Lower Grades- Lesson Topic: Reading with Google Earth (Vocabulary Development, Reading Comprehension)
Unit Description:
In this unit students will participate in a Google Lit Trip (See above technological tools section). Students will read through the children’s book “Amy’s Travels” (Starke, 2006) and virtually travel via the program Google Earth to all the places that Amy travels to in the story. In the story, Amy travels to all seven continents and mentions the different animals in each place, the culture of the people she comes into contact with, and the different languages that are spoken. As the students “travel” through Google Earth with Amy, they will move to the different continents, see images of the animals she encounters, and will learn more information about each place. As Amy travels, the students travel. The videoconferencing portion of this lesson will be to have an online interaction with classrooms from any or all of the places that Amy travels to. This way, the students will gain an even richer experience by being able to communicate with people from places that they have just learned about.
The first step in successfully implementing this unit into the classroom is to establish partnerships with participating classrooms from around the world. The Cooperative Educational Services Agency (CESA 7) and The Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILA) in the technology tools sections list thousands of different schools in areas both inside and outside the United States that have access to videoconferencing and their contact information. The classrooms listed in these directories are interested in establishing educational partnerships and should be contacted before the beginning of the year to effectively plan for an upcoming unit. The planning needed for this type of unit is extensive the first time that it is completed, however, once initial partnerships are established they can be strengthened and continued for years to come. Use the sample letter in the resources section for an example of what could be sent as an initial contact to potential cooperating classrooms. An important note to consider when establishing these partnerships is a potential language barrier. Ideally, there would be a translator available to facilitate conversation between the two classrooms, however, this project is based on the premise that even if language barriers between cooperating classrooms exist, simply interacting with people from another culture will promote multicultural understanding and thus be beneficial to the educational curriculum.
Objectives:
· Students will reinforce their vocabulary skills by associating new words that they learn with interactive images.
· Students will practice reading comprehension skills by having to relate what they read to real-world experiences.
· Students will gain a deep understanding of text by asking clarifying questions and collaborating with fellow students.
Standards (Common Core State Standards):
USA- Common Core State Standards (June 2010)
Subject: English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects
Grade : Kindergartners:
Content Area: Foundational Skills
Strand: Reading
Domain: Print Concepts
Standard: 1. Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.
a. Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.
b. Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters.
c. Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.
d. Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.
Domain: Phonological Awareness
Standard: 2. Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).
a. Recognize and produce rhyming words.
b. Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words.
c. Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words.
d. Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonent-vowel-consonent, or CVC) words.* (This does not include CVCs ending with /l/, /r/, or /x/.)
e. Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.
Domain: Phonics and Word Recognition
Standard: 3. Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
a. Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary or many of the most frequent sound for each consonant.
b. Associate the long and short sounds with common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.
c. Read common high-frequency words by sight (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).
d. Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.
Domain: Fluency
Standard: 4. Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding
Content Area: Literature
Strand: Reading
Domain: Key Ideas and Details
Standard: 1. With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
Standard: 3. With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.
Domain: Craft and Structure
Standard: 6. With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story.
Domain: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Standard: 7. With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g., what moment in a story an illustration depicts).
Domain: Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
Standard: 10. Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.
Content Area: Informational Text
Strand: Reading
Domain: Key Ideas and Details
Standard: 1. With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
Standard: 2. With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.
Domain: Craft and Structure
Standard: 5. Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book.
Standard: 6. Name the author and illustrator of a text and define the role of each in presenting the ideas or information in a text.
Domain: Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
Standard: 10. Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.
Grade : Grade 2 students:
Content Area: Literature K–5
Strand: Reading
Domain: Key Ideas and Details
Standard: 1. Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.
Standard: 2. Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.
Standard: 3. Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
Domain: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Standard: 7. Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.
Grade : Grade 1 students:
Content Area: Informational Text K–5
Strand: Reading
Domain: Key Ideas and Details
Standard: 1. Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
Standard: 2. Identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.
Standard: 3. Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.
Domain: Craft and Structure
Standard: 6. Distinguish between information provided by pictures or other illustrations and information provided by the words in a text
Domain: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Standard: 7. Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas.
Domain: Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
Standard: 10. With prompting and support, read informational texts appropriately complex for grade 1.
Content Area: Literature K–5
Strand: Reading
Domain: Key Ideas and Details
Standard: 1. Ask and answer questions about key details in a text
Standard: 2. Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson.
Content Area: Foundational Skills (K–5)
Strand: Reading
Domain: Print Concepts
Standard: 1. Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.
a. Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g., first word, capitalization, ending punctuation).
Domain: Phonological Awareness
Standard: 2. Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).
a. Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words.
b. Orally produce single-syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including consonant blends.
c. Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words.
d. Segment spoken single-syllable words into their complete sequence of individual sounds (phonemes).
Domain: Phonics and Word Recognition
Standard: 3. Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
a. Know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs.
b. Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.
c. Know final -e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds.
d. Use knowledge that every syllable must have a vowel sound to determine the number of syllables in a printed word.
e. Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables.
f. Read words with inflectional endings.
g. Recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words.
Domain: Fluency
Standard: 4. Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
a. Read on-level text with purpose and understanding.
b. Read on-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings.
c. Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.
Sample Lesson:
Individual Instruction: In this lesson, the individual and whole group instruction will switch back and forth as the class reads through the story. As Amy travels to her first destination, Antarctica, students will work in small groups to learn more about this place. They will view other sources of information in small groups like books and images to build background knowledge. Students should also have paper copies of the book so that they can practice reading the story aloud to each other to build fluency and to reference the text for information as they conduct research.
Whole Group Instruction: As students progress through the story, read aloud, and learn about the places they are visiting, pull students together as a whole group to take the Google Lit Trip. They will “travel” to the place that Amy has and be able to view live images of some of the things that she is seeing on her travels. Then, set up a videoconferencing session with someone from the place being visited so students can hear a firsthand recollection of what that country is like. When “traveling” to Antarctica, it is unlikely that teachers will be able to communicate live with someone stationed there. However, there have been several instances where classrooms have connected with scientists stationed in Antarctica via videoconferencing. The following website contains videos of these classrooms videoconferencing with scientists stationed at Scott Base in Antarctica and links to set up your own opportunity: http://learntel.com.au/2010/03/26/videoconference-with-antarctica/ (Skyring, 2010). When students hear the accents of the people, see what they look like, and see the country’s landscape in the background, they will gain an in-depth understanding of what the place is like and how to relate it to what is being read in Amy’s Travels.
Modifications for Diverse Learners: Google Lit Trips are designed to take reading and make it more interesting and engaging for students in hopes that if students are more invested in the learning process, they will progress their reading skills. One of the benefits of using Google Lit Trips is that the entire lesson is available for free to download on the internet. Since students will each be given a paper copy of “Amy’s Travels”, students who need extra support can revisit the lesson at home or at the library. Maintaining strong communication with parents and inviting them to see what is being shown in the classroom is an effective way to increase parent involvement in the classroom which can improve student performance. For English Language Learners, introduce them to Google Translate so they can compare the English words with those in their native language. The virtual field trip is already helpful in vocabulary development because of the inclusion of images and videos to supplement the text in the story, which will benefit both English Learners and students who tend to struggle with reading and comprehending grade level books in general. Challenge GATE students to find more information about each of the visited places by researching on the internet or in the library. To further motivate the class as a group of diverse learners, allot a time each week for students to share items/new information about different countries around the world, especially countries where they have cultural roots.
Assessing the Tool:
1. Was the tool simple to use as a teacher? For the students? Discuss any challenges you faced and how you overcame them.
2. How did the use of this tool increase student global awareness?
3. What could be done differently to maximize the effectiveness of the tool?
Assessing the Lesson:
1. How did this lesson enhance student multicultural understanding?
2. How did this lesson develop collaborative skills amongst the students?
3. How did this lesson allow students to reach an understanding of the overlying concepts and objectives?
Unit Description:
In this unit students will participate in a Google Lit Trip (See above technological tools section). Students will read through the children’s book “Amy’s Travels” (Starke, 2006) and virtually travel via the program Google Earth to all the places that Amy travels to in the story. In the story, Amy travels to all seven continents and mentions the different animals in each place, the culture of the people she comes into contact with, and the different languages that are spoken. As the students “travel” through Google Earth with Amy, they will move to the different continents, see images of the animals she encounters, and will learn more information about each place. As Amy travels, the students travel. The videoconferencing portion of this lesson will be to have an online interaction with classrooms from any or all of the places that Amy travels to. This way, the students will gain an even richer experience by being able to communicate with people from places that they have just learned about.
The first step in successfully implementing this unit into the classroom is to establish partnerships with participating classrooms from around the world. The Cooperative Educational Services Agency (CESA 7) and The Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILA) in the technology tools sections list thousands of different schools in areas both inside and outside the United States that have access to videoconferencing and their contact information. The classrooms listed in these directories are interested in establishing educational partnerships and should be contacted before the beginning of the year to effectively plan for an upcoming unit. The planning needed for this type of unit is extensive the first time that it is completed, however, once initial partnerships are established they can be strengthened and continued for years to come. Use the sample letter in the resources section for an example of what could be sent as an initial contact to potential cooperating classrooms. An important note to consider when establishing these partnerships is a potential language barrier. Ideally, there would be a translator available to facilitate conversation between the two classrooms, however, this project is based on the premise that even if language barriers between cooperating classrooms exist, simply interacting with people from another culture will promote multicultural understanding and thus be beneficial to the educational curriculum.
Objectives:
· Students will reinforce their vocabulary skills by associating new words that they learn with interactive images.
· Students will practice reading comprehension skills by having to relate what they read to real-world experiences.
· Students will gain a deep understanding of text by asking clarifying questions and collaborating with fellow students.
Standards (Common Core State Standards):
USA- Common Core State Standards (June 2010)
Subject: English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects
Grade : Kindergartners:
Content Area: Foundational Skills
Strand: Reading
Domain: Print Concepts
Standard: 1. Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.
a. Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page.
b. Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters.
c. Understand that words are separated by spaces in print.
d. Recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet.
Domain: Phonological Awareness
Standard: 2. Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).
a. Recognize and produce rhyming words.
b. Count, pronounce, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words.
c. Blend and segment onsets and rimes of single-syllable spoken words.
d. Isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in three-phoneme (consonent-vowel-consonent, or CVC) words.* (This does not include CVCs ending with /l/, /r/, or /x/.)
e. Add or substitute individual sounds (phonemes) in simple, one-syllable words to make new words.
Domain: Phonics and Word Recognition
Standard: 3. Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
a. Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary or many of the most frequent sound for each consonant.
b. Associate the long and short sounds with common spellings (graphemes) for the five major vowels.
c. Read common high-frequency words by sight (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).
d. Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.
Domain: Fluency
Standard: 4. Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding
Content Area: Literature
Strand: Reading
Domain: Key Ideas and Details
Standard: 1. With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
Standard: 3. With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.
Domain: Craft and Structure
Standard: 6. With prompting and support, name the author and illustrator of a story and define the role of each in telling the story.
Domain: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Standard: 7. With prompting and support, describe the relationship between illustrations and the story in which they appear (e.g., what moment in a story an illustration depicts).
Domain: Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
Standard: 10. Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.
Content Area: Informational Text
Strand: Reading
Domain: Key Ideas and Details
Standard: 1. With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
Standard: 2. With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.
Domain: Craft and Structure
Standard: 5. Identify the front cover, back cover, and title page of a book.
Standard: 6. Name the author and illustrator of a text and define the role of each in presenting the ideas or information in a text.
Domain: Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
Standard: 10. Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.
Grade : Grade 2 students:
Content Area: Literature K–5
Strand: Reading
Domain: Key Ideas and Details
Standard: 1. Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.
Standard: 2. Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.
Standard: 3. Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
Domain: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Standard: 7. Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.
Grade : Grade 1 students:
Content Area: Informational Text K–5
Strand: Reading
Domain: Key Ideas and Details
Standard: 1. Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
Standard: 2. Identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.
Standard: 3. Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.
Domain: Craft and Structure
Standard: 6. Distinguish between information provided by pictures or other illustrations and information provided by the words in a text
Domain: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Standard: 7. Use the illustrations and details in a text to describe its key ideas.
Domain: Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
Standard: 10. With prompting and support, read informational texts appropriately complex for grade 1.
Content Area: Literature K–5
Strand: Reading
Domain: Key Ideas and Details
Standard: 1. Ask and answer questions about key details in a text
Standard: 2. Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson.
Content Area: Foundational Skills (K–5)
Strand: Reading
Domain: Print Concepts
Standard: 1. Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print.
a. Recognize the distinguishing features of a sentence (e.g., first word, capitalization, ending punctuation).
Domain: Phonological Awareness
Standard: 2. Demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).
a. Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words.
b. Orally produce single-syllable words by blending sounds (phonemes), including consonant blends.
c. Isolate and pronounce initial, medial vowel, and final sounds (phonemes) in spoken single-syllable words.
d. Segment spoken single-syllable words into their complete sequence of individual sounds (phonemes).
Domain: Phonics and Word Recognition
Standard: 3. Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
a. Know the spelling-sound correspondences for common consonant digraphs.
b. Decode regularly spelled one-syllable words.
c. Know final -e and common vowel team conventions for representing long vowel sounds.
d. Use knowledge that every syllable must have a vowel sound to determine the number of syllables in a printed word.
e. Decode two-syllable words following basic patterns by breaking the words into syllables.
f. Read words with inflectional endings.
g. Recognize and read grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words.
Domain: Fluency
Standard: 4. Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
a. Read on-level text with purpose and understanding.
b. Read on-level text orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings.
c. Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.
Sample Lesson:
Individual Instruction: In this lesson, the individual and whole group instruction will switch back and forth as the class reads through the story. As Amy travels to her first destination, Antarctica, students will work in small groups to learn more about this place. They will view other sources of information in small groups like books and images to build background knowledge. Students should also have paper copies of the book so that they can practice reading the story aloud to each other to build fluency and to reference the text for information as they conduct research.
Whole Group Instruction: As students progress through the story, read aloud, and learn about the places they are visiting, pull students together as a whole group to take the Google Lit Trip. They will “travel” to the place that Amy has and be able to view live images of some of the things that she is seeing on her travels. Then, set up a videoconferencing session with someone from the place being visited so students can hear a firsthand recollection of what that country is like. When “traveling” to Antarctica, it is unlikely that teachers will be able to communicate live with someone stationed there. However, there have been several instances where classrooms have connected with scientists stationed in Antarctica via videoconferencing. The following website contains videos of these classrooms videoconferencing with scientists stationed at Scott Base in Antarctica and links to set up your own opportunity: http://learntel.com.au/2010/03/26/videoconference-with-antarctica/ (Skyring, 2010). When students hear the accents of the people, see what they look like, and see the country’s landscape in the background, they will gain an in-depth understanding of what the place is like and how to relate it to what is being read in Amy’s Travels.
Modifications for Diverse Learners: Google Lit Trips are designed to take reading and make it more interesting and engaging for students in hopes that if students are more invested in the learning process, they will progress their reading skills. One of the benefits of using Google Lit Trips is that the entire lesson is available for free to download on the internet. Since students will each be given a paper copy of “Amy’s Travels”, students who need extra support can revisit the lesson at home or at the library. Maintaining strong communication with parents and inviting them to see what is being shown in the classroom is an effective way to increase parent involvement in the classroom which can improve student performance. For English Language Learners, introduce them to Google Translate so they can compare the English words with those in their native language. The virtual field trip is already helpful in vocabulary development because of the inclusion of images and videos to supplement the text in the story, which will benefit both English Learners and students who tend to struggle with reading and comprehending grade level books in general. Challenge GATE students to find more information about each of the visited places by researching on the internet or in the library. To further motivate the class as a group of diverse learners, allot a time each week for students to share items/new information about different countries around the world, especially countries where they have cultural roots.
Assessing the Tool:
1. Was the tool simple to use as a teacher? For the students? Discuss any challenges you faced and how you overcame them.
2. How did the use of this tool increase student global awareness?
3. What could be done differently to maximize the effectiveness of the tool?
Assessing the Lesson:
1. How did this lesson enhance student multicultural understanding?
2. How did this lesson develop collaborative skills amongst the students?
3. How did this lesson allow students to reach an understanding of the overlying concepts and objectives?