Jean Hutcheson

April 17, 2016

IMB Clinical Mallard Creek Elementary
Reading Reflection
While observing for my IMB Clinical in a first grade classroom at
Mallard Creek Elementary School, I taught a direct instruction Reading lesson
on character comparison. The Common Core State Standard I used for the
lesson was CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.9 which states, Compare and contrast
the adventures and experiences of characters in stories.
I began the lesson with a whole-class discussion on the concept of
characters in a story. As a class, we first addressed that no two characters
are exactly alike because of the given characteristics that make them
unique. Together, we then determined that its a readers job to pick up on
the key details in a text in order to differentiate between different characters
in a story. Following the whole-group discussion, I read the book Angelina
and Alice by Katharine Holabird and led the students in filling out a character
comparison bubble chart. The point of a comparison chart being to take two
characters in a story, pull out the details, and compare and contrast the
similarities and differences between those two characters. Finally, for the
assessment portion, I read students the book The Town Mouse & the Country
Mouse by Janet Stevens and had them independently fill in their own
character comparison bubble charts.

Overall, I think that my lesson went very well. While preparing my

lesson I was nervous that students would struggle to pick out the key details
that define specific characters out of a text being read aloud to them.
However, after teaching I felt that students were successfully able to
compare different characters attributes and experiences by using the
character comparison bubble chart. Students seemingly enjoyed both of the
texts I chose and responded correctly to the comprehension questions I
asked throughout both readings. Student however, did seem to struggle
filling out comparison charts independently. I gave every student a copy of
the same chart and in retrospect, I wish Id create bubble charts with various
amounts of blanks for my different levels of student.
This entire IMB clinical experience has been one of the best learning
experiences Ive had thus far in my college career. My reading lesson was
one of the lessons I was most excited about teaching. Teaching, and
especially teaching reading, takes an unbelievable amount of planning. For
my particular lesson I had to pick a standard, find appropriate reading
material, create an effective comparison chart system, and gather the
necessary materials all before I was ready to teach the lesson to my
students. There are so many things that I learned specifically from teaching
reading. My biggest take away moments however, were that things arent
always going to go as expected, as a teacher its crucial to stay flexible and
redirect students at a moments notice, the amount of planning and
organizing that goes into preparing any lesson or activity, how to effectively

manage behavior in a challenging classroom, and how to plan in anticipation

of students preforming on different academic levels. In my specific lesson, I
think I did a good job of facilitating a whole-group discussion on
characteristics and demonstrating how to pick out key details and use them
in filling in a character comparison bubble chart. If I could go back and
change one thing, I would have structured the assessment somewhat
differently. I had some students really struggle with the amount of blanks
spaces they were asked to fill in on the comparison chart and I wish that Id
had charts with various amounts of blanks to give students based on their
academic level. Overall, my time spent at Mallard Creek has been invaluable,
and I can say with complete certainty, that I look forward to one-day having
a classroom and students of my own.