3rd Observation

So today, and anybody who knows be won't believe it, I arrived at the school 1/2 hr before my scheduled time! And boy am I glad I did. They class--16 kindergarteners, 1 teacher, and 1 para--we doing some Brain Gym yoga. It was awesome. They then moved into a question and answer session where the kids raised there hands and talked about whatever was on their mind. There were some really off the wall comments, like, "Sometimes I just don't want to finish my supper." Followed by, "I ran the fastest today." And, "My baby sister cries so loud. She's naughty."

I learned that the class has 18 students (when nobody is absent) and 6 of them are identified as ELL. The range of abilities is amazing. For part of my time there I manned a station in which children were asked to categorize words ending in -en, -et, -ed. According to the regular classroom teacher, children have a really hard time with the /e/ sound (like in hen or elbow). Only a few of the students were able to sound out words they didn't know (bed, men, jet, ect.). Then a little while later the ESL instructor asked me to listen to one of the ELL students read and quiz him on how well he knows the seasons. He was a wonderful reader; he knew how to read almost every word in the book he was given. And he knew how to sould out the words he didn't know. What I'm saying is, he was one of the best readers in the class (way above some of the native speakers). The only thing he really needed ELL services for was culture and exposure to concepts he may not have been previously exposed to.

I also spent some time reading with a couple of fourth graders in the ESL pull-out room. They taught me how important it is to make the time in that room fun and of obvious value to the students. One of the boys I was reading a very boring story with kept asking why I was making them stop to talk about the story. I explained that I was just checking to make sure they understood what they were reading, and to focus on certain vocabulary. I don't think he liked my explination. I'm guessing he thought that he was missing something in his regular classroom.