Morgan Sears

Third Minilesson: Comprehension

John Wayland Elementary
Mrs. Strawdermans Class
Date to teach: November 12, 2014
Lesson duration: Approximately 30 minutes
Number of students: Whole group (19 students)
Materials needed:
Mr. Wolfs Pancakes by Jan Fearnley
Story words (1 per pair)
Writing prompt (predicting the ending)
Objective:
The objective of this minilessons is to allow students to predict, stay engaged, and draw
closure from reading. They will have the opportunity to state what they think is going to
happen in the book, follow along in the book while staying engaged using story words, and
drawing from what they heard in the story to create some sort of conclusion.
Procedure:
Before: Students will be given a list of story words (in order) and will be given a few
minutes to work with a partner to think about how they could link these words
together and what they think might happen in the story.
During: The teacher will read the book to the students. We will stop and discuss
important or interesting things and they will follow along using their story words.
After: The teacher will stop reading a few pages before the end of the book and the
students will be given a piece of paper and will be asked to predict what they think
the ending will be.
Closing: The teacher will read the final part of the book, showing students how the
story really ends.

Story Words
Wolf
Hungry
Pancakes
Chicken Little
List
Money
Basket
Delicious
Rude
Full
What do you think the title of this story might be?
________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What do you think might happen in the story?
_______________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Name: ______________________________ Date: _____________________

Directions: Use what you learned from the story (so far) to write the ending of
the story (how you think it will end). When you are done, we will finish the story
to see how close you were to the actual ending!
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________

Morgan Sears
READ 436
Comprehension Minilesson
Reflection
November 17, 2014
When I first started planning my comprehension minilesson, which I taught on
November 12, 2014, I went looking for a read-aloud book that was fall-related. However, I
stumbled across Mr. Wolfs Pancakes, which I found adorable and very good for a
comprehension lesson. For my pre-reading activity, I chose to do a story words activity. I
selectively chose ten words from the book. Students worked with partners to read the story
words, come up with a title for the story, and come up with one or two sentences that they
thought the story might be about. What was interesting about this was that the story words
activated prior knowledge because they lead the students to believe that the story was Chicken
Little, a movie that they had watched recently at school. For my during activity, I planned to
keep students engaged by following along with the story words (so that they would follow
along) and stopping at points in the book to talk about what was happening and make
predictions. For my post-reading activity, I planned to stop a few pages before the ending of the
book, leaving the students on a cliffhanger, and have them write their own ending of the story,
which integrated what they drew from previous books and stories they had heard with what
they had heard in Mr. Wolfs Pancakes. After they were done writing, we read the actual ending
of the book.

The students worked with a partner to do the pre-reading activity. I thought that they
responded relatively well to this. They worked efficiently with their partners and predicted
logical and creative titles and storylines using the story words. They seemed to really enjoy
developing a potential story. Some of the students then shared their potential stories with the
class. I also believe that my students responded very well to the during activity. They were
engaged, interested, and actively participated in discussion when I stopped to ask questions
like, What is happening here? and What do you think is going to happen? I stopped reading
two pages before the end of the story, leaving the students suspenseful, and to which they said
things like, What?! and How does it end?! From there, I moved into my post-reading activity,
where they wrote their predicted endings to the story based on what we had read so far. They
responded extremely well to this. They were very creative in their endings and wrote avidly
and, if they finished early, they drew on the back of their papers, depicting their ending to the
book. The students then had an opportunity to share with their peers beside them (the
classroom is set up in rows of three), and then a few had the opportunity to share with the
entire class. They really seemed to love this, were eager to tell their classmates their stories,
and were amused by some of the endings. I ended the lesson by reading the ending of the story,
which had a twist, and recapping some of the main events from the book.
Although I had the lesson thoroughly planned out, there was one thing that did not go to
plan. Originally, I was going to have the students follow along during the read aloud using their
story words in addition to having a discussion throughout the reading. However, I ended up not
having the students follow along using the story words. Right before I started instruction, I
realized that it would be chaotic and inefficient to have the students do that while we were
reading on the rug, which is where my cooperating teacher wanted me to complete the reading
of the story. I found that this actually made the lesson run much more smoothly than I think it

would have gone if I had not made the alteration. In the future, I would not use story words in
the during activity at all for this particular book. I was happy with this minor change that I
made to the lesson.
When implementing comprehension instruction in my own classroom, I would have to
first assess my students reading levels. In order to choose a read aloud book (or any book) for
students to read for comprehension, I would make sure I know what grade level they are
reading at and choose an independent level book for them to read. This would basically create
my groups. I would construct (most likely) three or four groups based on similar reading levels.
I would also try to take into account personality conflicts as long as it did not disrupt the
function of the reading group.
After I have assessed the reading levels of my students and created groups, I will
implement a schedule with daily reading groups and circles. Students will work with their
groups to use activities such as story words, brainstorming, and KWL charts before they read.
They will then read together, using methods such as story maps, following along with story
words, and KWL charts. When the students have finished reading whatever stories they are
reading with their group, they will sometimes work together and sometimes work
independently to complete post-reading activities such as writing an alternative ending to the
story, filling out Venn diagrams, writing response papers, and creating timelines. During this
time, I will circulate, spending an equal amount of time with each reading group. To complete
these activities, the supplies I will need will include independent level, interesting books for
each different reading group, print outs of the activities that I will have for them to do, and
sometimes reading journals.