I am doing my O&P at Fern Elementary school, located on Middle Street in the Kalihi area.

It is a fairly small elementary school with 20 st dents that li!e aro nd the school, and come from !ario s "ac#gro nds and ethnicities. $he classroom is %retty well mi&ed with "oys and girls, altho gh the girls o tn m"er the "oys "y a small margin. $he classroom that I am o"ser!ing is a fairly "ig classroom' in fact it is the largest elementary classroom I ha!e e!er "een in( )esides ha!ing me, *aitlin, and Kristin in the classroom doing or O&P, the teacher s%ends %art of the day in the classroom "y herself, and another %art of the day with a %art+time teacher in the classroom, %artic larly d ring reading and lang age arts. ,ll 20 st dents stay in the classroom and none from what I ha!e seen get % lled o t of the classroom d ring school time. -i#e %re!io sly mentioned "y Kristin and *aitlin, I too o"ser!ed the same %honics lesson that was ta ght to the class "y o r O&P teacher. It was a sim%le %honics lesson on how the letters in the English al%ha"et ma#e % words. ,fter as#ing indi!id al st dents if they #new what words were made of and how many letters were in the al%ha"et, o r O&P teacher mentioned that there were 2. letters and that / of them were !owels and the rest of them were consonants. She then %roceeded to e&%lain and write on the "oard that 0 letter words co ld ha!e the 1*1 or !owel+consonant+!owel %attern, or the *1* or consonant+!owel+consonant %attern. ,fter the e&%lanation, she as#ed the st dents to t rn to their %artners and see if they co ld thin# of some words that wo ld follow the 2*1*3 0 letter word %attern she 4 st descri"ed. Some of the words that the st dents came % with were how, cow, hot, %ot, and dog. 5hen the st dent that came % with the word dog said his word, he did not % t m ch em%hasis on the 6g6 so nd at the end of the word, so it so nded more li#e daa, " t the O&P teacher tried to hel% him %lace more em%hasis on the 6g6 so nd at the end of the word. ,nother word that came % was the word 2%ond3 which follows the *1* %attern " t adds an additional consonant at the end of the word.

$he O&P teacher said that it was a good word " t does not necessarily follow the 0 letter %attern they were sing d ring the lesson. ,fter that lesson was cond cted, o r O&P teacher started tal#ing a"o t "lends and how to "lend sylla"les together to ma#e words which is mentioned in cha%ter 7 on %ages 8.0 and 8.8 in o r te&t"oo#. ) t in cha%ter / on %ages 890 and 897, it mentions that certain "lends, #nown as cl sters, co ld "e diffic lt to hear and se%arate the so nds from. She wrote down the word 2strange3 on the "oard for the str+ "lend, and then had the st dents cla% to find o t how many sylla"les there were in the word. $here was conf sion, and some st dents tho ght that there were two sylla"les in the word, while others fo nd only one. She then %roceeded to add the s%r+ and thr+ "lends to the "oard and added the words 2s%ring"oard3 and 2thro gho t3 res%ecti!ely to associate with the %artic lar "lends. $he st dents were then as#ed how many sylla"les they tho ght were in the word s%ring"oard, and as e&%ected there was conf sion "etween the answers of two and three. $he O&P teacher than e&%lained that some "lends are com"ined to form 4 st one sylla"le and mentioned that 2s%ring3 was only one sylla"le and not two. ,fter the lesson, the O&P teacher than had the st dents get into %artners once more and had them wor# together to see if they co ld find more words that sed the str+, s%r+, and thr+ "lends. She had them ma#e a ta"le on their %ersonal white"oards that loo#ed li#e the one "elow my O&P re%ort, and come % with three lists. ,fter fi!e min tes or so, the whole class came together to see what words they came % with. $he list of some of the words the class came % with is also located at the "ottom of my re%ort. Most of the st dents in the class were good at recogni:ing the *1* %attern and what sylla"les were. 5hen it came to "lends, and more s%ecifically cl sters, some of the st dents had a little "it of tro "le reali:ing that the "lend is sometimes not its own sylla"le, s ch is in the

e&am%le of the word 2strange.3 I %ersonally noticed that ha!ing the st dents wor# in %artners hel%ed the st dents who were lost in this whole lesson. 5hile o"ser!ing one %air, it was o"!io s that one of the st dents did not #now what was going on. ) t the fact that he got to wor# with a %artner when it came to finding words that started with a %artic lar "lend, he was a"le to contri" te and %artici%ate to the lesson. I will definitely ado%t the conce%t of gro % and %artner wor# in my f t re classroom. -str Strange Streems String Street -spr Springboard Spring Sprout Spray -thr Throughout Through Three Throw