LESSON ONE: Decoding strategies

LESSON DESCRIPTION

Students apply decoding strategies (using cueing systems - meaning structure, and visual) to problem-solve unknown words by identifying those words and providing word meanings. Teacher should model the X’s (mispronounced words, phrases, omits, etc.) before students work in pairs.

GRADE-LEVEL EXPECTATIONS ADDRESSED

R1C5    Apply decoding strategies to “problem-solve” unknown words when reading

R1G5   Utilize during reading strategies to self-question and correct, infer, visualize, and predict and check using cueing systems (meaning, structure, and visual)

LESSON MATERIALS

§         Sources of Literature

o        Preamble to the U.S. Constitution (individual copies and transparency) (Retrieved March 24, 2006 from www.civicmind.com/preamle.htm)

§         Supplies

o        Overhead projector

o        Overhead transparencies

o        Chart paper

o        Mock voter ballot box and ballot form

§         Handouts provided

o        Supplementary Print Material page

o        Selected reading passages on subject of freedom

§         Words to know

o        decoding strategies

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

Part One

Students read orally to teacher with self-corrections on miscues.  Teacher collects data on percent of miscues that were not self-corrected.  Teacher marks whether student self-corrections used visual, meaning, or structure cueing system.  Teacher keeps collection of running records.

Part Two

Using a reading passage appropriate for each student’s instructional reading level, students select two unknown words.  Students write the words on the chart in the supplementary print material handout.  Students then use reading strategies discussed in class to decode the words.  Students then write their own definition of the unknown words on the chart and check using a dictionary or glossary.  Scoring guide provided.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

1.  Small groups of students rotate to charts and write their ideas on the chart. Share out ideas.

     Strategy     Walk About:  Teacher has five charts hung around the room.  Each chart contains

one of the following questions.

2.  Ask, “How would voting give people freedoms?” Tell students that reading gives us the freedom to learn new information, have new experiences, and make informed decisions.  Point out that in our past history African-Americans were denied the right to vote if they couldn’t read the ballot.  Explain that often, when an African-American came to the voting box, the Voter Registrar would give them a difficult text to read.  Many times it was the Preamble to the United States Constitution. Today and tomorrow this document will be used in learning how to problem-solving words unknown to us.  Students will be expected to take on the role of a citizen who would like to vote in the 1920’s, but who is being challenged to read a portion of the difficult passage before they will be allowed to do so.

Preamble to the United States Constitution

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

(Retrieved March 24, 2006 from www.civicmind.com/preamle.htm)

    Strategy: RAFT  This strategy gives the students a Role, Audience, Format, and Topic

Role:         You are a citizen who is told that you can not vote if you can not read from this passage.

Audience:  Your audience is the Voter Registrar (teacher).

Format:     Oral Reading

Topic:          Voting Rights

Use this RAFT strategy to lead Lesson One and Two and Part One of the Formative Assessment of Lesson One.

Ask, “What do good readers do when they encounter unfamiliar words?”

Teacher charts student responses on the board.  Using the shared text (Preamble).  Teacher reads orally while deliberately misreading several words and at least one phrase.  Students will silently read along using the same text. 

3.  Using a copy of the text  (Preamble) on an overhead transparency, the teacher models the strategy and places an X over the words and phrases misread as he/she reads the first half of the passage. Using one of the strategies on the board, the teacher goes back and corrects the errors at the beginning of the Preamble as he/she thinks aloud, modeling the appropriate strategy.  If a specific reading strategy is not mentioned, or doesn’t apply to the passage read, discuss.

When students ask, “What strategies do I use when I don’t know a word or understand a phrase as I read difficult

text?”, the teacher can respond, “When you are conducting research, often nonfiction text contains longer, more technical vocabulary and more complex sentence structure the we are used to reading. When you become confused, stop. Ask yourself what kind of problems you are having.”

Cueing Systems:

§         Structural – Does it sound right? What word or phrase sounds better?

§         Visual – Does it look right? Are there parts of the word (prefix, suffix, root word) that you know the meaning of? Did you pronounce all parts of the word?

§         Meaning – Does it make sense? Use context clues, create a visual image in your mind, or read ahead to see if it becomes clear.”

4.         In pairs, students continue to mark errors using an X above the errors on the last half of the reading passage. Together, students use reading strategies to correct errors as modeled by the teacher. Teacher circulates through the room taking anecdotal notes of student conversation.

5.      As a group, share corrected text. Continue until everyone agrees on the pronunciation and meaning of text.

• Anecdotal notes of student conversations regarding their reading strategy use may be recorded on a blank transparency.  Display the transparency on the overhead for student discussion of which strategies are represented.

• How did applying these strategies support your understanding of freedom? Students may respond to this question with a focus on the content of the text or the freedom that comes from the ability to read accurately with comprehension.