Saylor Susannah Saylor Dr. Wiens EDUC 305 10 October 2012 Accommodations Paper I.

Introduction The targeted audience is a second grade classroom in a suburban, public school. A majority of the students are upper to middle class and caucasian, however, there is a small percentage of those enrolled in ELL programs. There are also a few students with specific disabilities that inhibit learning such as dyslexia and ADD. The subject matter taught is reading comprehension and writing skills. The teacher addresses the former concept by reading a story out loud and requiring students to answer questions and summarize the tale in their own words. The latter is addressed through a writing portion in which the students are required to compose a short story in response to the one heard in class. II. Overview The lesson plan consists of specific essential questions to be asked, learning objectives, activities to be used in class, materials and resources necessary, assessments to be used and reflection activities in order to effectively communicate and evaluate skills in reading comprehension and writing to second grade students. Essential questions to be asked during the lesson include those regarding knowledge/comprehension, evaluation and synthesis. The teacher builds the lesson based on the foundation of these higher order questions. The first is addressed through the recall and summarization of a story. This involves students to remember specific details of the narrative

Saylor 2 and understand the main events well enough to paraphrase them in a couple short sentences. The second element requires students to respond to several questions posed by the teacher regarding the opinions of students. This enables interpretation of the text and assertion of conclusions. The last component is the creation of a personal short story in response to the tale read aloud in class. The students are required to compose their own narrative based on the comprehension of the text. The learning objectives are as follows: read and understand a narrative story, interpret story and draw conclusions, interpret story from other points of view, create a short narrative based on events in a story read aloud. These are the ultimate goals of the lesson and highlight essential skills in reading comprehension and writing. Through the proper activities, students should meet the objectives and succeed when properly assessed. The activities are the bulk of the lesson plan and include: a story read aloud from Harcourts Collections entitled Noodletoo, a series of questions in response, paraphrasing the tale on a piece of paper, then sharing with a neighbor and composing a personal narrative based on the ideas communicated in the original story. B.L. Dickinsons short composition is about a bored narrator that strings macaroni on a necklace and wonders whether there are noodles in space. He then day dreams of an imaginary trip to the planet Noodletoo, where he is an astronaut and observes little pasta people at school, swinging on linguine and talking about meatball practice. Alarmed by the strange nature of this pasta planet, the narrator snaps back into life to a nice spaghetti dinner (T6-T8). According to the lesson plan, the teacher is to read this story aloud to the class. Shortly after the story ends, a series of questions are posed in response: 1) How does the story make you feel about Noodletoo? Were you able to imagine you were there, too? 2) Does the author let you know whether the narrator is a girl or boy? 3) How do you think the author feels about kids who take imaginary trips? What makes you think so? (Dickinson T9).

Saylor 3 Each question allows the student to exercise a different skill. The first asks their personal opinion, the second requires them to draw conclusions and the third forces them to interpret the story from the authors viewpoint. These questions are shared aloud in a circle, which facilitates a comfortable environment in order to share ideas and opinions. This allows for the next activity, which is a summary of the story. Students move to their desks and quietly rewrite the narrative in their own words in less than three sentences. Then, they share their paragraphs with their neighbors. Finally, the teacher writes a prompt on the board: Imagine you visit a distant planet where everything is made of one of the following substances (flowers, chocolate, paper, cheese) and write a short story about your travels (Dickinson T9). The materials required for this lesson plan is the teachers edition of Harcourts reader Collections: Just in Time. The story, questions and essay prompt are all in this resource. The students need paper and a pencil. The teacher will provide a sheet of paper with an empty box and lines below for the students compositions and coordinating illustrations. The teacher assesses reading comprehension and writing skills in a variety of ways. There is evaluation in the answers to the questions posed after the story is read aloud. After the students paraphrase the story, the teacher walks around the room as they share with neighbors in an effort to assess reading comprehension on a class level. The teacher also collects all the students summaries to further assess reading comprehension on a more individualized basis. There is also a collection of the short narratives in which the teacher evaluates writing skills regarding content, grammar, spelling, and punctuation. The final reflective activity is a class discussion of what the students thought of the story as well as an opportunity for students to share their own stories. It is a nice way for students to

Saylor 4 express their opinions of the narrative and learn from others. Each student reads aloud their own compositions, therefore, others will learn different skills in writing from their peers. III. Research Base Accommodations are essential in the general education classroom with regards to students with specific disabilities and language barriers. In this lesson, methods and strategies are incorporated to cater to students in the second grade class with dyslexia and ADD as well as ELL participants. According to the International Dyslexia Association, there should be a proper balance between presentations and activities. Throughout this lesson, the teacher ensures various methods of instruction with mixed group and individual activities. The children answer the response questions in a group setting, compose their own narratives and summaries individually and share ideas in small groups. This way, students with dyslexia will not be overwhelmed with any one component of the lesson. Research says dyslexic students need a multi-sensory atmosphere including activities involving vision, hearing and kinaesthesis (Pavlidis 238). The read aloud is an auditory component, sharing summaries and responses to questions is a tactile component and a written prompt is visionary. The International Dyslexia Association also advocates work with peers as a strategy of communicating the lesson to those with this disability. The comparison of ideas in small groups specifically caters to this method of teaching with regards to dyslexic students. As an additional resource for students with this disability, the teacher can provide a copy of the story read aloud for the summary exercise. The accompaniment of written instruction with activities is encouraged in order to ensure maximum comprehension. Research concerning methods for teaching students with ADD emphasizes tactile strategies. According to Thomas McIntyre, a teacher should provide opportunities for physical movement and build physical activities into the daily schedule. In this second grade classroom, the teacher

Saylor 5 caters to those students with ADD during all the group activities and general participation. Students have an opportunity to share both in the response questions, the group activity with the summary assignment and in the final reflective activity. This lesson is planned around those with short attention spans with the constant change in methods of teaching and assessing. There is not one activity that takes more than 5-10 minutes. McIntyre also emphasizes verbal direction opposed to visual, written instruction. Orally prompting students with the response questions and including several opportunities for sharing with peers enables students with ADD to be more focused. Students with this disability are proven to be more successful with an overview of the activity at the beginning of class, therefore before the class starts, the teacher will provide the itinerary for the next hour. Another tool to ensure children with ADD achieve the maximum success rate is to make allowances for the ADD childs short attention span by shortening assignments (Parker 141). Therefore, the 5-7 sentence short composition students will complete can be lowered to 3-5 sentences for these kids in order to eliminate frustration. Instruction for english language learners (ELL) is a little different. According to Alba Ortiz, these students do not necessarily need tactile strategies for comprehension, but require lessons to draw on their prior knowledge and opportunities to review previously learned concepts. Due to their language difficulties, the teacher in this case would alter the prompt for the students composition. The current prompt involving an imaginary space with planets made up of cheese might be too abstract for students speaking a foreign language. Therefore, the prompt would change to writing facts about space and the students opinion about the universe. Most students have learned about the planets and the sun, moon and stars, thus this activity would build on previous background knowledge. The teacher would also monitor the students carefully and

Saylor 6 provide individualized attention due to the additional frustrations with speaking a different language.

IV. References Bibliography

"Accommodating Students with Dyslexia in All Classroom Settings." Reading Rockets. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2012. <http://www.readingrockets.org/article/28551/>.

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Dickinson, B. L. "Noodletoo." Just in Time. By Roger C. Farr, Dorothy S. Strickland, and Isabel L. Beck. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2000. T6-T9. Print. McIntyre, Thomas. "Strategies for Teaching Youth with ADD and ADHD." LD OnLine: The World's Leading Website on Learning Disabilities and ADHD. N.p., 14 Feb. 2007. Web. 09 Oct. 2012. <http://www.ldonline.org/article/13701/>. Ortiz, Alba. "English Language Learners with Special Needs: Effective Instructional Strategies." Colorn Colorado! N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Oct. 2012. <http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/5622/>. Parker, Harvey C. "Teaching Children with ADD in the Regular Classroom." The ADD Hyperactivity Handbook for Schools: Effective Strategies for Identifying and Teaching ADD Students in Elementary and Secondary Schools. Plantation, FL: Impact Publications, 1992. 125-46. Print. Pavlidis, George Th., and T. R. Miles. Dyslexia Research and Its Applications to Education. Chichester West Sussex: J. Wiley, 1981. Print.