Susan Finley Reflection

I worked with a small group of students who were below reading level. They were all excited to meet with me and eager to get started. The assignment began with the directions to read the passage three times. I decided that to do this well I could use the I do/we do/ you do strategy we had learned in Susan Finley’s class during the summer. So I told the students that we were going to read the reading passage together, then they were going to read it to me, and finally they would read it to a partner. While reading it as a group, I had to stop a few times to remind them to read with me. While I was expecting my voice to be the loudest, I told them that I still needed to hear their voices. After we finished the passage, I very dramatically
The second box was checked and eyes were bright, ready for the next challenge. It was time to reached to partners. I indicated who will read to whom and then came across my first mistake. I had one student left over. Deciding to have her read to me, I let the students begin. At this point, I recognized my second mistake. By helping the one student who was my reading partner, I ended up not being able to help the others when they came across a problem. Their teacher came over to assist me, but in hindsight I should have spent a little more time with the group and had each of them read to me individually while the other four students
At this point I used the Marzano strategy “cues, questions, and advanced organizers” along with positive recognition. I reminded the students that if they didn’t know the answer, they could refer back to the text. I praised the students who I saw looking in the text for the answer highly. Pausing before picking someone to answer the question, I found that the students were able to give me thorough answers, especially when I asked them why they thought that was the answer. When I reached the final question, “The lizard acts like a statue: yes or no” I realized that first we needed to know what a statue was. I asked the students the essential question, “what does a statue