What are the objectives (what students should know and be able to do at the end of the lesson) for today’s lesson? What are the skills being targeted today in this lesson? Write them down. How is progress monitored for these objectives or how are they assessed to let the teacher know if the students are making progress? What happened in the “I Do”, “We Do” , “You Do and I Watch” and “You Do Independently” part of the lesson? If you can’t identify this yet, describe the process the teacher uses to communicate the skills to the students.
Describe all materials and resources (students and teachers) for the 1 and a half hour to 2 hours (90 minute or 120 minute) literacy and writing block. Describe the student materials (worksheets, novels, chapters, mentor texts)? Explain how they are used. Observe students and make notes about how you see them respond to assignments with different texts and for different parts of a lesson. How many are on task? How many are off task? How many are struggling to read? How do you know? Look at what they are writing. Are they struggling with writing? Are they successful? What was used or how was it used that made students successful? Are students reading chapter books as textbooks? There are early chapter books for children in first and second grades and novels or informational text for middle grades. If yes, which ones and for how long? If no, what types of materials/books/worksheets/mentor texts are they reading for the purpose of learning to read and then, reading to learn? Where do the reading texts for students come from (website, old teacher’s editions, etc.)? Is there evidence that teachers are using leveled texts to differentiate learning and meet readers at their reading levels for instruction?
Many primary and middle schools use Basal Readers or use a Literature Approach (different philosophies for teaching). Does your teacher use a reading series? Ask and find out the sequence of books that students read to develop and apply the skills they are being taught. Give examples of what you find. This is an introduction to scope and sequence of planning lessons over time to accomplish standards.
Books/stories/worksheets are usually assigned a level of text complexity. Some resources have colored dots that indicate the level of text complexity. Usually, this is associated with a motivational engagement program called Accelerated Reader. The colored dots generally correlate to level of text difficulty. It could be that they have another formula they use to indicate text complexity. This is called Lexile. Which readability formula does the school use that lets students choose books to fit their reading level? Does the classroom teacher use these for her primary teaching or is it just used for students to practice reading. If you had to describe the materials students are using, are they lexiled, ATOS, leveled readers, etc.?
