This particular classroom observation was spent witnessing Ryan’s
reading class. When I arrived, I was greeted warmly and told to take a seat at
a small table by the computer. I noticed immediately how calm everyone in the
class was. Each student seemed comfortable and ready to begin. Ryan had already
written the agenda on the board and began the class by handing back vocabulary
quizzes. He let them go over what they did wrong for a few minutes and then
jumped into the main activity.
The class was reading a modified
book version of Apollo 13. Ryan had everyone opened up his or her books to the
specified chapter and he began to read aloud. He spoke very clearly,
enunciating each word. His sentences were animated and he even did voices,
which I loved.
After the reading, he
asked the class comprehension questions, especially ones that involve the five
W’s, and guided discussion. When a student didn’t say something correctly, he
stopped them and asked “What? Say that again?” or “Decide or decided?” until
the student fixed his or her mistake.
Following the
discussion, they worked on an affixes and prefixes activity. Ryan explained the
directions, assigned a time, and then modeled the activity. The students broke
into partners and started to work. When there was one minute left Ryan asked, “
Are your answers the same as your partners?” The students checked and then they
all went over the answers.
The next portion of the
class was spent on eight minutes of active reading. Ryan went over with the
class what active reading was, and they started. He sets up the next activity
as they work and walks around the room checking on the progress of his
students. When they finished reading, he gave them four minutes to write a
sentence that explained the main idea of the passage they had just read.
Finally, at the
very end of class, Ryan showed a snippet from the movie Apollo 13, so that the
class could have a visual to the book they were reading.
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