This year I am teaching the fourth grade. I have 19 students with me all day. When I interviewed for this job, the principal made an effort to tell me why she was leaving the “block” scheduling type for elementary and going back to the traditional way of teaching elementary. This way allowed me to have 19 students in my classroom the whole day. During the day I teach every subject. I teach Bible, Math, Science, Social Studies, Reading, and Language. Thinking about it now, I can see why she decided to change things up this year.
I really agree with what my principal is trying to do. She told me that she wanted to return to this way of teaching because it allowed teachers to fully get to know their students on a deeper level. Instead of having only some for an hour and a half each day, each teacher has a certain amount of students for the whole day. I am able to really get to know what is going on in their lives. This allows me to realize that those things can be affecting the work they are giving me. I would more than likely miss something if I did not know each student on such a personal level.
Even though teaching 7 subjects a day does get pretty stressful, I try to keep everything organized and exciting. Some of the issues that I face come from being in the same room everyday. I have two children in my classroom that do not get along. I think something has happened in the past with them, and the former teachers gave me some worrying about it. I love to do groups work. I believe that it allows each student to learn from one another. These two students cannot be in the same group. I tried to get them to move past their old ways, but all they do is cause drama for the other students in the group. So, I am forced to move them to a different one.
The second problem that I am facing deals with my reading program I have in my school. My principal just switched to this program called Foundations and Frameworks. It is a great program that allows for great reading comprehension. But, it is so hard to help each student. I have about 5 students in my class that are on a much higher reading level than others. Their reading fluency and reading comprehension is much deeper than others. Then, I have two students who are my lowest. They have a problem really comprehend what they are reading. I believe that it comes from their ability to not read with very good fluency. It is so hard trying to find a happy medium between both those groups of students and also the ones that are in the middle.
I have given all of my student’s two reading fluency tests. I had them come back to my desk and read a piece of work that they had not read before. I counted how many works right they got in a minute. The results followed what I believed would happen. Also, their results form their STAR reading tests followed the same results. I think that it is such a hard thing to find a balance between the two groups. I want to engage all of my students. Want the higher readers to be challenged but I also want my lower ones not to feel overwhelmed every day in reading. I never really thought about how hard it would be, but I am finding it to be just that.
Even though some tests said one thing about my students, I also know that some can do much more than the results on that test. I know that when I was younger I found that every test I took I did horrible. No matter what I did I still could never test well. Knowing this, it is my job to change up the ways I teach reading, I need to do some things some days to help my higher readers and also do things to help my lower ones not fall behind. It’s all about differentiating my lessons plans everyday to help reinforce a subject or to just plant the information in each students head.
Copy of my lesson:
Differentiated Lesson for Fourth Grade Reading Lesson
Objective: Students will be able to read and articulate critical thinking skills for creating a timeline and reading the chapters of Number of the Stars with 90 percent accuracy.
Using the Ebb and Flow Differentiated Lesson Plan Example
Beginning Activities Middle Activities Ending Activities----
-introduce the book that - Whole Group instruction -whole groups recap
we are going to start reading -small group instruction
-have the students guess how -individual activities
a football game runs to talk
about sequence of events in
whole group
WHOLE GROUP INSTRUCTION:
- talk about what details really happen in game
- -have students act it out
- have a diagram on board for visual learners
- -tell how that helps learn about sequence in reading
- introduce world war 2 what happened
- kwl charts in whole group
SMALL GROUP ACTIVITIES
- table groups to make a list of what sequence a book plot should be in
- draw a picture of what think happened in ww2
- make a group timeline of ww2
- make a group kwl chart about Number of the Stars
- do vocabulary words chart
INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITES (seat work)
-read chapter1-7 during the next two weeks
-answer the response sheets
-will come back to talk to teacher individually about the book (direct instruction)
- look over response sheets and make timelines about each chapter
-make a vein diagram about the characters to learn more about them
IMPORANT THING IS TO CHANGE IT UP EACH DAY DURING THE TWO WEEKS TO HELP EACH DIFFERENT STYLE OF LEARNER!
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