Planning for Mini Lessons

[Notes from a session with Lindsay Mann]

Teaching Points, Objectives, and Learning Targets:

• What is the purpose? As adults, we just fluently read. Teaching points break down the process that we are naturally doing and make the metacognitive process visible.
• A teaching point isn't an objective. We don't assess the teaching point. We assess the skill that the teaching point is addressing.
• We have to get all kids to the objective, but how they get there doesn't really matter.
• Ex: We need to get kids to subtract
• We need to get our whole class to subtract
• Some kids will simply look at the numbers and solve
• Some kids might need to draw a picture
• Some kids might use their fingers
• Some kids might use a number line

Teaching Point Pointers

• What are we teaching? (Skill)
• How are they going to do that thing? (Strategy)
• Why is it even important? (Purpose)
• We, as teachers, NEED to know WHY. If you don't know why, you aren't going to do a good job teaching it.

What we know that works for kids: It has to feel purposeful and authentic for kid. Be precise, but don't let your teaching points sound too robotic or scripted. Make it sound authentic.

Where can I find Teaching Points?

• TCRWP curricular calendars
• Read books that your kids might read and spy on yourself as a reader
• When you notice that you do something, stop and ask yourself what made you think that. There's an idea for a teaching point!
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• Assessments
• Look at your Running Records--What do my kids need to do?

Mini Lessons

Architecture of a mini lesson:

• Connection
• Teach
• Active Engagement
• Link

The "Teach" is the meat of the lesson. Don't get caught up explaining the book. If you find you have to spend too much time explaining the book and it gets you away from what your are trying to teach, then don't use it. Think about using a book you've already used during read aloud so you can quickly lift an excerpt. Then kids aren't wondering about the book; they are listening to the teaching. (Maybe don't do that with prediction)

Nonfiction

• We often focus on the text features
• We often forget about teaching how to use the text features
• We often over teach features that aren't in the books they are reading
• Big Skills from CCSS:
• key details
• main idea
• compare/contrast