Notes
Jovelyn sent me a lesson plan for a Sonday lesson as well as an incredible narrative about some decisions she had made based on data for structuring her class to meet the needs of the various learners on her caseload, She ended the narrative with 3 goals for herself which were beautiful and in a lovely hierarchical order.
Become more confident in using assessment to decide what reading skills to teach
Strengthen phonics instructiona and make small group lessons more systematic and effective
Learn more strategies for differentiation when students in the same readin g class have very different skill levels.
I was so impressed and had a great plan for our consult, but quickly realized that there was a major roadblock for her with student behavior. She told me that often she only gets through the first two pieces of a Sonday lesson because of behaviors.
She talked through a lot of things but we kept coming back to behavior. Her idea for how to fix it was to slow the lesson down. Inside my own head I was thinking, “NO!” but i know it will be more powerful for HER to figure out on her own that the pacing of a lesson is a powerful tool for behavior management. Ultimately, I asked if she would feel comfortable recording herself teaching a Sonday lesson with a small group and noticing both what she is doing and what the students are doing. She agreed. She is going to do this between now and our next meeting and be prepared to share what she notices about the her teaching but also about what the students are doing and then we will talk about strategies to help her get to a place that she can effectively engage her students in literacy instruction.