Lesson Plan #: AELP-WCP0053

Morning Letter/Syllables and Punctuation

An Educator's Reference Desk Lesson Plan

Submitted by: Susan Straley
Email: ses163@psu.edu
School/University/Affiliation: Bellefonte Elementary School, Bellefonte, PA

Date: March 26, 1999

Grade Level(s): Kindergarten, 1, 2

Subject(s):

Duration: 20 minutes a day

Description: The class starts the day with a morning letter. The content of the morning letter is areas of study, special events of the day, and/or special procedures we will follow. After reading the letter (practicing our decoding skills) and discussing the content of the letter, particluar language arts skills are highlighted. These can include capitalization, punctuation, specific letter sounds, parts of speech, or decoding strategies.

Goals: The content of the morning letter is related to content objectives to be taught that day, special events, or changes in classroom procedures. The text of the letter is then used to study specific language arts skills.

Objectives: The students will locate two syllable words in the text of the letter.

The students will insert missing punctuation and explain why a particular puctuation mark is used.

Materials:

Procedure:
1. Read the letter (We echo read sentence by sentence at the beginning of the year. Now the children read each sentence silently before we read it together.)

2. Discuss the content of the letter. Highlight how the information in the text of the letter will affect your day.

3. Select a child to hold the pointer and read the letter again.

4. Go on a word hunt in the letter. Have the children identify and circle two syllable words. Reteach identification of numbers of syllables if needed.

5. Ask what is missing in the letter (punctuation that was left out during the writing).

6. Select children to come up and insert appropriate punctuation. As each child inserts a punctuation mark, ask them to explain why the punctuation mark goes there.

7. Summarize the lesson by having the children repeat what was focused on in the letter.

Assessment: I keep a checklist identifying skills. We cycle through a variety of skills with the morning letter. Each time we revisit a skill, I select children that I have not evaluated in the particular skill and assess them using a rubric number scale. Children that score low on a skill will receive individual help or small group help and be reassesed again.