Reflections

My first lesson was about affixes. The students learned about what a root word, a prefix and a suffix are. The class also discussed examples of prefixes and suffixes and words containing them. The students generally have retained the information, the students who have struggled to grasp the material have been the students who are usually absent and perpetually do not pay attention. This lesson went well in general, so a change I could make would be to go deeper into how the affix changes the word.

My second lesson was about the various information about a word that can be found in the dictionary. The majority of the students are confident with the content of this lesson, however many students were absent the day of that lesson. So many students did not get the base information even though we reviewed frequently. If I were to teach this lesson again I would include a lesson on guide words in the dictionary because I assumed that all of the students would already have that knowledge. I would also shorten it and have students take notes. Those changes would have given the students more time to work with what they just learned and also been more effective in teaching students on how to use a dictionary.

Generally I learned that my students need to strengthen their knowledge of the alphabet. For the students who are still struggling with the material I have and will continue to give them extra one on one support during activities that involve the material. Review happens frequently in our class, so students can strengthen their memories of the information also. Throughout the unit students have worked individually, in partners, in groups and we have also done activities as a whole class, some students were able to excel in certain settings rather than others. The class is very diverse, I have had all students participate in most lessons and I also have had the students give me much of the information to build the unit on. I am hoping, that letting the students speak freely and contribute to how the unit develops has limited any biases. During the course of the unit, I have learned that vocabulary takes so long to be built, so it needs to be an ongoing process in class and hopefully outside of it as well. I will need to research vocabulary development and continue to work with my students on their vocabularies to continue my professional learning.