TC Name: Marissa Carney

RICA Domain: Word Analysis

RICA Competency: Concepts about Print

Grade Level: 1st

No Additional Descriptors

INSTRUCTION:

I observed Mrs. A teaching a lesson on Concepts about Print. At first, she instructed her students to open up their handwriting booklets to the “R” page which was a pre-assessment to test their letter recognition. Once everyone was opened to the correct page, she used a large laminated handwriting page to demonstrate how to write an uppercase and lowercase “R.” In the handwriting booklets, there was a sample at the beginning of each line as a guide for students to know what to write. Mrs. A. demonstrated how to write each form correctly multiple times on the line provided and then wrote the uppercase and lowercase “R” on the same line multiple times (i.e. Rr Rr Rr). Below these, the students had to copy the written sentence that contained words that were spelled with “R” (i.e. Randy raccoon rode up the ramp). Below this, the students had to write their own “R” words. Mrs. A. took suggestions from the students and wrote the words on the board to show how to spell them correctly. This lesson was a repeated lesson that has been done for other letters as well and so a more thorough explanation was not entirely necessary. The students, however, anticipated her asking for “R” words and were very creative in their suggestions. They offered big words because they knew that Mrs. A could spell the words for them and there was therefore no real limits to their choices.

INSTRUCTIONAL SETTING:
Mrs. A.’s class is situated so that all of the desks are in rows that face the whiteboard. When she provides instruction, all of the students are facing the direction that she is teaching to reduce distraction. She also has a larger copy of whatever the students are working on so that she can amply demonstrate the proper formation of the letters for her students.