Connect and Compliment: Readers, you have been doing some amazing hard work of locating unfamiliar words in your nonfiction texts and using your own knowledge to figure out what the words mean. Today we will learn how to locate the definition of some of these unfamiliar words in our books by using the glossary as well as looking for the definition within the text.
Teach: Today I want to teach you that readers take the time to figure out the meanings of unfamiliar words, which helps them to better understand the text. Once they find the definition, they restate it in their own words, and with this meaning in mind re-read the sentences in the text that have the unfamiliar words in them, in order to understand the meaning of the sentences better.
Model: Let me show you how I would go about doing this work in my nonfiction book. Read a part of a nonfiction big book with bolded words that are found in the glossary. Model how I found the definition in the glossary, restated it in my own words, and reread the sentence. Fill out the graphic organizer on chart paper.
Engage: Sometimes, unfamiliar words are not bolded but they might still be in the glossary. Put your thumb up if you have ever noticed that a word that was not bolded was in the glossary of your book. Have students help go through the process with a word from a different book. Other times, the definition to the unfamiliar word is provided within the text. Put your thumb up if you have ever noticed the definition of new words in the actual textmaybe even right next to the word, in your books. Have students help go through the process with a word from a different book.
Link: Readers, today we will practice this process as we go off to read our nonfiction books with our reading partners. Use the graphic organizer and the checklist to help you. You can also use post-it notes to mark the words in the text. When we come back together, we will share about how learning the definitions of unfamiliar words has helped us to better understand what we are reading. Who can tell me what we are going to be learning/practicing today? If you know what do: GO! If you are not sure what to do or have questions, stay in the meeting area.
While students work with partners I will confer with individual students and partners. (I will begin conferring with Emily, Patricia, Brandon, Jackson, Claire, Jasper and their partners names have been changed) I will also keep in mind which students I would like to have share at the end of the lesson.
Share: A few students share how they went through the process of identifying unfamiliar words, locating their definitions, restating the definitions in their own words, and rereading the sentence with the unfamiliar word with the definition in mind. Students will explain how this process has helped them to understand the meaning of their texts.
Reflection on Reading Minilesson
Strengths Areas of Improvement Goals Connect and Compliment: I was able connect the teaching point directly to something that the students have already been doing in their nonfiction texts: finding, taking note of, and trying to define what my CT calls lingo words: words that are particular to a discipline (aka vocabulary words). The students have been using context clues, pictures, and their background knowledge to try to determine the meanings. I complimented the students by emphasizing the effort and work that they have been engaging in by referring to it as hard work, per Peter Johnstons recommendation to praise effort and work instead of smarts or even the final product. This encourages students to continue to engage in the process of thinking, learning, and doing, as opposed to getting caught up in worrying about the final product, or having anxiety about proving or disproving that they are in fact smart with their work. Teaching Point: I realized after teaching that my teaching point did not need to include all of the different steps of using the definitions of the unfamiliar words. The teaching point can be more openI could have simply stated Today I want to teach you that readers take the time to figure out the meanings of unfamiliar words, which helps them to better understand the text. I did not need to go into the specifics: Once they find the definition, they restate it in their own words, and with this meaning in mind re-read the sentences in the text that have the unfamiliar words in them, since this was too much information for students to grasp all at once. It was also unnecessarily repetitive, since I went into teaching the steps in the Modeling section. The graphic organizer and checklist also outline the steps, so it would make sense to keep the teaching point more succinct and transferrable by omitting the specific steps. Teaching Point: Something that I have realized is that I have been approaching teaching points from the SMART Goal perspective (e.g. a Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic and relevant, Time- bound Learning Objective), which I owe to my Teaching Fellows preparation, no doubt. It has taken me some time to understand that Teaching Points are not that. Unlike SMART goals, Teaching Points are invitations, they are also more open-ended and are transferrable to other contexts. One goal that I have is to make sure that my teaching points are indeed teaching points. For example, the teaching point in this minilesson should have simply been Today I want to teach you that readers take the time to figure out the meanings of unfamiliar words. This is open-ended and therefore transferrable to different texts and even various genres. It is also an invitation, and not Students will XYZ by the end of the lesson. Teach: One big strength of this lesson was the use of the graphic organizer that I developed to help students keep track of the steps and to support students who are visual learners and benefit from having The Engagement: After teaching, I realized that I should have only engaged the students in one process of going through the steps to define, restate, reread, and think about how it helped comprehension. Having the Time management: A big goal of mine this year, and a need that is evidenced by this minilesson, is to manage time better so that minilessons really do stay Mini: 10 minutes at most. This lesson was much too long information clearly visually organized. As evidenced by the student work, the graphic organizer served as an effective tool for students to organize their information and keep track of every step. [The graphic organizer included boxes for the Word, Sentence with the word in it, Definition, Definition in my own words, and Picture. A checklist promoted students: I re-read the sentence with the meaning of the word in mind and I understand the meaning of the sentence better now! (Y/N)] students actively engaged in two rounds of this took a lot of time and was unnecessary: one guided practice with the steps is enough to familiarize students with the process. Also, I have recently been thinking a lot in terms of prioritizing time, always asking myself now Where is it more important for students to spend their time? After taking part in a quick guided- practice, the students should spend more time independently practicing the strategy. at almost 17 minutes. Some actionable steps to take in order to ensure well-timed s is to pare down each section, to develop succinct language use, and to practice the minilesson more than just a few times prior to implementation, so that it flows smoothly and efficiently. One example of how I could have pared down this minilesson is by limiting the guided practice to just one round of going through the steps together as a class, instead of twice. Engagement: Even though it was often challenging for students to restate the definitions of unfamiliar words in their own words, including this element in the lesson was a big strength of its effectiveness. This step really challenged students to turn the meaning of the unfamiliar words in their minds and consider how it could be explained differently. Even in cases when it was very difficult to think of an alternative way of saying the same definition, the mental process of thinking about it and trying on different words allowed the definition to marinade in his/her mind aiding in comprehension and memory. This was evidenced by the fact that I noticed many students using the newly learned words in other contexts. Link: I wanted to provide the post-it option as a scaffold for students who are tactile/kinesthetic learners and those who struggle transferring information from the book to another sheet. However, I did not teach into how to use this scaffold during the minilesson, and only mentioned it in the link. I noticed that few students used this scaffold, especially those who could have benefitted the most from using post-its to mark the words in their books. This scaffold should have been explicitly modeled in the teaching part of the minilesson, as well as used during the engage segment so that students are familiar with how to use it if they choose to.
Model: If I incorporate a scaffold into instruction, such as using post- it notes, I need to teach how to use the scaffold either during the minilesson, during a small group immediately after the minilesson with a group of students who I know will benefit from its use, or perhaps even prior to the lesson altogether (perhaps on a different day or earlier in the day during a few free minutes in between activities). I could even have a mini minilesson on the various use of post-its for marking in books. For example, I could say Readers use post-its in many ways when they read. One way readers use post-its is to take note of unfamiliar words. Then model how one might do that.