Lesson Plan 3

January 20's lesson plan was a review session for my student Arvin. We tackled the two letters we had already covered, 'M' and 'A'. More than a review session, however, this lesson introduced the concept of blending sounds together. The sound 'ma-' is very common in the Filipino language. It denotes a variety of adjectives such as "malungkot" ("ma-" + lungkot or sad), "masaya" ("ma-" + saya or cheerful), "matakaw" ("ma-" + "takaw" or gluttonous).

Maliit na Maya and the Wordless Picture Book

The stories I let Arvin read consisted of "Maliit na Maya" (The Small Eurasian Tree Swallow or Maya Bird) and a Wordless Picture Book entitled "Nang Sumakit ang Ngipin ni Mando". Maliit na Maya tells the story of a girl named Maan and a small tree swallow she encounters in a mango plantation.

Nang Sumakit ang Ngipin ni Mando illustrates the story of a boy named Mando who eats too much candy and suffers a tooth ache.

After the reading activity, I asked Arvin a series of reading comprehension questions, all of which began with the "ma-" prefix. Some of the words in the story used included 'Maan', 'maya', 'mangga' and 'manggahan' (mango and mango plantation, respectively), and 'maliit' (small).

Letter Hanger

One of the more fun activities I prepared for Arvin was the 'letter hanger'. Basically, pictures of words beginning with the letters 'M' and 'A' are strung and hung onto the hanger, allowing them to dangle, almost like a toy mobile.

Arvin's task was to take the pictures that started with the same letter and group them together. This activity is both a fun and effective educational experience for the child. They get to connect the sounds, letters and words together and understand the lesson; all without boring the child out and frustrating them to learn something.

Tachistoscope

A new teaching tool was introduced to us: the tachistoscope.

The tachistoscope is basically a piece of paper with windows and adjustable letter cards. Each letter card consists of at least two or more letters that can be adjusted upwards or downwards, forming a variety of combinations and helping the child learn blending letters to form different words.

Other Activities

Aside from the ones mentioned above, our professor also prepared three activities for the kids. One of them had a set of pictures with blanks, and the child had to correctly identify the word from a bunch of scattered letters (mostly 'M's and 'A's). The other activity was pretty much the same, but the child was made to write the word down on the worksheet. The last one was a variant of the memory game. Here, the child was given two piles: a pile of pictures and a pile of name cards, arranged randomly on the floor. I had Arvin play the game, to help him correctly match the words with the pictures.

Lesson Plan 2

For January 13's session, my student Arvin and I tackled our second letter in the Marungko approach: 'A'. This was the first time for the new year that we saw each other again, so this lesson plan was a great way to review our previous lesson, the one on the letter 'M'.

Isang Mainit na Umaga and the Wordless Picture Book

This session had two stories. Isang Mainit na Umaga (One Hot Morning) is told from the first-person perspective and features food eaten on a hot day. The Wordless Picture Book, Ang Bisikleta ni Alon (Alon's Bicycle) illustrates the story of a boy named Alon who takes a ride on his bike, and gets a flat tire.

Some of the words that were used to help with the lesson were 'Alon', 'atis' (Philippine sugar apple), and 'apa' (ice cream cone).

Phonological Awareness

One of the activities we engaged in was a ready-set-go sort of game. In this activity, I laid down a batch of pictures whose first letters were either 'M' or 'A'. About four feet from that, I laid down a sheet of paper marked 'M', and another marked 'A'. Arvin's goal was to grab a picture and run to the sheets of paper and lay down the picture to its corresponding letter.

This game also served as a review for the previously tackled letter, 'M'.

Coloring Activity

Another activity of note was the coloring activity. I gave Arvin some crayons and an activity sheet where he had to color the pictures whose words started with the letter 'M' in yellow, and those that started with 'A' in red.

Mid-Semester Evaluation

Our very first session for the year, January 6 was not spent with our students. Instead, we held an evaluation of the Literacy Training Service (LTS) program in the College of Education, the home college of the program.

The session lasted from 8:30 until around 11 in the morning. Here we convened with the other LTS team, the Balara team, as well as our professors. It consisted mostly of us sharing experiences and problems that we've encountered so far, and our professors advising us on possible solutions and troubleshooting steps.

We shall resume our sessions with our students the following week, with our second lesson plan.