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LESSON PLAN OUTLINE JMU Elementary Education Program

Rebecca ONeill Ms. Zehrs third grade class at Cub Run Elementary School January 30, 2013, 1:15- 2:00 PM January 23, 2013

TITLE OF LESSON Pair of Pears: Word Study Lesson Plan CONTEXT OF LESSON Prior to completing this lesson plan, I spoke to Ms. Zehr in reference to what the students were currently learning in their word study development. She informed me that her literacy students are presently learning about the great variety of homophones that exist in the English language. In order to plan appropriately, Ms. Zehr also provided me with a list of sixteen homophones that should be included in the students lesson for Wednesday, January 30. These words include: bear/bare, by/buy/bye, night/knight, world/whirled, flu/flew, scent/cent/sent, bury/berry. Also in reference to the English SOLs for second grade, it was brought to my attention that students in the third grade should be familiar with expanding their vocabulary through homophones (English SOL 2.7). The following lesson plan will allow the students to actively engage themselves in learning about the provided words. After thoroughly going over the various pairs and groups of homophones and their definitions, students will be given the opportunity to volunteer and come up to the white board to make a pair of homophone pears to help the tree cutout grow! Because there are only sixteen words for the daily vocabulary, I will invite students to contribute their own homophone pairs to the pear tree as well. This activity will prove to be appealing to all learners including: auditory, kinesthetic and visual. LEARNING OBJECTIVES Understand (Concepts/Skills) 1. Words can be pronounced the same but have different meaning and/or spelling. (CONCEPT). 2. There are numerous words in the English language that can be identified as homophones through extensive vocabulary (CONCEPT). 3. Understanding the meaning of various homophones allows one to construct appropriate sentences with context clues. (CONCEPT). Know/Do (Learning objectives) The students will recognize homophones.

The students will generate homophones of their own, not presented in the activity. The students will construct sentences providing the appropriate use of a given homophone.

ASSESSING LEARNING Know/Do (Learning

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Objectives) The students will recognize homophones.

The students will generate homophones of their own, not presented in the activity.

The students will construct sentences providing the appropriate use of a given homophone. .

I will first open discussion by asking students, What are homophones? I will take notice of how many students raise their hands to answer and will document any responses. Because the students have had previous lessons on words as homophones, I will then ask the class to offer examples. These examples will be documented to evaluate students understanding. The students will also have an opportunity to go to the front of the room and match a pair of homophones to the Pair of Pears tree and add any other pair of homophones not provided. The Pair of Pears tree will provide evidence of the students understanding as well; therefore I will take a photo at the end of the lesson. After defining what homophones are, I will ask students to provide examples of other homophones that do not appear on the daily list. As stated previously, these homophones will be recorded on the attached data sheet. Furthermore, I will continue to assess by asking the student to provide a correct meaning as to how the provided words are homophones. I will document the students response next to the selected word. As a conclusion to our activity, I will give students the opportunity to construct two sentences using a pair of homophones. I will then have students volunteer their sentences out loud to the class. The students responses will be documented on the attached data collection sheet.

RELATED VIRGINIA STANDARDS OF LEARNING Oral Language

3.1 The student will use effective communication skills in group activities. a) Listen attentively by making eye contact, facing the speaker, asking questions, and summarizing what is said. b) Ask and respond to questions from teachers and other group members. c) Explain what has been learned. d) Use language appropriate for context. e) Increase listening3.1 The student will use effective communication skills in group activities. a) Listen attentively by making eye contact, facing the speaker, asking questions, and summarizing what is said. b) Ask and respond to questions from teachers and other group members. c) Explain what has been learned. d) Use language appropriate for context. e) Increase listening and speaking vocabularies. 3.2 The student will present brief oral reports using visual media. a) Speak clearly. b) Use appropriate volume and pitch. c) Speak at an understandable rate. d) Organize ideas sequentially or around major points of information. e) Use contextually appropriate language and specific vocabulary to communicate ideas.

Reading
3.3 The student will apply word-analysis skills when reading. a) Use knowledge of regular and irregular vowel patterns. Page 2

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b) Decode regular multisyllabic words. 3.4 The student will expand vocabulary when reading. a) Use knowledge of homophones. b) Use knowledge of roots, affixes, synonyms, and antonyms. c) Apply meaning clues, language structure, and phonetic strategies. d) Use context to clarify meaning of unfamiliar words. e) Discuss meanings of words and develop vocabulary by listening and reading a variety of texts. f) Use vocabulary from other content areas.

Writing
3.9 The student will write for a variety of purposes. e) Use strategies for organization of information and elaboration according to the type of writing. g) Revise writing for clarity of content using specific vocabulary and information.

MATERIALS NEEDED
Powerpoint with list of daily homophones Worksheets with word definition Pear cutouts Tree trunk cutout Markers Tape

*I will supply all the materials for this lesson plan PROCEDURE Set Up of Activity: 1. I will set up the activity by putting up the PowerPoint prior to the literacy lesson and have the handouts ready to be handed out following the introduction of the lesson. I will also tape the tree trunk and pear cutouts with the sixteen homophones on the wall for students to work with later on in the lesson. Introduction of Activity: 2. I will introduce the activity to the students by first prompting them with the question: What is a homophone? I will observe the number of hands that are raised in response to my question and proceed to select volunteers to give their definition of what homophones are. Following their responses I will ask: Can anyone give an example of a pair or group of homophones that are not written on the board already? If students cannot provide me with examples, I will then proceed to my PowerPoint that provides a list of their sixteen daily homophones and we will begin discussing the various words provided.
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*At this point I will pass out the worksheet that provides a list of definitions that students are to identify as we go through the PowerPoint. Next, we will go through each slide of the PowerPoint, which will provide a pair or group of homophones, and then discuss each of the words definitions. As each meaning of a word is discussed and the homophonic comparisons becomes apparent to the students, I will then give the students time to fill in the appropriate word next to each definition (and if time permits draw a picture in relation to each word). Testing the Understanding of Activity: 3. I will next have students direct their attention to the white board and discuss the Pair of Pears tree activity. Now that we have gone through these new words that we have learned to be homophones, we are now going to help our bare pear tree grow by adding pairs of homophone pears to the tree cutout. Using the pear cutouts that you see are labeled with our daily words, I will choose a student one at time to come up to the front of the bored to choose homophone pears that can be paired together on the tree. If you are chosen to help the pear tree grow, I ask that you supply a definition for at least one of the words. I will then ask the students if they have any questions. Once all questions are asked and each student expresses their understanding, we will continue with the activity. Implementing the Activity: 4.The activity will go just as described previously. Once all the daily words are paired on the pear tree, I will then offer students the opportunity to create their own pair of homophone pears to contribute to the pear tree. This way all students are given the opportunity to engage in the activity. Not all of the students will finish with this part of the activity at the same time, therefore I will instruct students that are finished with their pears to construct sentences with the words provided from the daily homophone list on the worksheet provided earlier. 5.If a student is having difficulty understanding the activity or cannot come up with a pair of homophones to contribute to the pear tree, I will first ask them if they can recall any homophone pairs learned in the previous classes. If the student cannot recall any words, I will then suggest a single word that has a homophone pairing and ask the student if he/she can provide another word that is pronounced the same but has a different meaning. 5.I want all students to be able to contribute to the Pair of Pears tree, therefore I will not conclude this lesson until all students are given this opportunity. Closure: 6.As closure, I will read some of the homophone pairs that were additionally provided on the tree by the students. If time permits, I will also have students volunteer to read their constructed sentences out loud for the class to hear. DIFFERENTIATION Prior to doing this lesson plan for my literacy workshop, I was informed by Ms. Zehr that there are several ELL in her class. Therefore I decided for it to be beneficial for all students to keep the list of words on the white board so that they are there for students to refer to at all times during the activity. I also planned for the students to extend their homophone skills by encouraging students to come up with
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their own pairs of homophones that were not discussed. This aspect of the activity will provide a further challenge for those students that need one. In addition, so will the construction of their own sentences. WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THIS LESSON AND WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT? A student may not understand the activity in whole therefore I will provide further clarification and repeat the procedure directions until the student is comfortable in the activity objectives A student may not have any interest in this activity therefore I will encourage and promote the activity with enthusiasm. If a student becomes sick during the activity, I will briefly pause the activity so that I can bring the student to his or her teacher for further care. An emergency drill may interrupt the activity so I will follow standard procedures until the drill is over. I will continue the activity if time permits. If a students behavior is unacceptable I will give him or her a warning. I will try not to allow the students behavior to interrupt my activity because I do not want to take away the learning experience from the other students at my workshop. If I finish early, I will provide the students with the opportunity to add more pictures to their definition worksheets.

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Lesson Implementation Reflection

Overall, my lesson implementation went very well; however there were a few changes and factors that I did not considered prior to implementation. One overriding factor that I was not made aware of, prior to my lesson, was that students had already been exposed to the list of words my lesson plan was based on two days prior. Therefore, to my students, the content that I thought I would be presenting to them for the first time, was nothing but old news. I first observed this at the beginning of the activity, when we were going through the PowerPoint and comparing the different homophone pairs/ groups definitions. I could tell from not only the students accurate answers, but also their uninterested mannerisms that it was time to alter my lesson plan. Therefore, instead of proceeding through the PowerPoint and going through words that they already knew, I asked students to fill out the worksheet full of definitions independently. Once students completed the worksheet, I then fastforwarded to my interactive activity with the Pair of Pears Tree. After explaining the directions for this activity, I then began choosing students to come up to the board to begin making the pairs of pears. To further challenge students, I directed those who came up to the board to not only pair the homophones, but to also provide a sentence with context clues for each of the words in the pair. This aspect of the activity was altered to two sentences as opposed to my previous plan to only have the student say the definition of one of the words. Once all of the homophone pears were successfully paired on the tree, I then instructed all students that they would now have the opportunity to contribute to the tree. This part of the activity remained the same (students were to contribute a pair of homophones not already on the tree) except I additionally instructed students to write at least one sentence for once of the words chosen for their homophone pair. Before students could add their homophone pairs to the tree, I had to approve that their sentence made sense and consisted of context clues. The end product of this activity was very exciting and I could see the positive change of attitude after I made appropriate changes. Due to the fact that my lesson plan did change during implementation, some of the recorded assessment data proved to be of no value to me. As stated previously, it became apparent to me early on in the activity that the students knew the list of sixteen homophone vocabulary words very well. So although they may have not learned any additional information in terms of defining and pairing these homophones, students were given the opportunity to hear the words in various sentences with common context clues. In addition, based on the additional homophone pairs/groups that students contributed to the Pair of Pairs Tree, it was observed that students had enough knowledge towards homophones to be able to identify and give meaning to their own pairs. So although, my lesson plan may have not gone as planned, I still think it proved effective in revealing that students are able to move on from learning about homophones. If I were to teach this lesson again, one developmentally appropriate practice that I would enact in this lesson plan would be to have students work individually in writing a story using the list of sixteen homophones provided. Because it became clear that students were able to identify the homophone pairs/groups and their definitions, it would be developmentally appropriate to proceed with this lesson in individual writing. This writing prompt completed by the students would provide me with concrete information about each and every students actual knowledge of these words in context. Therefore being a valuable indicator of students development in word study. Based on the students achieved knowledge in the understanding of homophones, I would suggest introducing more challenging words into their vocabulary through various reading and writing activities. Although I do not know if the students were quick to understand the list of words on the first day of introduction, it is apparent that by two days later, they were fully competent. For that reason, I feel as though the students should be challenged a little more in their vocabulary! After implementing this lesson plan I have learned that young learners are very quick and eager to process all information being taught to them. Therefore, as a future educator, I have become aware that flexibility in all lesson plans is a must. It became obvious through this lesson that if students are not being challenged, their enthusiasm and interest towards learning diminishes. Based on this fact, I will be sure to always have an alternate plan just in case something like this experience ever occurs again in the classroom. I have also learned that students have more Page 6

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fun when they are actively engaged in learning rather than just listening to the teacher. I think that interactive learning is so important within the classroom, yet sadly something that I see lacking in my practicum classroom. Overall, this experience has taught me as a future teacher that I am able to think on my toes when approached with an unplanned factor of a lesson. If I am able to think on the spot like I was able to do during my lesson plan, yet still challenge the students, then I am going to be the effective teacher that I aspire to be!

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Data Collection Sheet

What are homophones? How many students raised their hand? Responses to the Question: What are homophones? Examples of Homophones not on daily list Definition of homophones provided. Is it correct?

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