Brooke Observations of Guided Lesson

Tuesday 24th October

See, Hear, Feel Observations of your guided lesson:-

You reviewed previous sounds – showing your student that she is a wonderful learner, you
gave her confidence.
You provided constant positive feedback – eg “Amazing!” “Wonderful”
Your calm, kind and interested tone of voice showed your student you were both having fun
– there were lots of smiles from your student.
You spoke with a calmness, yet excitement at teaching, speaking slowly and clearly – only
using the words you needed. Your questions to your student were easy to understand:-
“What sound did you swap out?” You repeated the sounds when she wasn’t sure.

When you introduced a new sound – ‘th’ you used humour and laugher. You told your student she
was amazing when she knew a word with that sound.

She was very confident and proud of herself!

“Is it the ee sound or the e (bed) sound?” When she was incorrect, you asked “is that the sound?”
You are asking questions that help your student think about the sounds she has in front of her.

When reading the Decodable text you took her back to the incorrectly read word and asked – what
is this word? You gave her time to think about it and let her answer.

“I love your honesty”

“You take your thinking time” Do you want to come back to it?

Your questioning is excellent – and then you wait for an answer.

Some things to build on in your next guided session:-

Share your learning intention and success criteria with your student.

Instead of “Amazing” say what was amazing:- Amazing – you already know a word!” (th) sound

**I noticed your student needed to swing – the stool is unsafe – maybe you could speak to Lydia
about a wobble chair at your guided table?

When she has finished the page, point out something that she did really well – for example, I really
like how you used your sounds to work out that word. I like how you reread that sentence when
you made a mistake. I like how you changed your tone of voice with the question mark.
This was a great lesson Brooke. Your lesson demonstrated your understanding of many different
components of how students learn. You made this lesson engaging and fun. You used a range of HITS
(High impact teaching strategies) in this lesson:-

Lesson Structure:- Your lesson structure followed a routine that your student clearly understood and
knew. You provided scaffolding with smooth transitions between the different level of skills
required. For example, your lesson started with reviewing and practising the sounds your student
already knew, giving her confidence and the feeling of being proud. This also helped your student to
be engaged in your lesson.

Explicit Teaching:- You were able to explicitly teach specific sounds and how to blend these sounds
together to spell a range of words correctly. You modelled clearly what your student needed to do
and how they needed to do it.

Multiple exposures:- You lesson incorporated a range of different ways to practise the skills of using
her sounds. You used the sound cards and manipulated the sounds so your student could see and
say the sounds with individual words. Then you introduced a new sound using the same process –
because the student knew the process, the cognitive load of learning the new sound was minimal.
You were able to have your student practise these specific skills in reading a decodable text and
then writing a sentence you read out aloud. Mulitple exposures to practising the skill of using her
sounds to read and write words.

Questioning:- Your questioning enabled your student to think and consider what she knew already
and to have some think time. These were excellent questions.