Literacy Lesson Plan and Commentary

3rd Grade Reading Comprehension

Part 1: Lesson Overview

Teacher Candidate: Jenna Cooperating Teacher/School/District Date Grade

Fenton Mrs. Shelton 4/4/24 3rd
Co-Teacher Candidates: Staunton Elementary School
Jordyn Fields, Faith District No. 6
Grapperhaus, Ashley
Patterson
Lesson, Learning Segment and/or Unit Topic: Instruction Time: 45 minutes
Reading Comprehension
Classroom Context:
This is a small school district where all the kids are very familiar with each other. This third-
grade class has 25 students in it. There are two students with learning disabilities and a few other
students with behavior disabilities. The students in this class have lots of knowledge and
experience with reading comprehension. They use this skill every day in a lot of subjects. The
students are very strong on reading comprehension. Students are interested in sports, video
games, and candy rewards.

Part 2a: Common Core State Standard for ELA-Literacy and/or Other Standards
CC.3.R.L.1 Key Ideas and Details: Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a
text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
Part 2b: Lesson Objectives
The students will take turns reading aloud the Pinocchio story and highlight the text while
answering the questions to help them comprehend the story.
Part 2c: Foundational Skills Related to Objectives
Students should be able to read a passage that is at the third-grade reading level. They should be
able to use a highlighter and go back into the text to find key details in the story. Students should
be able to answer questions from the story using the story for support if needed. All of these
things should have been previously taught, so students are just building on their knowledge.

Part 3a: Assessment Plan

List of Possible Misconceptions
• Finding the incorrect answer in the text
• Highlighting the wrong details from the text
• Misunderstanding the main idea of the story

Part 4: Identifying Language Demands- Ways academic language is used by students.

General academic words:
Small:
1. A size that is less than normal
2. Insignificant or unimportant
Shape:
 1. The external form, contours, or outline of someone or something
2. A geometric figure such as a square, triangle, or rectangle
Call:
1. Give a specified name
2. Cry out
Strech:
1. Be made or capable of being made longer or wider without tearing or breaking
2. Straighten of extend one’s body or a part of one’s body to its full length, typically
so as to tighten one’s muscles or in order to reach something
Sharp:
1. Having an edge or point that is able to cut or pierce something
2. Producing a sudden, piercing physical sensation or effect
Subject- Specific words:
Marionette: a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings
Limbered: warmed up in preparation for exercise or activity
Geppetto: main character’s name
Discourse:
• Students will encounter descriptive text when reading about Geppetto's house.
The author provides a very detailed paragraph about the house that the students will
have to describe later in the comprehension questions.
• Problem and solution are presented a couple different times in the story. Students
will have to comprehend the problems along with the solutions and effectively retell
them from the story.
• Students will also encounter narrative text. Pinocchio is a very common story that
can be expressed in written words, spoken words, or pictures. The students will be
asked to express the story in these three forms after reading the story.
Syntax Demands:
• Sentence Structure: The text consists mostly of simple and compound sentences,
with clear subjects and predicates. There are also a few complex sentences.
• Punctuation: Correct usage of punctuation marks such as periods, commas,
question marks, and apostrophes.
• Verb Tenses: Consistent use of past tense verbs to narrate the events.
• Noun Phrases: Use of descriptive noun phrases to provide details about characters
and objects in the scene.
• Direct and Reported Speech: Use of quotation marks to indicate direct speech.
• Descriptive Language: Use of descriptive adjectives and adverbs to paint a vivid
picture of the scene.
• Pronouns: Consistent use of pronouns to refer to characters and objects without
causing confusion.
• Transitions: Smooth transitions between sentences and paragraphs to maintain
coherence and flow in the narrative.

Part 5: Teaching/Learning Sequence

Elementary students should apply all literacy modalities during the lesson: __x_ reading, _x__
writing, _x__ listening, __speaking, _x__viewing, __x_ visually representing
Introduction:
• We will hand out copies of the Pinocchio story to each student
• We will ask the students to get out a highlighter and a pencil
• We will start but asking the students if they know who Pinocchio is and if they
have ever heard his story
• We will have a brief discussion where students can share their knowledge or
retell the story they are familiar with
• Some students may respond with knowing the story from the Disney
movie or other books they have read
Development:
• We will call on students to take turns reading paragraphs of the story
• When finished, we will hand out the reading comprehension questions
• The students can take turns reading the questions aloud
• Before answering out loud, the students need to find the answer in the story and
highlight it
• We can walk around the room check student work and help students if needed
• Once most of the students have an answer, we will ask students to raise their
hands and share their answer
• The students should respond with answers that they have found in the text
for the questions. If this does not happen teachers can guide the student to
find the correct answer in the text.
• This can be done for all the questions
Closure:
• We will ask students if any answers need to be repeated or gone over for clarity,
we will do this if necessary
• For example, students may ask to go over question three because they
missed the correct answer, or they don’t understand why that is the
answer.
• We will ask students to raise their hands to retell the story
• Students should retell the story similarly to way it was read aloud. If not
teachers can guide the student in the correct direction.
• Then we will ask students how they feel about using the highlighting strategy
• We will allow time for students to share their thoughts
• Students may say they liked it for a specific reason or that they didn’t like
it for a specific reason.
• We will explain to them that they can use this strategy when doing reading
comprehension in the future and on future state testing
Learning Extensions:
• Students can review the story and questions later to practice the skills they used
• Students can use the highlighting strategy in the future
Part 6: Instructional Materials and Resources
• Reading Comprehension: Pinocchio story and questions
• Pencil
• Highlighter
 • “Reading Comprehension: Pinocchio | Worksheet | Education.com.”
Www.education.com, 22 Sept. 2021, www.education.com/worksheet/article/reading-
comprehension-pinocchio/. Accessed 1 Apr. 2024.

Commentary:
1. Analysis of Teaching Effectiveness Using Self, Peer, and Professional Feedback:
A. The diagnostic pre-assessment tools would have given us the opportunity to identify each
of the students strengths and challenges in reading before starting the lesson. This could have
enhanced our instruction because we would have known which students would need more help
and which students would have been able to work mostly on their own. We would have been
prepared to give the students who need more help attention instead of waiting for them to ask for
help. Sometimes students do not always ask for help when they need it because they are too
scared to ask. This assessment would have given us the opportunity to work with these students
during the lesson to make sure they were getting the most possible out of this lesson (Gehsmann,
2022).

The assessment tool would have also given us the students who have previously
struggled or succeeded with reading comprehension. If observations of students previous work
were done, then we could have seen their prior knowledge and skills. Patterns in students’
abilities, such as vocabulary usage, sentence structure, comprehension strategies, and writing
conventions could have helped us predict how students would perform in this lesson.

Pre-assessment tools can identify differences in students’ comprehension strategies.

Some students may effectively use strategies such as predicting, summarizing, and making
connections to enhance their understanding of texts, while others may rely on more surface-level
comprehension strategies. These tools can also show that some students have rich vocabulary,
while others may have limited exposure to academic vocabulary. Assessments that target
vocabulary skills can reveal differences in students’ word knowledge and their ability to
understand and use vocabulary in context. Another item that pre-assessment tools can identify is
variations in phonemic awareness and phonics skills. While some students may demonstrate
strong phonemic awareness and decoding abilities, others may struggle with recognizing and
manipulating sounds in a word.
 This is important to our teaching because with prior knowledge we could have tailored
our instruction to meet the needs of students. We also could have provided support where needed
and created a supportive learning environment that promotes literacy development for all
students. Student’s strengths and challenges on reading comprehension, vocabulary, and
phonemic awareness could have given us the knowledge to prepare and execute a reading
comprehension lesson based on exactly what the students needed to improve and succeed.

B. One thing that was effective during the lesson was asking students if they had ever heard
about Pinocchio before reading the story. This got students really excited and ready to start the
lesson. The students shared specific times and events that they have seen or heard of Pinocchio.
This excitement was evident in all three of the student work samples. For example, question four
asked the students to describe Geppetto’s house and draw a picture of what they think the house
looked like. All three of the students had creative drawings of the house and the whole class
loved getting to draw. I think amping up student excitement in the introduction relates to the
amount of effort students show on their assignments. Since the students were excited to read
about Pinocchio, they were engaged during the lesson and showed advances in reading
comprehension.

Another part of the plan that was effective was when students were able to look back into
the story and highlight the answers to the questions. This really encourages students to use the
story for support because they were excited to use a highlighter. I think this really helped build
the strategy of using the text and encouraged students to use it in the future with the fun of a
highlighter. In the student’s work it can be seen that they all highlighted specific sentences in the
text to answer the questions. While some students highlighted too much and others too little,
they all made an effort to use the text as support. Students were also made aware that we would
be looking at their efforts of using the text based on their highlighter marks.

Letting students work ahead on the questions was a third effective part of the lesson plan.
Since all students complete tasks at different times it is important to take in consideration who
finishes early and who takes more time. We did not want to rush the students that took more time
so when others finished early we let them work ahead on the questions. As shown in the student
work this was not a problem because the students were able to keep their answers neat and in
order. When it was time to share an answer all the students were able to participate and take
turns giving answers aloud. I think this helped the ones who take more time not feel rushed and
allowed them to do their best work. It is also important for reading teachers to have a set amount
of time during the school day for reading and literacy instruction. The TRW textbook explains
that elementary teachers should spend at least one to two hours a day on reading and literacy
instruction (Gehsmann, 2022). Reading comprehension is a great skill to practice during this
instructional time. So allowing students to take their time allows them time to fully comprehend
the story they are reading.

C. One element of the lesson that was not effective was allowing the students to take turns
reading paragraphs. While the students did a great job of reading aloud, some students did not
know when a paragraph ended and where another one started. We made the mistake of not
making sure the students knew this before starting the lesson. We should have asked students if
they knew and then explained what a paragraph is before reading the story. While explaining we
could have shown examples in the story so the students could decipher what an individual
paragraph looked like. We assumed that since the students are in third grade they would be able
to do so but our assumption was incorrect for some students.

A second element that was not effective was telling the students how to pronounce names
in the story and not having them practice saying it a couple times. Students were struggling to
say the name Geppetto when reading the story aloud. When the student would stop reading
because they didn’t know how to pronounce the name we would say the name for them. The
student would skip the name in the sentence and continue to read. Instead of letting this happen
we should have stopped the student while reading and had them read the sentence a couple
times. Rereading would have given the student the opportunity to learn how to say the name and
to read it fluently in a sentence. The Reading and Writing textbook defines one aspect of fluency
as the ability to identify all or most words automatically without having to stop and decode the
word (Gehsmann, 2022). Being able to read fluently will help students fully comprehend what
they are reading. Practicing fluency by rereading parts of the story would have given students
time to practice their fluency skills too.

I think these new ideas would have worked because the students would have learned
even more from the lesson with these slight changes. Explaining paragraphs to the students at
the beginning of the lesson would have help with confusion during the read aloud. This
explanation could have also helped students in the future when doing a lesson similar to this one.
I believe my second idea would work effectively because this was feedback that my cooperating
teacher gave me after the lesson. She observed that students were skipping over the name
Geppetto while reading. She told me that when she hears multiple students struggling with a
word, she stops them and asks them to reread the sentence again. She explained that this may
take multiple tries but at least the students are practicing and learning.

D. After viewing the students work from this lesson, it can be seen that they successfully
comprehended the Pinocchio story. This can be seen in the students’ work on their correct
answers to their questions and highlighting skills. So my next steps of teaching would be to
deepen their understanding and improve their comprehension skills. One way this can be done is
by advancing to more complex texts. This Pinocchio story was more on the simpler side for third
grade students because we wanted to see how the students could perform with reading
comprehension. In the future more challenging texts that require deeper analysis and critical
thinking can be introduced to the students. For example, subject specific texts are texts that will
have students looking deeper for the author’s purpose. Encouraging students to explore
literature that is more challenging for them will only increase their comprehension skills.

Another next step could be having further discussion about the text that students are
working with. At another time, students could have a partner or whole class discussions about
the Pinocchio story. Students can be encouraged to discuss their thoughts, questions, and to
engage in respectful debate. This not only enhances comprehension but also promotes
communication and collaboration skills. After the discussion is over teachers can provide
feedback to students on their comprehension of the text and their discussion skills. Specific
feedback on students’ comprehension and communication skills will help students improve in
the future. Teachers can offer feedback on their strengths and areas for improvement. Encourage
students to reflect on their reading and speaking strategies and set goals to improve for further
growth.

The TRW textbook suggests a third next step could be making meaningful connections to
other texts, real life, or the world (Gehsmann, 2022). In the introduction of this lesson, we asked
students if they have ever seen or heard of Pinocchio, and they were very excited to share their
experiences with this story. To continue improving student’s comprehension skills we could have
taken this knowledge a step further after the lesson was over. The class could have had a
discussion about how this story was different from the Disney story or other stories that they
have seen before. We could also discuss similarities to the stories and why there are so many
different versions of the same story. This would help students understand the story better and see
meaning outside of the classroom. Students can also be encouraged to relate the story to their
own lives, past or present experiences. This strategy will really help student’s comprehension
skills because they have to know what happened in the story to be able to connect it with
themselves.

2. Self-Reflection
What I saw and heard What it means Instructional Alternatives with
References
1. Students were asked to 1. Students do not know 1. Indiana Education
read one paragraph at a how to identify a defines a paragraph as
time and then pick the paragraph in a text. sentences that are
next person to read. 2. Students did not know organized, coherent,
The students did not how to pronounce this and all relate to a single
stop reading at one name. topic. Teachers can use
paragraph. 3. Different students take this definition when
2. When most of the different amounts of explaining paragraphs
students got to the time to complete each to students. One thing
name Geppetto they question. that we should have
would skip it. done differently is
3. When students finished making sure the
question before the students knew what
class was ready to qualified as a paragraph
share, they were before beginning to
instructed to work read.
ahead to the next 2. Reading Rockets
question. suggest to have
students reread the
sentence multiple times
so they can get the
word/name correct.
This improve students
reading ability and
helps them remember
this word the next time
they see it. I think this
would have been an
effective strategy to use
in our instruction to
 help students
pronounce the name.
3. Edutopia explains
that since students work
at different paces, time
should not be
considered in an
assignment, only
learning outcomes. The
assignment that we
chose for the students
had no time limit on it
and it helped the
students progress in
reading comprehension.
Teachers do not have to
let students work ahead
but when some are
done before others it
can be a good idea.
3. Analysis of Three (3) Students’ Learning of the Lesson Objective During/After the
Lesson
Student 1:

Student 2:
Student 3:

1. All three students met the lesson objective by successfully using the highlighted
text to answer the comprehension questions. During the lesson, students took
turns reading the questions aloud and then were given time to find the text to
support their answer. The student’s work showed that they did exactly what was
asked of them by highlighting the correct sentences and answering the questions
correctly. On all three work samples it is evident that the highlighted text matches
with the answers the students wrote to the questions.
2. For student one and two I gave similar feedback because they were almost
exactly on target but needed one simple fix. I told the students that they did not
 need to highlight as much of the text as they did. For example, student two
highlighted that whole first paragraph that described Geppetto’s house. I
explained to them that even though that whole paragraph describes the house, it
does not all need to be highlighted. I said that most of the time the first sentence
that is describing an item can be used when a question is asking to do so. For
student one, I explained to them that they don’t need to highlight unnecessary
parts of the text. For example, when answering question three, the student
highlighted the sentence before the sentence containing the answer. I told the
student they did a great job of finding where the author started writing about the
question, but they did not need to highlight that part. For student three, I
complimented their highlighting skills but explained the importance of answering
questions in complete sentences with punctuation. For example, question four is
not in complete sentences and question three does not have punctuation or a
capital letter at the beginning of the sentence. The students can use the feedback
in the future to improve their reading comprehension. They can also use it in
different subjects to understand subject specific texts.
3. Another assessment tool that could have been used is a student-lead discussion.
Students can be put into groups or the whole class can participate in a discussion
about the text. The students can ask each other questions and help each other
answer them. The teacher could listen to the student’s discussion to see if they
understood the text. Another option is listening to the students individually retell
the story and answer oral questions about it. This way the teacher could assess
each student individually to see if they understood.

Resources:

Gehsmann, Kristin M.; Shane, Templeton (2022). In Teaching Reading and Writing: The
Developmental Approach. (pp. 17, 86, 128, 310). Pearson Education

Paragraphs & Topic Sentences: Writing Guides: Writing Tutorial Services: Indiana University
Bloomington. (n.d.). Writing Tutorial Services. Paragraphs & Topic Sentences: Writing

Guides: Writing Tutorial Services: Indiana University Bloomington

Helping Students Keep Their Eyes on the Words | Reading Rockets. (n.d.). Helping Students

Keep Their Eyes on the Words | Reading Rockets

Sztabnik, B. (2014, October 14). Is Homework Helpful? The 5 Questions Every Teacher Should

Ask. Edutopia; George Lucas Educational Foundation.

https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/homework-helpful-5-questions-every-teacher-

should-ask