Mrs. Neth Taught Me A Lesson

On December 3rd, Mrs. Neth allowed an observation of her second grade class. Mrs. Neth teaches at Heber Hunt elementary in Sedalia. At the beginning of the observation, Mrs. Neth’s second grade class gathered at the carpet to talk about what the students read on the previous day. The students were required to read a two page passage and a story out of their textbook; both were about jellyfish. Mrs. Neth began a picture walk while the students were still sitting at the carpet. Mrs. Neth slowly flipped through the pictures from the textbook to try to jog memories about the text. She wanted the class to begin a group discussion. During the discussion, the students compared and contrasted both stories. Mrs. Neth projected an H Map (compare/contrast …show more content…
The middle of the map listed how the two were similar. The students were eager to answer questions about the stories. It was evident that the students read both stories and comprehended what they read. Once they finished reviewing, the class broke up into groups and participated in stations that they have been doing since the beginning of the year. One of the stations was to meet at the reading table with Mrs. Neth and read a story together. There were about three or four students and they each had a copy of the story, a page with three questions, and a highlighter. The first group of students had to read the story, then they read all of the questions together with Mrs. Neth. After the group read all of the questions, Mrs. Neth read the passage out loud to them and they were able to highlight sentences containing information about the questions. Finally, the group of students answered the questions and found the actual answers in the passage. Mrs. Neth gave tips about what to do because the students were to take the Common Assessment the following week. The groups switched and the next cluster of students did the same …show more content…
It was interesting to watch what little reading the students did that day. The first group of students were quicker to read the passage and did not have as much instruction, unlike the other groups. Those students most likely had a higher reading level and were grouped together because they were close in their reading range. Whereas the other group that met were not as quick to read and answer the questions and needed more guidance. Mrs. Neth provided the students with some great tips for the upcoming Common Assessment. She told them to read the questions before answering any of them and that they are allowed to highlight the reading like they did that day. It was great to be able to see her give them positive feedback and encouragement. Some students, mostly in the second group, were not able to follow directions or come up with their own answers. There were three multiple choice questions about the text and Mrs. Neth would ask the group to circle their answer. Some of the students seemed to get distracted or were not sure of the answer, therefore they did not answer it until the answer was given by another student. Mrs. Neth has a great group of students and they seem to work well with her methods of teaching. All of the students enjoyed being in the class and most enjoyed getting to read whether it was in a group, independently, or with a buddy. It is important for students to feel