Reflection of All About February Guided Reading Groups

Veronica Eksteen

Regent University

UED 496: Field Experience E-Portfolio

Dr. Flannagan

February 28,2022
 Developing student-centered and differentiated instruction is vital for students to gain the

most education and grow their knowledge. It allows an educator to meet students, encourage

them in their capabilities, and push them to further their skills. This lesson plan demonstrates

student-centered and differentiated instructions. It allows students on different reading levels to

read texts catered to their reading ability and enables students with varying learning styles to

benefit from the teaching.

First, this lesson helps students with different reading abilities read the text, comprehend

it, and be engaged. The passage for each guided reading group is the same, but the difficulty of

the text varies from group to group. The lowest reading group engages by reading the

Valentine’s Day passage star edition. This passage has fewer words and uses more familiar

language to make it easier to understand. Next, the group that is a little higher reads the

Valentine’s Day passage bronze edition. This passage has a few more words and uses some more

extensive vocabulary. After that, we have the Valentine’s Day passage silver edition, which

students read on grade level. This passage has a higher amount of words and a variety of

vocabulary. Lastly, the students above grade level read the Valentine’s Day passage gold edition.

This passage contains the most words and has a higher vocabulary that students do not encounter

on a day-to-day basis. Scaffolding and differentiating the reading passages according to a

student’s reading ability is essential because it allows students to become confident in their

reading abilities and be active listeners rather than passive listeners. “Differentiated instruction

allows all students to access the same classroom curriculum by providing entry points, learning

tasks, and outcomes that are tailored to students’ needs” (Reading Rockets, 2013). Through these

differentiated passages, students have access to the same information, but the complexity of the

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text varies based on the students’ reading levels. This allows all students to gain the same

knowledge in a way that is most tailored to them.

Second, this lesson is student-centered and uses differentiated instruction as the student

engages in various ways to gain the information. First, students read their word study words with

me and sound them out alongside me. This allows students to hear the word and phonemes and

say the individual words and phonemes. “The ability to sound out and recognize words is a

major factor in text comprehension” (IRIS Center). Therefore, allowing students to sound out the

words and say the words caters to auditory learners. Another way auditory learners can learn

through the guided reading groups is by the teacher asking them questions while reading their

passage and giving evidence from the text to support their answers. Auditory learners are catered

to as they listen to their teacher and peers sound out the words and answer questions about the

passage.

Visual learners can learn through this lesson by seeing the word study words that the

teacher holds up. Students can see the words as they sound them out with the teacher and their

peers. Also, visual learners can learn as they see the words written out on their whiteboards.

They can also learn as they follow along as their peers read the passage as they see the words and

hear the pronunciation of the words.

Kinesthetic learners can learn in this lesson by tapping their fingers together as they

sound out the words during word study. This allows them to connect each tap with a phoneme.

Also, they can learn as they move their markers on the whiteboards and pencils as they fill out

the graphic organizer. One thing that I would change about my lesson plan would be to

incorporate more movement in word study. I would ask students to pick one word and act it out

while the other students try to guess what that word could be.

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 Reading and writing learners can learn in this lesson through reading the word study

words and writing those word study words on the whiteboards. This also allowed me to give

direct feedback to the student if they miswrote a word. Also, reading and writing learners were

able to learn in this lesson through filling out the graphic organizer. They could summarize what

the passage was about and write it down to see it.

It is important to remember that the classroom is made out of diverse students with

different learning styles. It is vital to make sure that every student is set up for success through

the teaching that is taking place. “Pinpointing how a child learns best can dramatically affect

their ability to connect with the topics you’re teaching, as well as how they participate the rest of

the class” (Malvik, 2020). Catering to students’ learning styles allows them to gain as much

information as possible.

I believe that this lesson plan demonstrates my faith as I want to do everything to the best

of my ability so that all of my students can learn. I want to make sure that my students have

everything they need to succeed and discover the most they can. My teaching philosophy is

evident in this lesson plan as I have students writing on whiteboards and having more one-on-

one time with each of my students. Having students at my back table allows me to foster a

relationship with them and get to know them in a smaller setting. I can help students grow

individually and grow the classroom community as they learn the words together and read the

passages together. Data influenced my instructional planning as I placed my students in groups

with students on similar reading levels and gave them suitable passages for their reading

abilities.

This lesson plan allows my students to feel confident in their abilities and stretch them in

areas they should grow. I love having my students at the back table with me as I can tailor

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instruction to their individual needs and meet students where they are. Differentiating and

student-centered instruction is vital to ensure students' success in the classroom.

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 References

Differentiated instruction for reading. Reading Rockets. (2013, November 14). Retrieved
February 27, 2022, from https://www.readingrockets.org/article/differentiated-instruction-
reading#:~:text=Differentiated%20instruction%20allows%20all%20students,%2C
%20%26%20Meyer%2C%202003).

Malvik, C. (2020, August 17). 4 types of learning styles: How to accommodate a diverse group
of students. Rasmussen University. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from
https://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/education/blog/types-of-learning-styles/

What components comprise high-quality reading instruction? IRIS Center. (n.d.). Retrieved
February 27, 2022, from https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/rti03/cresource/q3/p05/