Nikki Meyer

Emergent Literacy
Dr. McKool

The Doorbell Rang Lesson Reflection

For my first lesson, I decided to read the book, The Doorbell Rang, which is a

story that incorporates math into it’s content. For instance, the story starts out with two

children sharing twelve cookies and the doorbell keeps ringing, bringing in more children

to share the cookies with. The book helps student develop understanding of addition and

subtraction while having a positive reading experience by making predictions and

viewing the pictures. I also did a math mini lesson about this book, which was highly

effective, but a week before I did the math lesson, I read the book to the class so they

could gain an awareness of it’s content.

Since this was my first lesson, I was extremely nervous because I had never

taught a lesson before and I wasn’t sure exactly how it would go or how the students

would respond to me. I had prepared for the lesson by scripting myself but I found out

very quickly that immense preparation is crucial to an effective lesson. My nerves got

the best of me during this lesson and my cooperating teacher was very helpful and

jumped in to help me when I fumbled either reading the book or talking about it’s

substance.

I started off by introducing the cover over the book to the students, asking them

what they realized about the cover and what predictions they would have for the story.

The students responded well and made some good predictions, which made me, feel

confident that I was off to a positive start. I’ve always had trouble reading out loud and

when I started reading, my nerves got the best of me and I started fumbling over my
words. At times when I fumbled, I would stop and ask students to make predictions

about the rest of the story, or have them solve a math problem imbedded in the book.

The questions I asked were productive and evoked thought, but my mind was racing to

the point where I wasn’t sure if a student was correct or not if they answered my

questions.

Overall the lesson went well, but I learned that if I wanted to be an effective

teacher, I had to calm down and have fun. Teaching shouldn’t’ be stressful, and I was

worrying way too much instead of relaxing and trusting myself. I made sure for my next

lesson to prepare a lot more, taking into account differentiation amongst students and to

read the book all the way through multiple times so I was comfortable reading aloud. My

first literacy lesson taught me a lot about myself and what kind of teacher I want to be. I

have to relax a lot more and remember to have fun with my lessons because when I exude

positivity, my students will respond to that and have fun with the lesson too. I need to be

more confident with my abilities and prepare for anything possible in order for the

students to have a beneficial learning experience.