Big Word Lesson

Last Wednesday, I was given the oppurtunity to teach my big word lesson to Mrs. Weathers third grade, average language arts class. My big word lesson was on alliteration, which defined by Webster is the "repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables" (www.webster.com). I thought that a great way to introduce alliteration to my third graders would be a tounge twister lesson. Mrs. Weathers picked out five students to join me at the table in the back of the room. All of them looked thrilled to be able to do a learning activity with me. I introduced myself to my third graders, and then asked them to say "toy boat, toy boat, toy boat" slowly. I clapped my hands to show the rhythm, and we said it together on my count. I asked them if that was easy, and they replied "yes". I then asked them if they thought they could say it even faster. Again, we repeated the tongue twister, but at a faster pace. This time, they giggled with one another. I told them that "toy boat, toy boat, toy boat" was a tonuge twister. I then asked them if they knew what a tonuge twister was, and most of them responded "yes" excitedly. The girl to my left continued to explain what a tonuge twister was. I then asked if any of them knew a tonuge twister. We shared a few with one another, and then I introduced my book, Timid Timothy's Tongue Twisters. Prior to reading I asked my students to look for rhyming words, and homphones (I explained to them what homophones were). Every few pages, I would ask questions to keep their interest. After reading the book, we talked about the different rhyming words and the homophones that were in the book, and looked back on the pages they were found in. I asked them if Mrs. Weathers had ever talked to them about alliteration. There was no reply, so I explained to them that alliteration is the repeated sound at the beginning of two or more words in a sentence. I provided examples and asked them what the alliteration was in each of them. We then produced our own tonuge twisters. This is when the lesson took a slight turn. I asked them to make five columns. Some of them has no problem making five columns, where others drew lines that were too close together, overlapping, or they didn't draw enough lines. I had to take a step back in my lesson and help out those individual students. I then told them to label the columns appropriatly (adj1, noun1, verbs, adj2, noun2). Before I let them create their own, we did one together. They seemed to have a good idea of what was required of them. When they began working on their own, I began to notice a little struggle with some of the students. One girl created six tongue twisters, while others struggled on one. Prior to letting them create their own tongue twisters, we went over what an adjective, noun, and verb was. they all seemed very familiar with each of them. However, when they were working on their own tongue twisters, some of them were getting verbs and adjectives confused, and nouns and verbs confused. another girl was writing non-sense words. My lesson was not supposed to take as long as it did, but I did not want to give up. I then decided to take a step back, and work with each student individually. We worked on coming up with adjectives, nouns, and verbs that all started with the same letter, and spelling the words correctly. Rather than telling them how to spell the word, I helped them sound it out, and then even shortened the word to a smaller word that they were familiar with (stair and air). Finally, each student had created a tongue twister sucessfully. We went over the repeated sound in each of their tongue twisters, and went over the definition of allitleration again. Since we were out of time, I suggested that they take their favorite tongue twister and draw a picture to go along with it.

Looking back on my lesson, I know that there were ceratin parts that went really well, and other parts that did not go as planned. Regardless, this was a great learning experience for me. After the lesson, I approached Mrs. Weathers and discussed what went really well with the lesson, andwhat did not go so well. I told her that the lesson probably should've been taught to her advanced class rather than her average reading class. I wonder how the students would react differently to the lesson in my average class. Would they struggle the same way the average class did with coming up with adjectives, verbs, and nouns. Would their tongue twisters make sense. I hope that if I have time in practicum, I will be able to teach my big word lesson again in the upper level reading class. This would be a great way to analyze how students of different abililties would react to my lesson.

I'm really excited about the rest of block I, and continuing into Block II, and student teaching. I've realized that not all of my lessons are going to go as planned, or as smooth as I would like. I think that is the purpose of Block I, II, and Student Teaching. It is all about gaining experience. The more experience I get in teaching lessons, the more effective my teaching will be.