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Katie Zaborski
Grade Level: 1st
Activity Selected: Shared Reading
Dates Taught: October 2
Group: Small, 3 Students
Time: 30 minutes during whole group work

I.

Why shared reading is important?

When teaching a shared reading experience, whether with whole group or a small group, students are
learning essential skills that can be used to enhance their skills that they will be using during independent
reading. As a future teacher of reading, I will not be able to be at the students side all the time to tell the
student to think about what the letter sounds are and tell them to use that and stretch the word out to the
best of their ability. I also will not be able to tell the students constantly to use pictures and beginning
letter sounds as a strategy to figure out unfamiliar words. I will instead have to model these behaviors
throughout and during a shared reading experience, so the students feel confident and capable to do these
things during independent reading sessions.
Shared reading provides teachers the chance to provide readers with this explicated teaching ideas. As
stated in Sharon Taberskis text On Solid Ground states, its important that children understand they
should try using the strategy Ive demonstrated, along with others they know, only if they need to. We
must teach them to become strategic readers not just users of reading strategies (112). This will allow
for the students to effectively use the best strategy possible to improve their learning.
Taberskis text also goes on to say that shared reading provides the opportunity to teach about how
effective using the context clues of the story or poem can be to figuring out unknown words (112-113).
By encouraging students to this independently they become stronger readers and are able to effectively
read more fluently, especially during independent reading.
Lastly, shared reading experiences provide teachers to explicitly teach the students about how it is
important that students are reading for a meaning. I encourage [students] to pause occasionally to reflect
on or discuss what theyve read so far and predict what might happen next (83). If we demonstrate this

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early on to students during our shared reading experiences, we are more likely to read for meaning rather
than just to read words on a page. The students will continually think about how to read with
comprehension in mind and enhance their learning and skills as an independent reader. In conclusion, it is
important that students are shown these skills during shared reading experiences to allow for them to
become more effective and thoughtful readers.

II.

Lesson Plan

Lesson Overview:
Provide students with a shared reading experience that will explicitly teach a reading strategy
that enhances their skills to benefit them while they are engaged in future independent reading.
Objectives:

Students will be able to make predictions on missing words based on context clues.

SWBAT use beginning and ending letters of a word to predict missing words.

SWBAT find and label r-family blends in a text.

SWBAT use learned reading strategy to enhance their skills used for independent
reading.

Environment:
There are a total of twenty-one students on a full attendance day with a split of 10 boys and 11
girls. The set-up of the childrens desks are as follows they are divided into four groups with six
desks at in each grouping. Along the back wall are windows that have the shades up to allow
natural light and they are typically open to provide fresh air into the classroom. The children also
have a spacious carpet area in the front of the classroom where typical interactions include: read
alouds and SmartBoard work. There are desktop computers located in the back left corner of the
room. The corner opposite of the desktops, there is a location that is designated as the reading
center and books as well as comfortable seating is available. This is where the shared reading

experience will take place. It provides enough space for the students to be actively engaged away
from the whole group activity. In addition, inside the classroom there are two tables, one located
near the desktops and one by the reading center that there are Chrome books, or laptops,
available to the students to use. Lastly, the mentors desk is at the front of the room, but rarely is
used throughout the day.
Materials Needed:

Pencils for students

o Attached at the end

Highlighter tape

Copy of poem for students

Sticky notes

Clipboards

Large Poster poem: Fran and Brad

o 1 students work attached

Procedure:
1. Once children are settled onto the front carpeted space for whole group work, call my
three students (Marquess, Aaliyah, and Neela) who will be taking part in the shared
reading experience. Invite them to sit on the comfortable seats provided in reading center
that are now facing the chalkboard with the large poster poem being held up by a magnet.
2. Explain to the students that they will be engaging in a shared reading experience that will
benefit them for their future independent reading.
3. Read the poem to the students once through for enjoyment. Attached to the end of the
Shared Reading Write Up is a copy of the Fran and Brad poem.
4. Invite the students to read the poem then read the poem a second time through.
5. Cover select words with sticky notes, make sure that students are able to see the first and
ending letter of the word that is being covered. Then explain to the children that they can

look at the beginning letters and context clues of the text to determine the unknown word
while they are doing independent reading.
6. Read through the poem as students try to determine the covered word. Once finished,
read through the poem fully for a third time.
7. Distribute copy of poem to the students on a clipboard. Explain to the students that now
will be identifying r-family blends that we have been working on throughout the week in
school.
8. Students will take about 3-5 minutes to underline their own handout, identifying the rfamily blends which include: Br, Dr, Fr, Gr. A copy of Neelas work has been attached to
the end of this Shared Reading Write Up. Meanwhile, I will prepare little strips of
highlighter tape on the edge of the chalkboard.
9. Using the title of the poem on the larger poster in front of the students, pick up two pieces
of highlighter tape. Model for the student how to identify a r-family blend and explain the
reasoning for covering up the Fr in Fran and the Br.
10. Have the students come up one at a time, in the same consistent line up. Each student will
take a line of the poem and identify then explain their r-family blends that they found.
11. Once all of the r-family blends have properly labeled on the large poster poem, have
students stay seated while I explain to them the reason for having to identify the blend in
the poem. Explain that by being able to identify the blends, students will be able to read
other words that have the similar blend. For instance, since the students were able to see
that dr in drill is a blend, they can think of how to it is said when they reach the word
dream during their independent reading. They are learning the importance of getting
their mouth read to say any challenging words they encounter.

Evaluation:
My evaluation will be an informal assessment of determining whether the students have a clear
understanding of how to identify missing words with context clues from the text and the beginning and
ending letters of the missing word. I also will be looking to see if students have an understanding of
identifying r-family blends through looking at their handout at the end and their efforts made during the
group putting forth effort to label them on the larger poster poem on the chalkboard.
III.

What I learned from doing shared reading.

With any experience that I have in my field placement, I take it as a chance to implement ideas that I
am confident in as well as opportunity to learn on how I can become a better teacher. When I began my
shared reading activity, I was confident in the choice I had made. I considered what the students were
learning that week prior to my shared reading experience and thought how best to incorporate that into
my lesson plan.
One of the major highlights of my lesson was the students able to understand the purpose figuring out
the missing words through the use of context clues. At one point, this was a definite reassuring moment
when I heard the two girls taking amongst themselves saying, This is a good way to really figure out
what the word is without seeing all of it. I was definitely pleased that the students were engaged and
making sense of the true purpose of the shared reading lesson. I think from the response of the students, I
can expect to see the students using the learned skills to build on their independent reading while they are
in the library and reading during center time.
While I was teaching though, it did not entirely go as smoothly as planned. During my shared reading
experience, I was being watched by my supervisor Dr. Greene. Although, she stood off far enough to
observe it did not keep one of my students from acting out. The young boy who usually is very attentive
when we do one-on-one work was acting out and said that he did want to do the work we were doing. In
fact, at one point Marquess stated that the poem was stupid and he thought that he could read just fine
without my help. To deal with this behavior, I asked him to sit quietly or he could participate with the two
girls and help with identifying the r-blends. He rolled his eyes and begin to move from seat to seat and

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was moving around in spite of my redirection tactic. As he continued to act up, I decide that for the
benefit of the other two students that were actively engaged, it was best that I excuse him to join my
mentors whole group activity. When I asked Marquess to leave the group and rejoin my mentor, I was
met with resistance. Immediately, he wanted to stay and work with me and the two girls. Fortunately, my
mentor backed me up hearing my previous remark to him and pulled him from the small group work to
join her and the remainder of the class for whole group work.
I felt so disappointed in myself as a teacher by Marquesss actions because typically he is so good
when he is working with me. I realize now that I cannot come down on myself for it. Perhaps it was
having an unfamiliar adult in the room that caused the unusual behavior in him. I have no way of knowing
what caused the behavior, but I feel confident in how I chose to handle it. Even though, I probably will
not have a second adult in my future classroom to help me out when situations happen like this in the
future, I feel confident that I will be able to redirect the student to learn and regain his or her focus on the
lesson being taught.
After completing the lesson, I thought about how I might have made modifications to it. The first thing
I thought about was changing the poem entirely. Although, my specific purpose was to use a poem that
had a focus of r-family blends because that was the focus in my field placement, I thought about how the
poem might have been more beneficial and engaging if I was using a poem with rhyming words. I think
that rhymes engage children more often than bland, simplistic poems. The rhymes at least teach children
the concept of word families and the importance they have in our language. So, if I were to complete a
shared reading experience again, I would look into changing the poem to a fun rhyming one.
Also, I thought about how I could have changed the reading strategy. I think that it was effective to tell
the children to look for context clues in correlation with the beginning letters to determine an unknown
word. If I could change it though, I would have students look at the illustration provided on the poem
chart in correlation with the beginning letters. I think that pictures help students more often than not when
they are struggling to figuring out what the word is supposed to be. I think this strategy, if it had been
used, would have been much more effective for students that are in first grade. Looking back on it, I think

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that the strategy I taught the students during my shared reading would be much better suited for those in a
higher grade level.
In the end I learned more about the students in my field placement as well as myself as a teacher of
shared reading. I learned that it is important to make an activity fun and engaging for the students to be
willing to participate. This can mean that I include more interested based ideas into the lesson or I can try
to teach it a more fun, interactive way. As for what I learned about myself, I learned the importance of
understanding and patience. I was frustrated when I could not get Marquess to refocus on the task at
hand, but I had to keep in mind that it could be a variety of factors. There was an unfamiliar adult in the
room, there was a whole group lesson going on in the front of the class aside from our lesson, or it could
be the fact he was not working with typically students he would interact with during school. There could
be a number of other factors that played into the challenges I faced while working with him that day, but I
must remember I did my best with the situation at hand. In fact, my supervisor spoke with me one-on-one
after the shared reading and said that she thought that I handled the situation quite well given the
circumstances. In conclusion, my shared reading lesson may not have gone smoothly as I originally
hoped, but I leaned and gained new insight for my future teaching practices.

Evaluation from my supervisor Dr. Greene based on her observation of my shared reading experience.

Copy of the poem that was used for the shared reading experience.

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Copy of student Neelas individual handout that she found the r-family blends for individual work .

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Works Cited
Taberski, S. (2000). On solid ground: Strategies for teaching reading K-3. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.