Entry 8 Sheltered Lesson

There are nine main components to a sheltered lesson.
1. realia (using real objects and photographs)
2. intentional planning
3. explicit scaffolding
4. language objectives
5. repetition and practice
6. tiered questioning
7. explicit vocabulary
8. authentic language
9. variety of grouping

I watched a sheltered lesson on YouTube. This was a small group lesson in a special education class titled SPED 624.wmv from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsY0dVkeZSI&feature=related

This lesson was all about going to the vegetable farm and the different things you would find at the super market. The teacher did a few things to shelter this lesson for her students. The teacher used realia to help promote comprehension for her students. She used pictures to show what she was talking about. She also used real vegetables from her house to describe the vegetables at the farm. The students were able to hold each vegetable, look at them and smell them. The teacher brought grocery bags from a variety of stores to use when she was talking about the veggies from the farm going to the grocery store. At the end of the lesson the students listened to and sang a song about going to the super market. When the song would mention a type of food the teacher would say it and hold up an example of the food to help the students make the connection.The teacher also used tiered questioning at the end when asking students about the food they like to eat. She asked an early production student, "Do you like fish or apples?" and he was able to point to which on he liked. For the speech emergent students she asked, "What do you like to eat?" and they were able to respond with  a single word answer.

The teacher did a good job using realia and tiered questioning to promote comprehension, but she didn't allow enough time for the students to explore and talk. Allowing the students more time to explore with the vegetables and time to talk to each other would have aided in their comprehension. Another thing that I would suggest is when she was passing around the different vegetables for the students to explore, aiding them in saying the name of each and talking about what they noticed. This would help get the students more actively involved. I also think that the teacher should have used the word "vegetable" instead of "veggie" throughout the lesson to provide her students with the correct vocabulary. Most of the students were able to provide one word answers and seemed to understand what was being taught because of the use of visuals and the pace of the teacher.