Blog #8: Observation of Sheltered Lesson Videos

The teacher has prewritten information on the white board for ELL students to refer to during class. She seems fully engaged in teaching students what they need to know to be successful. It is unfortunate that she does not have access to a projector or Smart Board for this lesson to be more interactive and include more visuals, but we are not always given great resources.

Prereading in this lesson includes making a goal of learning about inferences. The teacher also reviews reading strategies, such as connect to background knowledge. She writes vocabulary with their definitions on large paper and has pictures of these things passed around the room. She asks them to review what they know about these things and points out good word choice as they describe them. She gives them synonyms if they cannot think of some. There is also real life examples of what the words mean.

During reading, the teacher will make sure students know where they need to be in the book to read. Everyone reads aloud when they read and follows along with their eyes and fingers. The teacher asks students to sing a song from their own language that is referenced in the book. She made the content understandable by scaffolding what they knew from personal experience and other books they have read to what they do not know in the text. The teacher pauses and asks questions about the text to have students think about the content and understand what it means by making visuals and inferences. She helps students use strategies by pointing out a few bits of information to prompt their thinking. They can reference the vocabulary pictures and definitions on the board. She gives them wait time to think of a response or answer.

After reading, the teacher reviews their objective, reading strategies used, learned vocabulary, and content in the text. The students are given a task to complete on their post-its to share as a class when finished.

Students interacted well together and seemed engaged in learning. They were more advanced ELL students, so they had quite a bit of vocabulary already to help with this lesson. The teacher must have done a good job setting up procedures at the beginning of the year for students not to talk over each other and behave well in class.