Morgan's Educational Portfolio

Tag: UFLI

Literacy Mini Lesson & Reflection #2

February 20, 2024 / / 0 Comments

BC Curriculum Connections

Grade: 1-2

Subject: English Language Arts (1-2)

Core Competencies: Communicating – Profile 1: In a safe and supported environment, I respond meaningfully to communication from peers and adults. *During the UFLI lessons I feel like communicating is one of the key elements to students learning throughout the activities. If they feel safe and supported they will continue to excel in their learning and be able to communicate effectively with peers and the adults in the room.

Big Idea: Playing with language helps us discover how language works (1-2), Everyone has a unique story to share (1-2).

Curricular Competencies:

Read fluently at grade level (1), Communicate using letters and words and applying some conventions of Canadian spelling, grammar, and punctuation (1).

Read fluently at grade level (2), Use developmentally appropriate reading, listening, and viewing strategies to make meaning (2).

Content:

Strategies and processes: reading strategies, oral language strategies, and writing processes (1), Language features, and conventions: concepts of print, print awareness, phonemic and phonological awareness, letter formation, sentence structure, and conventions (1).

Strategies and processes: reading strategies, oral language strategies, and writing processes (2), Language features, structures, and conventions: features of oral language, word patterns, word families, letter formation, sentence structure and
conventions (2).

Lesson / Activities

*This list of activities was inspired from a UFLI lesson I observed, how the lesson went & in the order it went. Also, since it is a split grade class the activities rotated between grades. So, when the grade 2’s were doing UFLI with the teacher the grade 1’s were doing there “when I am 100 years old…” activity independently. Then, they switched after the UFLI activity was completed.

Phonemic Awareness: As a whole group (grade 2’s only) the students and teacher did their phonemic awareness drills. The teacher would say the individual sounds and as a group the students would have to notice and identify the individual sounds and say the word (e.g., k-i-n-d = kind.) Then they would segment words into sounds (e.g., kind = k-i-n-d.)

Visual Drill: For this portion of the activity the teacher would go through a slideshow of different vowels and have the students say both the sounds the letter makes (e.g., a sounds like “a” and “ah”.)

Auditory Drill: During this activity students are supplied with a white board, dry erase marker and an eraser. The teacher would say a sound and the students would then have to write the letter (e.g., “ah” and the students would then write the letter A) – this portion of the activity moves quickly.

Blending Drill: The teacher would have a blending board presented on the white board, the teacher would then type different words they were working on and ask the students to decode them and say the word out loud. Then, she would change just one or two letters in the word and have the student decode that word and say it out loud again.

Let’s Read Together: Students then did a whole group read, where they would all read the words presented on the board together. This activity moves quickly and covers the words that they have been learning and using throughout the UFLI lesson.

This is where the activity / lesson switches; the grade 2’s move on to their “when I am 100 years old…” activity and the grade 1’s do their UFLI activity which is structured the exact same way but grade 1 level.

“When I am 100 years old…”: At GT, it was the hundredth day, so the teacher had a fun English Language Arts activity planned for the students. First, the teacher walked the students through the worksheet and had them share ideas for each point. I loved this because it sparked conversation between the students and allowed students to start thinking of their own ideas before writing them down. The teacher asked us to walk around and help where needed, instructing us not to help students come up with ideas or tell them how to spell words, but to encourage them to sound out words. The students did great!!!

Teachers example
Student example – the teacher asked the students when they were done to come up to one of us and read what they had. The teacher instructed us to write out the misspelled words.

Personal Reflection:

I had a great time in the “ ” classroom! I really enjoyed learning from the classroom teacher. She always made sure to let us know the plan for the day and where we could support. She also shared the resources she used for that days lesson with us and any additional ones she could think of. The teacher encouraged us to be involved in the lessons and work with students who may need extra support, which I appreciated. This opportunity allowed me to see the students’ learning come to life and be there to support them whenever they needed, which I think was great practice. When helping students, I often found myself referring back to the UFLI lessons, making sure that I followed the methods I observed and the way they were learning, which shows I too am learning along side them. All in all, being involved in the classroom and observing teachers in action has been such a great learning opportunity for me. I am thankful for this experience, as I feel I learn the best when being hands on and put into the action.

Literacy Mini Lesson & Reflection

January 31, 2024 / / 0 Comments

BC Curriculum Connections

Grade: 1

Subject: English Language Arts (1)

Big Idea: Playing with language helps us discover how language works.

Curricular Competencies: Read fluently at grade level, Communicate using letters and words and applying some conventions of Canadian spelling, grammar, and punctuation

Content:

Strategies and processes: reading strategies, oral language strategies, and writing processes.

Language features, structures, and conventions: concepts of print, print awareness, phonemic and phonological awareness, letter formation, sentence structure, and conventions.

Lesson / Activities

*This list of activities was inspired from a UFLI (phonics) lesson I observed, how the lesson went & in the order it went

Sounds + actions: As a whole group students and the teacher did sounds and actions to “th” (fast), “th” (slow) and “ch” – these are the sounds and compounds students are working on.

Word Work: Students began word work at their desks using their blending boards – the teacher asks them to spell out words using their letter blocks and changes only a few letters in the word until the short activity is done (e.g., chat -> chap -> cap -> tap -> tip.) *The teacher has a blending board under the document camera as well so students can refer to it throughout the activity .

Irregular Words: As a class they went over irregular words on the white board. Irregular words are words that cannot be decoded easily. As a class they said them out loud then, “decoded” the words by saying the “regular” parts of the word which is indicated by the “ ” symbol as well as the parts they need to “learn by heart” which is shown with the “ ” symbol.

Songs: The teacher also added in songs (not part of the UFLI program) to help students further their understanding of how to say them and spell them properly. The website that was used had great videos that showed the students exactly how it was spelt, actions and catchy tunes to help them remember!

Writing Words: Students got their white boards out and spelt the words the teacher was saying (e.g., “can you spell the word “so”, spell the word “the”, spell the word “you” etc.)

Review of “Schwa” words: The teacher made sure to address the words we say “relaxed” which is called “schwa” – for example in the English language we say “d” like “duh” not just the “d” sound and same with “a” we say it as “ah” not just “a.” So, the teacher made sure to address this so students are learning the proper way of phonics not the “relaxed” way.

Let’s read together: All together the class read out sentences that had words in it that they were focusing on (e.g., Chuck and Beth had lunch.) I like the idea of students having the chance to just read sentences instead of sentences with pictures as I believe it will help them strengthen their understanding of the meaning of the sentence. Additionally, the teacher made sure to go over C.A.P.S for their sentence, “do all the words that need capitals have capitals? is the appearance of the sentence correct? (finger spaces between letters, written left to right etc) does the sentence have proper punctuation? are all the words spelt correctly?“

Let’s spell together: the teacher prompts the students with a sentence and asks them to spell it out, word for word. As the students are writing it out she is also writing it alongside them on the smart board. I really like that the teacher puts circles for the amount of words in the sentence and checks them off as they go. Additionally, they also use the C.A.P.S method to make sure the sentence is a proper sentence.

Decodable text / “Rockin’ Reader”: Students come back to the carpet space and read “decodable” texts that are presented on the smart board – after students have read the sentences all together the teacher chooses a “rockin reader” and they get a little slip of paper that says they won “rockin reader” that gets put in their folder then they get to pick a prize, either a sticker or a “desk pet” which is a little eraser.

Student groups / centers: The teacher has preplanned groups (4 groups of 4) based on the students literacy ability, this is done so the teacher can focus on the “lower” levelled groups as often as needed. The students rotate between four different groups; 1 – teacher “lesson,” they focus on phonics and to get additional support if they are struggling with understand the UFLI lessons, they also work in their “UFLI Check In Booklet” (photo presented below) 2 – phonics game, 3 – another game related to the content, and 4 – either levelled reading or another game related to literacy. The students rotate between all of the centers so they each get a chance to participate at each of them. The centers usually last about 5-8ish minutes.

This UFLI check in booklet is only used at the teacher center as the students get prompts from the teacher on what to write – these are mostly only used on Friday’s and they correspond with the lesson number.
I believe this booklet is a great way to keep up with students learning (assessment) and to see how they progress over time!
“Roll and Read” – this is a two player game, the goal is to get a whole column of your coloured chips. Each student takes turns rolling dice – if they get a 3 then they must go to the 3 column and say the word before putting their coloured chip down. This goes on until time is up or someone fills a column with their colour. *This game comes with the UFLI lesson*
This game is similar to the game “snacks and ladders” – students are to roll the dice and move that many spaces that is presented on the dice (the arrows allow you to either skip a few spaces or move you back a few spaces.) Once they get to their space they are to read the word and place their marker on that spot. This continues until someone has reached the finish line! The game allows them to practice the phonics / words they are learning.
*This game is also part of the UFLI lesson – each lesson has a set of games that correspond with the lesson.*
This reading center is only used if the students have reached a level higher than “d” for reading as students are able to read fluently and on their own once they have moved past a level “d.” The teacher groups students based on their literacy abilities so a group of students can use this center to practice their reading skills. If there is a group that has not yet passed level “d” in their reading they will participate in another UFLI game.

Personal Reflection

I absolutely loved my time spend in the “ ” classroom! I learnt so much from the classroom teacher as she made time to sit down with us to discuss what she was doing in detail, how it is going with the students, what is working and what is not etc. She also provided us with a lot of resources and insights on what we can look forward to and what is working for her that she recommends we try out in our future classrooms! Being able to participate and walk around while an actual lesson is taking place was extremely beneficial as I got to see in real time how to do activities / lessons like the ones explained above and how the students respond to said lessons. Additionally, watching these activities showed me the importance of having students move a lot during a lesson, having different elements to keep them engaged as well as letting the students do the learning by constantly talking not just the teacher talking. All in all I am very thankful that I got to observe the “ ” classroom and am excited to see different literacy lessons take place in the following classrooms.

Attributions

Image Attributions

© 2024 Morgan’s Educational Portfolio

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑