Mrs Beckman Observation

As I observed Mrs. Beckman’s classroom, I believe she has a top-down reading belief. A top-down reading model means the teacher focuses on teaching her students to construct meaning from text by looking at the whole text or a large part of it not just one word. Students are taught that they do not have to be able to know how to read every word to understand the story they are reading. There are three approaches Mrs. Beckman takes to reading. She teaches sight words, guided reading, and mini lessons. She uses these three teaching strategies to help her students grow in their love and understanding of reading. On Monday, Mrs. Beckman begins the reading lesson with an introduction to the sight words for the week. During this time, she reviews the sight words for the rest of the week. She has colored, laminated cards with the sight words for the week on them. She hangs the sight words on a chart on the board so all the students can see them throughout the week. She then has three or four other cards with two letters such as ig, eg, at, and it. She writes these letters on chart paper

Beckman takes to help her students with their reading. Mrs. Beckman reads books during the students snack and uses it as a time filler as needed. If Mrs. Beckman has some time before the class is supposed to go somewhere she will get out a book and start reading. She believes the more the students are exposed to reading the better. The first-grade classes are reading through The Wizard of Oz. Mrs. Beckman reads this book during the class’s snack. The focus of this activity is to work on the student’s comprehension of a story. Mrs. Beckman will have activities and worksheets for the student to do after they complete the book to assess how much the students comprehended. This activity also exposes the students to a chapter book. It introduces them to larger vocabulary and to a book that they most likely would not be able to read on their