Learning to Read in the Real World!!!

I observed in a K4 class at a local christian school. The K4 class consist of 4 to 6 year olds who will be going into kindergarten. The class only has 7 students in it so it allows for a lot of one-on-one time and specific instruction. the teacher informed me that she believes reading should be introduced as an activity and she uses very few worksheets, although they are part of the school's mandated curriculum. . I observed a reading lesson and a follow up activity afterwards.

The letter that the students were working on that day was the letter "K". The teacher did a read aloud with the book "Kangaroo goes to school". The teacher asks the students to clap every-time they hear the K sound.

After the reading the teacher draws a word web on the board with words that have been discussed during the lesson.next to each word is a picture to represent the words. The students come up one by one and write a word and draw a picture with some guidance from the teacher when necessary.



The teacher then has the kids color a kite and attach a string to it and hangs each kite from the ceiling. Each student writes the letter "K" on the kites and writes their name. After this activity the teacher tells the kids that its time for their minds and bodies to move. The students all stand up and wait on the teachers instructions. The teacher asks the students what number they are working on today. One kid says "17". Then she asks what action they can do 17 times that starts with the letter "K". Another Kid answers with "Kick Boxing". Next the class does 17 kick boxing moves while counting to 17.

The last thing that i observed was that the kids went outside as a whole and flew a large kite outside. Because this school is a christian school, the teacher brought in the bible lesson of the day. the lesson was that the wind could not be seen but it was still there much in the way God is and that the kite represents the wind moving just like actions on earth represent God.

I loved that the students did not know that they were actually doing a reading/Literacy lesson. I feel that the students were always ready to listen because the activity changed frequently and involved more than one subject or new concept. I noticed that even though these kids were very young they could sound out new words, read the appropriate sight words, and spell words that they haven't spelled often.

This activity was a good experience and was a great real life representation of the things that we have learned in class. I enjoyed this activity alot and was very inspired by how this classroom was run.