Blended Learning Lesson Plan

Lesson Title: What Does That Word Mean?

Objectives:
Students will be able to define and understand important vocabulary words.
Students will be able to define unknown words in sentence level context using a picture
dictionary for support.

State Standards:
ELA Language, Craft, and Structure: Standard 10: Apply a range of strategies to determine and
deepen the meaning of known, unknown, and multiple-meaning words, phrases, and jargon;
acquire and use general academic and domain-specific vocabulary.

Context:
I am teaching this lesson so that my students can better understand and define important sentence
structuring vocabulary words. Before this lesson is a lesson on spelling and it is where most of
these words were first introduced. This lesson attempts to take those words and apply meaning to
them to that students can use it in a future context. After this lesson, more vocabulary terms will
be introduced and defined, and students will begin working on sentence structuring and writing.
By defining terms now, students will have the understanding to move onto this next lesson and
further their academic learning.

Data:
Students will be grouped based on performance level in previous lesson with spelling and
understanding of specific words. Each group will contain one or two students that performed
excellently and fully understood the previous lesson in order to facilitate growth and learning in
other students. Each group will also contain one or two students who had trouble understanding
or struggled more with spelling terms or in previous lessons with letter sounds. For future lesson
plans, students will be observed in groups to determine who contributes what in discussion and
work given and an assessment will be given at the end through digital multimedia to determine
growth and understanding of subject.

Materials:
Pre-made Picture Dictionary worksheet (example at bottom of lesson plan)
Pre-made flashcards of key terms in lesson (4 per student: unknown, tricky, reread, and
drawing)(example at bottom of lesson plan)
Dictionaries (1 per 4 students)
Classroom ipads

Procedures:

Introduction:
Today we will be learning about unknown words and how to recognize those words and define
them. Before beginning the lesson, instruct students to turn to one another and describe a time
where they didn’t understand a word either in school or at home. This is necessary to activate
background knowledge and introduce the topic at hand. Choose any book you’d like, making
sure that it contains words they will not understand, and read it aloud to the class. Before you
begin, tell students they will be finding unknown words, but that not knowing a word is nothing
to be ashamed of and it’s why we learn.

Small Group Instruction:

Model how to find an unknown word in the text by reading the first sentence out loud and
pausing over the unknown word before conveying your misunderstanding of it. Then, look up the
word in the dictionary and explain it to your students while drawing a picture example on the
board. Write a sentence using the word underneath the picture and underline the unknown word.
Pass out pre-made flashcards with the words, tricky, unknown, reread, and drawing to each
student and as you explain the lesson, have students find the correct card and hold it up as you
say each word.
First, tell students that you will be looking for tricky, or difficult words in the book and wait
until all hands are holding up the tricky card. Sometimes, these words are unknown, or not
known. To figure out unknown words, it can be helpful to reread the text and look at drawings,
or pictures. Then, begin reading the chosen book, have students raise their hands when they
come across a word in the book that they don’t know, and write it on the board. Once the book is
finished, present all the written-out words that your students selected and go through them,
having students read along or repeat after you. Direct students again to the word that you did not
understand before that you used the dictionary to define, drew a picture of, and used in a
sentence.

Collaborative:
Hand out the pre-made Picture Dictionary worksheet and have students work in groups of four to
write at least five words that were unknown in the book on their worksheets. While they are
doing this, pass out a dictionary to each group. Once they are finished, ask them to define each
word using the dictionary they have been given. Then, have them draw a picture next to the word
to better understand it. Have students examine how the words they used in their picture
dictionaries were used in the text. Go back to a few words to discuss how they were used in
sentences and then ask students to create their own sentences with the terms they found.
For example:
Construction worker (picture of worker) A person who builds The construction
things worker built the
bridge.

Once all students in the group have completed their charts, ask them discuss the words they
found using the following sentence frame to structure discussion:
The word I found was _____. It means _____. I can use it in this sentence:____.
If students are struggling with this structure then challenge them to have a discussion using as
many of their unknown words as possible.

Independent Digital:
This section is less independent because the students are so young, and it is simple so that they
can understand it. A lot of the time when students read, they don’t always realize what their
voices sound like or how they’re mispronouncing words. Talking about fluency with younger
children is a hard concept for them to grasp so one way that technology can be implemented is
by having students record themselves reading their sentences. Using classroom iPads, students
will use the voice memo app and separately record each sentence containing their unknown
word. Challenge them to use different forms of expression when reading so they can hear the
difference in each sentence.

Closure:
Gather students again and ask them the following questions:
Why is it important to know the words we don’t know in a story?
What are some strategies we can use to find out what that word means?
What is a new word that you learned?
By asking these questions, you can assess what students have learned throughout the lesson and
how they articulate what they have learned. After receiving an answer to at least one question
from each student, have them popcorn read one of the sentences they wrote, repeating the
unknown word that they now know after their sentence. As they go along, cross out each word
on the board that a student used.
If there are leftover words, then use further class time to find each word in the dictionary and
define it. Have students come up to the board to draw a picture next to the word and ask for
examples of sentences a word could be used in. Finish off the lesson by pointing at a word and
asking, “What does this word mean?” and letting your students call out loud what each word
means.

Rationale:
Using the voice memo app on their iPads, students will be able to hear and understand that they
are mispronouncing certain words and correct themselves. By using different forms of
expression, they will understand how a sentence can be said or asked differently to inflect
different emotions or meaning. Voice memos can be saved and used in future lessons or shared
with parents at the end of the year in a video or portfolio.
For students who do not have English as their first language, two separate approaches can be
taken. For beginning EL speakers, students may define words in either English or their home
language as long as it is clear they understand the meaning of the word. Group work can be
teacher led so assistance can be given when needed. For more advanced EL speakers, students
can be encouraged after lesson is over to work with a partner and write a paragraph using as
many of their words as possible. The voice memo app can be used to help convey where students
may be mispronouncing words and how to correct them.
For students with vision impairment, the voice memo app is good to use because they can hear
where they are at fault instead of having to see it, but for students with hearing disabilities, an
alternative method would have to be used. If these students were to use a voice to speed program
and speak clearly, they could still see where they have mispronounced a word or phrase. After
this has been identified, the teacher can write out the proper pronunciation of the word and break
it up into multiple syllables. Then, students could try again and see a complete sentence that they
had spoken on the iPad.

Picture Dictionary Worksheet

Word Draw a picture of the word What does it mean? Use the word in a
sentence.
Flashcards

Unknown Drawing

A picture.

Something that is not known.

Reread Tricky

Something that is difficult.

To read again.