When I entered the 1st grade classroom the students were getting ready to gather on the rug to read Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina's. Immediately I knew this lesson was going to be top-down lesson. The teacher used a variety of ways to get the students to use their background knowledge to learn a word. I felt as though the class was on task and comprehending everything that was being taught. The 1st grade teacher started the lesson with what the students knew about monkeys. She asked them many intriguing questions about where they lived, what they liked to eat, and how big they were. The students were excited about this topic because they were all wanting to answer the questions. The teacher then went into introducing the story, Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina's. The teacher asked questions about the book as she read to the students. Once the students were finished reading the story they returned to their desk to work on a worksheet with the letter M where they had to write the different words that started with m and color the pictures. They …show more content…
When she asked the students questions about monkeys there were some students who did not want to answer when she called on them. I feel as though maybe those students did not have many experiences like the other children did with seeing monkeys in the zoo or on TV in the jungle. I noticed that instead of giving more insight to the questions about a monkey to help their schema she just moved on. If she would have used that moment to discuss the topic more even if it was review for other children they would have had a better understanding of what she was looking for. Although that was the one thing that stood out to me the lesson seemed to be well planned out and the students were able to use their comprehension and decoding skills to get through the