Brianna Lesson Plan 1 Reflection

     My first lesson plan in my unit on comprehension in kindergarten was about questioning and modeling how good readers ask themselves questions as they read. When I asked all of my students if they wanted to be good readers they all yelled yes, and that was a good way to get them engaged in the beginning of the lesson. The biggest problem that I had during my lesson was students not understanding the difference between a question and a comment. I would ask for questions and when students would get called on then would tell me something that ad already happened in the story or a prediction. That led me to realize we need a lesson about what a question is and what words questions typically begin with so they know what I am asking for and how to ask a question. When I told students that good readers know questions don't always have an answer and and that is okay, they had a hard time believing that, and anytime I ask them many still think that a question must get answered in the text. We also talked about what other ways we can find answers to questions that are not answered in the text. Students were very adamant that the only way we could find information was to go and observe frogs to answer the question "what do frogs do in winter?" so I know that in future lessons I have to show student how I look up information on the internet, in books, and show them how we can also learn from videos a well.

I think that some students understood the lesson and those were the ones who are the highest in the class, the others paid attention but struggled with asking their own questions, they were more focused on retelling a part of the story to me or saying a comment while thinking that they were asking a question, so I will definitely be talking with the students during my next lesson about what a question is, what it sounds like and what words begin questions before continuing on to ask them about a story.The most important thing I learned outside of my objectives was how students might ask a lot of questions, but they don't necessarily know what they are asking are referred to as questions and what questions sound like an what their purpose is.Because there are so many students who need additional support, we will continue lessons that cover asking questions and as we practice more I think that most students will catch on to learning more about questions. However for those that continue to need additional support, because I know there will be some, it will be something that I work on in small groups during center time.Next time I would talk more about questions in general and introduce words that questions might begin with (who, what, where, when, why, how, etc.) and practice those more than distinguishing between "thick" and "thin" questions, which I would put off until later, because first students just need to be able to ask questions when they need to and know what they are.Next time I will be sure to assess as least a few students of different levels on whatever I will be teaching, even if it is very informally, even if I think that they all know the basics. Because my kindergarten students ask many, many questions does not mean they know they are doing it or can do it when asked, so next time I will be more prepared with the information they already know.