Kristin Foster

EDSE 328
Chris Callow
Self-Reflection of Lesson Plan- Social Studies Vocabulary Strategy

Description
I taught a social studies lesson with a focus on a vocabulary strategy to two of
my students with autism. Allen is a 5
th
grader and Ian is a 4
th
grader. Aidans reading
at a 2
nd
almost 3
rd
grade level and Ian is reading at a kindergarten level. Ian is non-
verbal.
I first found the lesson. The lesson its self was taken from the curriculum my
center program is using called Unique. Unique differentiates the lessons into three
tiers, in social studies the tiers are differentiated mainly by the article and the
worksheet. The social studies units are used during the literacy block. I used the 2
nd

tier article that discussed our responsibilities as Americans. I choose the 2
nd
tier so
that Allen could read it independently and Ian could have access to the words with
images. I wanted the reading to come easily so that I could spend most the time on
the responsibilities and the vocabulary strategy. The article ended being perfect to
teach vocabulary. It used the word responsibility, gave the definition, examples and
non-examples. The responsibilities were pretty broad, for instance listening when
others are talking, helping others, and doing all of ones work. This fit well into
talking about expected behavior for school.
I started planning this lesson by identifying the IEP goal that I was going to
work on. Each student had an IEP goal to know dolch words up to 1
st
grade. The
article contained many pre-primer, primer, and first grade dolch words, which
pertains to both Allens and Ians IEP goals. Then I found the common core standard.
I was to focus on the vocabulary in the article so I used a reading and
comprehension strategy focusing on finding the mean of words using text clues for
both 4
th
and 5th grade. I knew the standard would work well for Allen, but I knew
the EEO of matching vocabulary words to related pictures would be the
accommodation for Ismael. The images under each word of the text were a great
material for Ian to match the pictures to the words. I copied and cut out the pictures
for Ian. The article was perfect for Allen to find context clues to find the meaning of
the word responsibility. Then I used the objective of the lesson, understanding what
their responsibilities are, for the big picture.
I looked through our teaching reading textbook to find out strategies on how
to teach vocabulary. I found a lot of great ideas, and combined them in order to
create a good strategy for Allen to learn and use. I used the strategy combined with
the objective lesson for the learning targets.
For both students I used a t-chart in order to organize the information we
gathered about the word responsibility. As a modification I printed out pictures,
both real and from Board maker, for them to access in the t-chart. I created a
checklist for reference on how to use the strategy as scaffolding.

Impact
Allen and Ian both came to the table ready to learn. Aidan helped set up his
behavior by choosing something he wanted to work for. Aidan was interested in the
lesson and excited about reading it by himself and talking about his own
responsibilities. Ian needed sensory integration in order to stay engaged in the
lesson. We used a First, Then verbal format to do squeezes then work. Therefore Ian
was able to meet his EEO of matching words to pictures, the EEO was also used
when talking about responsibilities. Dealing with his behavior was more important
than him understanding what his responsibilities are. Allen was on his best behavior
I did not have to give any reminders or redirections, I didnt even have to use the
preferred item he was working for to encourage good behavior. Allen also did a
great job reading the article. He used the article along with his own ideas to discuss
his responsibilities. He really understood what a responsibility is and what some
examples of his responsibilities are. However, he still needed assistance while
reading the article to stop and use the context clues (even though he understood the
idea of responsibilities). My anticipator set and closing went smoothly because
responsibilities related so well to our classrooms rules of expected and unexpected
behavior. The questions I had created to check understanding were perfect for Allen
and gave me a good view of his knowledge on the word responsibility. I have
mentioned that Allen was really excited to read the article independently; therefore
I had a hard time modeling the strategy before we started the guided practice. When
I checked their understanding, I checked Allens knowledge on understanding the
vocabulary, but I forgot to check his ability with using the strategy. This caused me
to do a re-teach with a modification during the independent practice. The
modification I used was using a highlighter to highlight the key words when looking
for examples of responsibilities.

Intent
In the future, I will make sure to slow the students down so that way I can
successfully model the strategy before doing the guided practice. When first
teaching the strategy I would also like to start with the largest amount of
modifications and scaffolding so that way the student has the supports needed to be
successful. This I will not have to introduce them during the re-teaching. When I am
checking understanding I will also remember to check their understanding on all
aspects of the lesson (both the vocabulary meaning and the strategy).