Standard 6 - Reading, Writing, and Oral Communication – The competent teacher has foundational knowledge of reading, writing, and oral communication within the content area and recognizes and addresses student reading, writing, and oral communication needs to facilitate the acquisition of content knowledge.
In the Summer of 2019, I took Elementary Literacy. We were asked to pick a picture book to base an 8-week unit plan on. The book I chose was The Sweetest Fig by Chris Van Allsburg. I chose to use this book to teach an inference lesson. Below is the lesson!
The following standards are the ones I believe I have met substantially through this unit plan:
6A) understands appropriate and varied instructional approaches used before, during, and after reading, including those that develop word knowledge, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, and strategy use in the content areas;
6C) understands communication theory, language development, and the role of language in learning;
6F) recognizes the relationships among reading, writing, and oral communication and understands how to integrate these components to increase content learning;
6G) understands how to design, select, modify, and evaluate a wide range of materials for the content areas and the reading needs of the student;
6I) knows appropriate and varied instructional approaches, including those that develop word knowledge, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, and strategy use in the content areas.
6K) uses assessment data, student work samples, and observations from continuous monitoring of student progress to plan and evaluate effective content area reading, writing, and oral communication instruction;
6L) facilitates the use of appropriate word identification and vocabulary strategies to develop each student’s understanding of content;
6Q) integrates reading, writing, and oral communication to engage students in content learning; and
6S) stimulates discussion in the content areas for varied instructional and conversational purposes.
In January 2020, I used this lesson in an Inference lesson for my 5th grade ELA class! I read the book, and we discussed as a class! The students loved the book and I loved reading it to them! Chris Van Allsburg is one of my favorite children book authors. We then worked on an inferencing worksheet, which is below with a picture of me teaching the lesson!