Students utilize this packet to produce a written understanding of what we read in the whole group reading instruction. Students each took a turn to read a page from the mini packet about what Thomas Edison invented (depicted left), watching out for vocabulary and trying to understand the focus question: What were Thomas Edison's inventions, and why are they important? After the reading, the students collaborated in their small groups to complete the activity worksheet (depicted below).

During one of my mentor teacher and I's planning meetings, we discussed how most of the students' comprehension skills have been improving. However, when asked to apply or put into practice the concepts and rules, the students acted as if we had not just reviewed the concept. The connection between understanding and application is what we wanted to focus on in particular with this mini packet. By structuring the lesson with guided reading with focus on vocabulary and the focus question followed by an activity to reinforce understanding of the text's main idea(s), we hoped to accomplish working at making the connection between comprehension and understanding. This lesson also showcases how easy it is to incorporate interdisciplinary literacy into the classroom such as having the reading's topic be about another subject's topic (like this packet about Edison).

I reflected on this lesson because I remember doing these mini packets, reading about other topics such as science topics, social studies topics, even world topics, and then completing an activity packet that related to the reading. However, I applied what I know now on the teacher's side to see the relevance of the continual progress of reading comprehension and understanding of a text by using these activities. And the students don't even realize this!