”.

Text Interactions (During the Reading!)

I will pause on the first page to point out all the trees. I will ask them if it looks like anywhere they know. When she comes back to Africa, I will ask them if any of them think something has changed. Then when she gets put in jail I will ask them what will happen to the trees. I want them to predict what will happen to the trees as the story continues.

Discussion Questions (After the Reading!)

After reading, I will ask the children what we just read. After someone summarizes it, I will ask them what this books has to do with us. I will ask them questions like “What if we had no more trees?”, “Why do we cut down trees?”, “What can you do to make sure we have trees?”.  I will explain to the children that if we cut down all the trees the next generation, won’t have any trees to make the things we need. I want to see if they know that trees help give us oxygen. Wasik says “Relative to other types of prompts, open-ended prompts are uniquely valuable for building language in the classroom.” This was very true in my class and I was so surprised by the language and words the children were using. (Wasik and Hindman, 302)

Conclusion

            At the end of the lesson, I will remind the students that when they read they can make connections to the real world and that books can help influence their decisions. I will remind them that when they read, they should pay attention to what they are reading and see if they could learn anything from it.

Reflection:  Please thoroughly answer ALL questions to get full credit!

The children loved this book and they asked if they could look at it again during free time. The children were really interested and almost everyone had something to say and made connection with the book. I had to set limits on how many people could talk. I was surprised by how much they children knew about the subject and were willing to share. The children were really good at making connections, because at the end the children were able to say how they would make a difference and they could plant trees. If I were doing this again, I would talk more about making connections at the beginning. If this were my classroom I would like to do something like planting trees or having them write letters about to organizations with environmental concern. “When readers use all kind of knowledge to make sense of what the author has to say the transact with it, which implies that the reader brings understanding and ideas to the text to make meaning” (Heinemann ,2). The children were able to bring what they knew to the text and understand more than just the book, but also how it applied to their lives. The children were really passionate about the subject so I wish I could do more with them and continue it or turn it into a unit.

Owocki, G. (2013). Comprehensive: Strategy Instruction for K-3. Portsmouth, NH.

Serafini, F. (2013). Close Readings and Children's Literature. Read Teach The Reading Teacher, 67(4), 299-301.

Wasik, B., & Hindman, A. (2013). Realizing the Promise of open-ended questions. The Reading Teacher, 67(4), 302-310.

Guided Reading

Guided Reading Try It

 Completed during your full week in the field in April.   Write each lesson up separately.

For all 4 lessons – written once

• The members of my group are Isabelle, Noah, Griffin, Charles, and Brielle. These children are all struggling readers, but not low enough to qualify for Title one.
• I chose these readers, because I feel like they are the least worked with group. Some of the excelling children are pulled out to read with the first graders and do guided reading and the struggling readers get pulled out for Title work. These kids only have guided reading once a week and could use a little more practice than some others. I did a running record on all of the “average students” and chose these five because they are all having the same difficulties. I started with a group of four but my mentor really wanted Griffin to work with them also. I realized in doing running records (see attached at bottom) that they are all at different reading levels but have many of the same issues. I found out that they all heavily rely on pictures and have no idea what they are reading. I plan to use books with more general pictures to help them at least look at the text and see if what they are guessing makes sense.
• Names of books you will use and why you will use them?

Brielle (level 1)-

            The whole

            We are going on Vacation

Griffin, Charles, and Noah (Level 2/3)-

            This is Scruffy

            We are going to the Park

Isabelle (level 4)-

            Little Teddy and Monkey

            Baby Sheep

• Given an unfamiliar word, children will look at the first sound and the picture to see what could make sense and on completion of the book, know what it was about.

Lesson 1

I.  Book Introduction

a. Before the reading

Before reading the book I will read “Josh and the big boys” and model what I do when I come to hard words I don’t know. I will read the page and when I come to the words “monkey bars” I will say “Josh walked to the m…. m..” then I will look at the pictures and say “hmm this looks like monkey bars does that fit in my sentence?” “Josh walked to the monkey bars, Does that make sense?” Then I will turn the page and do the same thing again on the next page, but this time I will say “The big boys are on the s…” then I will look at my picture and say playground does that work. They will say no so then I will try it again with slide. I will give each child their book, without really introducing them since they have different books and I don’t want to make a big deal about that.

II. Format

a. During the reading

Children will stay at the front table with me and read their books out loud. I will walk behind them and listen to them read. I will keep a list with all their names and write down things I notice. As they read if they get stuck I will help them use the clues they know.

III. After the reading

a.     After the lesson today, I will have students do a sort of words and pictures that look similar but sound different. I will have word cards around the room and they will have a list in their hand with all the words. They must go around the room with their list and find the number on the card that correspondence to the word of the picture on that card. This will make them learn to start comparing their sounds to the pictures.

IV.  Reflection after each lesson: 

Today went pretty well. I learned that the when the children have the same book they need to be separated. Charles was leaning a lot on Griffin during the lesson even though I know Charles knows how to read. Whenever Griffin got stuck on a word he would get frustrated. I think that they all relied heavily on the pictures and had to be reminded to see if it made sense in the story. I think the “Write around the room” helped the children make sense of finding the word and comparing the sounds. I think that I will come back to this in a few days and see if they remember this lesson.

Lesson 2

I.  Book Introduction

a. Before the reading

Today I will use the same book I used yesterday as an example I will read the first page and then stop and say “Ok, so what did I just read. Hmm Josh wants to play on the monkey bars.” Then I will read the next page and say “Oh so Josh wanted to play on the monkey bars but couldn’t because the big boys are on them.” I will read the rest of the book and then say “ok so this book was about how Josh wanted to do something, but the big boys were playing where he wanted to play so he had to ask them to play. How do I know that? I know that because after every page I summarized what I thought it was about. Now here are your books, and you read them yesterday so you should be able to summarize it because you know the words.”

II. Format

Children will stay at the front table with me and read their books out loud. I will walk behind them and listen to them read. I will keep a list with all their names and write down things I notice. As they read if they get stuck I will help them use the clues they know. I will ask them to summarize after each page I listen to what happened.

III. After the reading

b.     Today they will fill out a paper that asks them about the characters, what happened, and has them draw a picture. This will show me if they see the whole book or just a page or two. I will ask them to remember this when they are doing their own reading and explain that it is helpful when we are reading to see what’s happening and know what we are reading.

IV.  Reflection after each lesson:  This can be handwritten at the bottom of your lesson plan. 

            Today was a little bit rougher. Only Isabella could really summarize her story. Noah could summarize his book, but not really based on what he read, but just on what he thought. Griffin and Charles just picked one page and drew it so I think next time I will model this again for them and them help ask them questions to help them process. I learned how important asking questions was and helping them process. I realize now that this is a difficult skill so helping them along the way is important.

Lesson 3

I.  Book Introduction

a. Before the reading

Today I will use a new book for both the students and as an example. I will read the first page of “Meg’s messy room and then stop and say “Ok, so what did I just read. Meg needs to clean her room.” Then I will read the next page and say “Oh Meg is going to start by picking up her books.” I will read the rest of the book and then say “ok so this book was about how Meg needed to clean her room. At the end of every page I want you to ask yourself ‘what happened on this page?’ Now here are your books you haven’t read these books before so if you come to a word you don’t know remember you can compare the picture to the first sound of you word.”

II. Format

a. During the reading

Children will stay at the front table with me and read their books out loud. I will walk behind them and listen to them read. I will keep a list with all their names and write down things I notice. As they read if they get stuck I will help them use the clues they know. I will ask them to summarize after each page I listen to what happened.  At the end of each page I will say “what happened on this page?”

III. After the reading

Today they will fill out a paper that asks them about the characters, what happened, and has them draw a picture. This will show me if they see the whole book or just a page or two. I will ask them to remember this when they are doing their own reading and explain that it is helpful when we are reading to see what’s happening and know what we are reading. I will ask them questions like “what did meg do?” individualized to their book to help them think through the story.

IV.  Reflection after each lesson:  This can be handwritten at the bottom of your lesson plan. 

Consider writing about 5-12 sentences for this daily reflection. 

            Today was a rough day. Griffin was out today and when we sat down to do it Charles was mad he had to be with me again. Brielle did amazing sounding out her words today and using picture clues but needed a lot of questioning to understand what she read, while I had to tell Izzy a lot of words, but she summarized beautifully. Charles through his book across the room and ended up sitting with his head down during reading time. Noah did really well on both picking out words and summarizing and even asked questions on what he wasn’t sure about. I am not sure what made it click so much more today.

Try to make each lesson (including the reflection) 4 pages or less.  That would be a total of 16 pages for all 4 lessons. 

Lesson 4

I.  Book Introduction

a. Before the reading

Before reading the book I will read “Meg cleans her room” again and model what I do when I come to hard words I don’t know. I will read the page and when I come to the words “teddy bear” I will say “I will start with my t…” look at the picture and then say” stuffed animals does that fit? Let me read my sentence again ‘I will start with my stuffed animals-hmm that doesn’t start with t.. so it must be something else hmm let me look again oh it’s a bear let’s try teddy bear. I will remind them of what we learned yesterday. I will give each child their book, without really introducing them since they have different books and I don’t want to make a big deal about that.

II. Format

a. During the reading

Children will stay at the front table with me and read their books out loud. I will walk behind them and listen to them read. I will keep a list with all their names and write down things I notice. As they read if they get stuck I will help them use the clues they know. I will ask them to summarize after each page I listen to what happened.  At the end of each page I will say “what happened on this page?” I will encourage them to use look at the pictures.

III. After the reading

a.     The students will go back through their book and find any hard words and then as a group we will talk about those words and how we can use picture clues in our personal reading.

IV. Reflection after each lesson:  This can be handwritten at the bottom of your lesson plan. 

I was surprised by how well the children worked today and how much they learned in four days. They all were able to use pictures to some degree to help them decode words. I still had them summarize what they remembered from the book. When they went back to find the hard words, many of the words they were able to remember what they were. I want to continue to help them learn to summarize more than just one page at a time.

V. Overall Reflection of the Guided Reading Experience: (This is done once after completing all of your lessons.) (2-3 pages). 

             

            Overall, I think I have a lot to learn about guided reading. At the end of everyday I felt really lost and wasn’t sure what to do the next day. I knew what my two goals were in this, but I didn’t really feel like they grew. I was surprised at the end how some of them were using picture clues and one of them could summarize the story. I feel like there is still a lot of work to be done in this area with these children. 

            The thing that worked really well, was modeling. I would model every morning before I gave them their books and by the end they knew what I was expecting. They were able to see my expectation first hand and knew exactly what I was looking for. I know this because sometimes they copied exactly what I wrote when I modeled it and did exactly what I said. I am not sure it accomplished its full purpose though because it took them a while to do what I was asking them to do.

            If I were going to do this differently in my own classroom, I would definitely work with the same group for more than one week. The children got frustrated because they were with me for four days in a row but I don’t feel like we accomplished a lot. I see now why people level reading, because them all reading different books made it hard to teach one concept since I couldn’t talk about it with all of them as a group but one at a time. I would also try to pick books where they picture help, but the students still have to look at the sounds to understand the words. I don’t feel like they were using the phonemes as much as the pictures.

            If this were my classroom and I was planning for next week, I would do something that made the children really look at what’s happening on each page and how that contributed to the whole story and then look at the story as a whole, and summarize what it was about. I would probably have them identify main words or phrases during the reading of the story with a sticky note. Then I would have them go back and retell the story only using the sticky notes. Finally I would use what they marked to help them go back and make a complete story and help them summarize what they read. I may need to work in smaller groups for children to do this though.

            I am not really sure I learned the basic principals of guided reading, but the things that I found to be important where the modeling and discussing the strategy with the children at the beginning of the lesson, having them read out loud so I could observe them, and applying it to their lives. I feel like the things I am still a little confused on is the after reading and what to do with kids who are at different levels. I totally understand, why leveling groups are bad, but I am really struggling with how to give each one what they need and help support their reading, if each one has a different book and is looking at something completely different. 

            I feel like keeping up with many groups like that would be challenging and I am afraid that by the time I got back to one group they would have forgotten everything that they learned the last time we talked. I guess I am struggling to see the advantage of guided reading over reading conferences or what else new it has to offer that the children don’t get somewhere else. What is the difference between setting a goal in reading conference and grouping them with a goal for guided reading?  I  know that it is important in daily 5 and as a foundation to literature but I guess I am not sure how it is different from everything else. It seems like between reading conferences, read allowed, shared reading, and daily 5 we already cover everything we cover in this guided reading.

            Overall I think this is an area I could learn a lot in and have a lot of room to grow.

Lesson #1

Unit Plan Template

Your name, Grade level, Date of lesson	Meghan Keefer, Kindergarten, Thursday Feb. 10th
Central Focus The core concept(s) and important understanding(s) you want your students to learn	Listen to book and imagine the story.
Lesson Overview Purpose of the lesson Application to real-life	We can think about a story in many different ways.
Standards Include Ohio SS Academic Content Standards and  NCSS Themes (and Common Core & C3-if applicable)	CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.K.2 Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).
Objectives/Outcomes Actions that are observable and measurable (Students will be able to ….)	Students will be able to retell the story in their own words
Classroom Environment Description of the room set up for this lesson	We will be on the carpet with their “share” partners. I will be sitting in a rocking chair.
Materials Include technology; Provide a brief, but detailed, list of all materials to be used in the lesson and the quantity of each (including technology). Where applicable, indicate source of the material	Froggy’s first Kiss Book Smart board Paper/drawing resources
Academic Language List terms and meanings. How will you help children understand and use the vocabulary?	Visualize, Share Partners, Predict
Procedure •        What the teacher will do; •        What specific questions & sequences of questions are used to solicit student thinking; be sure many are higher-order thinking... •        What you expect students to do/say in response to teacher actions and questions. •        Identify points where the lesson may not go as planned, AND describe how you will monitor and adjust (e.g., potential misconceptions). Describe these details in a way that a substitute teacher could pick up your lesson plan and teach the same day simply by reading it.	I will have the children on the carpet with their share buddies. At the beginning I will remind them of what a share buddies roll is and how they should act since this is still a new concept. Then I will talk about the cover, author, and illustrator. I will then explain that I am going to read and that I am not going to show them the pictures. When Froggy meets the girl, I will have them talk about what might happen. Just before they kiss I will have them go back to their tables and draw what they think might happen on the last pages and then I will have them write what they think will happen. If time allows we will come back together and share out.