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Observation Memoranda and Lesson Plan Template

Name: Dana Caldararo

Observation Date: February 23, 2021
Grade Level(s): Kindergarten
Lesson Title: Listening for the sounds in blends
Is this an ICT No
Classroom
Timespan of the 30 minutes
Lesson:

Pre-Observation Memorandum
Student Characteristics - In order to understand this lesson, students
(Danielson Domain 1, need prior knowledge of blends. We have
Component 1b)
Describe: learned about blends in past lessons and will
Context  Students’ personal and refer back to our blends chart during the
For community assets lesson. Students will also need to have
 Prior learning
Learning basic skills in phonological awareness and
 What students must
already know to word solving.
participate in this lesson - There is 1 ELL in the class ,2 students with
 Any gaps in knowledge IEPs and 2 students with a 504 plan. One
you must address to
make your lesson for related health issues and one for
effective selective mutism. There is another student
 Number of ELLs of concern and they are placed in the front
 Number of gifted students
 Types of IEPs
of the classroom due to their lack of
 Any other characteristics that attention and need for explicit directions.
affect your instructional
choices
 Students of concern

The Curriculum - Scarsdale school district uses the “Teachers

(Danielson Domain 1,
components 1a, 1c)
Describe:
 How your lesson fits into the
larger curriculum or the
central focus of the unit or
learning segment
 The lessons or topics that
preceded the lesson you plan
to teach
College Reading and Writing Project” for
their phonics curriculum. This lesson is the
second lesson under unit 5. Unit 5 is all
about playing with phonics to help
strengthen all the skills the children have
already learned.
- The lesson before this focus on students
creating and writing down letters to match a
specific sound. It plays on phonics and
word knowledge.

The Positive Learning
Environment
(Danielson Domain 2)
Describe:
 How you will structure or
use the physical space to
support a positive and
productive learning
experience
 How your lesson provides a
climate in which:
 Learning is valued
 Fair and equitable
standards of conduct are
upheld
 Mutual respect is
fostered
 How your lesson actively
engages and motivates
students’ learning
Brief Learning Objective
Descriptio (Danielson Domain 1,
components 1c, 1f)
n of the Describe:
Plan  What students will learn
from your lesson
 What important ideas
students will understand at
the completion of your lesson
 The performance objectives
(or what will the students be
able to do after they
participate in the lesson)
Rationale Research and Theory
(Danielson Domain 1,
components 1a, 1b)
Justify:
 Your instructional choices
citing the research and
pedagogical theories that
informed your decisions
 The concepts, methods of
inquiry, and activities you
will focus on to help students
understand the content of
your lesson
Explain:
 How this lesson makes an
important contribution to
students’ understanding of
the subject
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- The children all sit at their own desk and are
facing the smart board for instruction. All
children are able to share their answers and
questions during a lesson. The dialogue is
open between the teacher and the students
as the teacher will often ask the students to
answer questions or shout out answers.
- All children’s answers are respected and
heard, and they all receive assistance when
needed.
- The lesson is engaging to the students and
they are often urged to help one another
when stuck.
- The teacher always provides positive
feedback to the children.
- In this lesson, students will learn to hear all
the sounds in a blend. They will start to pay
more attention to the beginning sounds of
words to see if a sound is hiding.
- Students will understand that some sounds
may not be easy to catch and they need to
say and read a word slowly to reveal all the
hidden sounds.
- Students will be able to record all sounds
they hear in the beginning of words.
Students will also be able to apply their
knowledge of blends to fill in new words on
their blends chart.
- As stated above, this lesson follows the
curriculum under “Teachers College
Reading and Writing Project.” I have
learned in my instruction that explicit
phonics instruction is crucial in children’s
early years of learning. This program
provides explicit phonics instruction and
promotes a literacy rich environment for
students to learn.
- It is always important for students to be
challenged and promote their own thinking.
This lesson will encourage them to think
about sounds in a new way and to add their
own words to the blends chart.
- This lesson is an important part of the
student’s phonics instruction, specifically
with using blends. They are beginning to
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use and identify more blends in their

reading and writing and blends will start to
become automatic to them.
Teaching Skill Development - During my lesson, I would like my
Skill(s) (Danielson Domain 3) supervisor to focus mostly on my pacing
List:
and assessing of the students learning.
 The particular teaching skills
or areas of teaching you
would like your supervisor to
focus on during your lesson
(e.g. pacing, questioning,
assessing)
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Lesson Plan
Grade Level(s) Kindergarten

Title or Topic Listening for the Sounds in Blends

Learning Goal(s) The learning goal is for students to have a better understanding of blends to be able to use them
 What will students know or understand at the end more frequently in their reading and writing.
of the lesson?
Performance Objective(s) Students will be able to identify the correct sounds of a given blend and use this knowledge to add
 What will students be able to do to demonstrate to their blends chart.
their understanding? (The objective should start
with “Students will be able to” (“SWBAT”)
followed by an “observable, measurable” verb
e.g., identify, describe, explain, etc.).
Common Core Standard(s) CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.D
Spell simple words phonetically, drawing on knowledge of sound-letter relationships.

Materials & Technology - Smart board

 List everything you will need to teach this lesson
 List everything your students will need to
complete the activities in this lesson
Launch or Hook
 Describe how you will introduce the lesson and
engage students
- Blends and digraphs chart
- Noisy picture cards
- White boards
- White board markers
- Post-its
To introduce the lesson, the teacher will praise the students on the work they did the previous day of
making sounds to match certain animals. The teacher will call the students inventors as they
invented all different sounds yesterday. This will motivate them to create more sounds and listen
carefully to all sounds. The teacher will then remind the students of 2 sounds they heard yesterday,
1 from a bear and 1 from a puppy. The teacher will stretch out the sounds of “roar” and “grrr” and
ask the students to listen to these sounds to decide if they sound the same or different. After
listening to students’ answers, the teacher will tell the students that today they will be learning to
listen carefully to capture all the sounds in a blend to be able to spell out and read more words.

Instruction After the class discusses the goal of the lesson, the teacher will remind the students that they are

 Describe the instructional strategies and learning
tasks you will use to develop students’
understanding of the content
 What will you say and do and what questions
will you ask?
 What will students do?
Structured Practice & Application
 How will you provide students with an
opportunity to practice what they learned?
 How will students apply what they learned?
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inventors, and they need all the students help to catch all the sounds they are going to hear today.
The teacher will begin by playing a video recording of a bear growling. The teacher will advise the
students to listen carefully to the sound the bear is making. The teacher will then model how to
stretch out and spell the sound of the bear growling. The teacher will think out loud as they model
the spelling of the bear growl. The teacher will then play a video of horses galloping and will again
ask the students to listen carefully to the sounds. This time, the teacher will work together with the
students to spell out the sound. The teacher will ask various students for help as they spell out
different sounds from the horses. When the teacher and students have sounded out all sounds, the
teacher will say, “Look how easy it was to write out these sounds when we really listened carefully
to the letter sounds we heard.” The teacher will then introduce the blends and digraphs chart to the
students on the smart board. The teacher will read over the chart once to model how to read it and
then the teacher and students will read it together. The teacher will then call on 2 students to read
the chart independently to the class. The teacher will explain to the students how they can use this
chart whenever they are stuck on a sound and the pictures can help them decide what sound a
certain word makes. Once the teacher has gone over the blends and digraphs chart, the students will
be engaged in a structured practice activity.
After learning about the blends and digraphs chart, the teacher will explain the next activity to the
students. The teacher will say, “Now you will have time to work by yourself to spell out all
different sounds from these noisy picture cards.” The teacher will show the noisy picture cards to
the students. The teacher will then say, “Make sure to use your blends and digraphs chart to help
you if you get stuck on a sound.” The teacher will model using the chart to write down a sound.
The teacher will then pass out the noisy picture cards to each student as they get their white board
and white board marker. They will be writing down the sounds they hear on their white board. The
teacher will walk around and observe the students’ methods of writing down and capturing the letter
sounds. The teacher will also prompt and assist students when needed. After some time, the
teacher will ask several students to share the sounds they invented with the class
After several students have shared, the teacher will explain the final activity for the lesson. The
teacher will display a blends and digraphs chart on the board; but it will have post-it notes over
certain pictures. The teacher will explain that the students are going to get a chance to draw a new
picture for a certain blend sound. The teacher will model this for one picture and then pass out 6
post-it’s to each student for them to draw a new picture. The teacher will again walk around and
observe the students’ work and assist when needed.

Academic Language (see edTPA
handbook & Taskstream site)
 What language function do you want students to
develop in this lesson?
 What language forms will support their ability
to participate in this lesson?
 What content-specific vocabulary (including
conceptual terms and/or symbols) will students
need to know or learn to meet the lesson
objective?
 In what specific ways (or types of discourse)
will students need to use language to participate
in this lesson? (speaking, reading, writing, etc.)
 How will you support their acquisition of the
academic language needed to succeed in this
lesson?
 What is your language objective?
Differentiation & Modifications
 How will you provide students with access to
learning based on their individual and group
needs?
 How will you support students with IEPs or 504
plans or gifted students?
 How will you support ELLs?
 What accommodations, modifications, and/or
adaptations will you make?
Closure
 How will you end the lesson?
Assessment and Monitoring Student
Learning
 Describe how you will assess student learning
(formative, summative, etc.)
 Describe the kind of evidence the assessment
will provide
 Describe how you will evaluate the evidence of
student learning (e.g., a rubric? A checklist?)
 Describe how you will provide usable feedback
(in writing, orally, etc.)
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- The students are going to analyze the sounds they heard and then compose a written word to
match the sounds.
- This lesson will involve speaking and listening as well as word knowledge and phonological
awareness.
- Students need to have strong phonological awareness skills to participate in this lesson.
- Students need to understand the vocabulary term “blend” and what a blend is.
- Students will use language in the form of speaking and writing.
- The teacher will support the academic language in the lesson by using repetition often to
explain and expose the children to academic language.
- The language objective will be to represent phonemes with the corresponding graphemes for
a specific word.
- All students will have access to the blends and digraphs chart as it will be displayed on the
board for the structured practice.
- The 2 students with IEPs and the ELL will be given their own personal blends and digraphs
chart to help assist them with their work.
- The students with IEPS and the ELL will receive direct support from the teacher when
needed.
The lesson will end when all students have filled out their post-it’s on their blends chart. The
teacher will call on several students to share the new pictures they created for the blends. The
teacher will end the lesson by saying, “Great job inventing sounds and new words for our blends!
Now you can use them in your writing and identify them in your reading!”
The teacher will assess the students learning through informal observations and questioning. While
the students work independently, the teacher will walk around and observe students’ work and
question them on various blends and letter sounds. This will be a formative assessment taking place
during the lesson. The teacher will primarily be observing the sounds the students identify from the
noisy picture cards and if they can create an appropriate picture to match the blend on their chart.
Students will receive a check mark on their paper if every picture correctly matches the blend. The
teacher will provide oral feedback to the students as they are working and after they check the
students’ charts.
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References - Teachers College Phonics Unit 5 Lesson 2

(Cite any sources and include URLS if o Completed blends and digraphs chart
appropriate)
o Noisy picture cards
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Post-Observation Reflection Memorandum (Danielson Domain 4, component 4a)

Successes
 What worked?
 For whom?
 What have you learned about the strengths of
this lesson and about how you promoted student
learning in this topic?
Challenges
 What didn’t work?
 For whom?
Differentiation & Inclusion
 Reflect on what you have learned about
differentiation and especially what you learned
about scaffolding students of concern who need
remediation and additional supports.
Data Analysis & Effectiveness
 After evaluating the evidence of students’
understanding (i.e. the assessments), how would
you summarize student learning?
 How would you summarize “whole class”
learning?
 How would you summarize focal student(s)
learning?
 Based on the evidence, how would you evaluate
the effectiveness of your lesson?
Next Steps
 Based on your assessment of students’ learning,
what instructional changes or modification do
you need to make as you prepare for the follow-
up lesson(s)?
 What research or theory supports these changes?
Proposed Changes
 If you could teach this lesson again to this
group of students what changes would you make
to your instruction?
Justification
 How would the proposed changes or
modifications you chose improve student
learning?
 What research or theory supports these changes?
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Final Reflection (Looking across your four lessons)

As you look across your lesson plans and observation reflections, consider the following questions in a final essay:
 What patterns do you see in the knowledge, skills, and strategies you have used to reach all of your students?
 What are some differences you have noticed in teaching different subjects and topics?
 What did you learn from your data analyses and assessments?
 Reflect on what you have learned about differentiation and especially about helping students of concern who need remediation
and additional supports.
 What have been some effective strategies that you have tried?
 What have you learned about your strengths as a teacher, and about how you have promoted your students’ learning and
growth in the subject areas you have taught?