Small Things

After yesterday's disappointing 1st grade session, today reminded me of the perks of working in an ermergence-based ESL program - special programs.  ESL takes a backseat on days when there are field trips or special programs/assemblies in the building.  This morning, it was learning about soil which consumed the first grade classes and gave me some room to reflect before our afternoon session. 

The time was good for me and them (or at least me).  The extra prep time allowed me to repair my mindset to one that would, and could, be more patient. 

Although the spelling scores still filled me with a internal sense of teacher failure (and made me slightly nauseated), I did see a minimal improvement and was able to remind myself that it's all new to them and they just need some more practice.

Regrouping

After a quick brainstorming session with my supervising teacher, we have come up with plans to conquer the atrocious spelling - start at the beginning.  Starting tomorrow we will be reviewing three-letter words and how to spell them and sound them out.  We will be using the letter blocks (reading rods) to give the kids a chance to get hands on.  Hopefully, the interaction element will make it a little more fun and keep their attention long enought to grasp the concept.

Frustrated

This morning was particularly frustrating.  I was working with 2 - 1st graders who suffer from a serious spelling problem.  Out of 10 words they only got 2 and 3 right.  My first go to technique for spelling (after a series of questions about their study habits at home) is to copy the word 5 times each.  The problem is however, that even with the word spelled out in front of them - they had no idea what the word was.  The low phonetic skills they exhibit is becoming a hinderance and already affecting their success.  Even more frustrating, is that one of the students repeated kindergarten and should be sufficiently able to sound out simple words like "lung" or "leg".     

Hello!

The adjustments made to the first grade schedule and the focus of that time seem like they will have the effect wanted for most of the students.  I like that we are focusing on lower skill areas even if that means a change from the normal routine.  I feel like the more repetition the better in this case.  Students will now be reading their weekly story and working on their spelling words, both in ESL and in their regular classroom.  In addition, we are really trying to hammer sight words into them. 

Week 7: The slump begins..

We are now in Week 7 of the school year and the novelty of a new year has definitely worn off for both the students and the teachers.  Last Friday, progress reports went home and we are now able to fill our extra time slots with students that are in need of some additional support.  A lot of this time involves focusing on skills that are not being absorbed during classroom instruction.  The other most important aspect of this extra time, is completing assignments that just don't seem to get done at home. 

Several of the students have already been flagged for consistently "forgetting" to bring back homework or bringing it back incomplete or significantly wrong.  The main goal in these extra sessions as a whole is to bring grades up as the first report card period reaches its half way mark.  By focusing on skills that the student is particularly struggling with, we are able to bring up a low grade with little consequence to the student.  For example, if we have a 1st grader struggling with spelling and they improve their spelling scores, there is a likely possibility that their reading scores will improve.  My theory, as I'm sure others share (or hope they do) is that if a student has problems sounding out a word or spelling it, than they may not be able to read it.  If they have a better understanding of words in isolation that they can read more fluently, and therefore ultimately have an improved comprehension of the material.   Since skills build on eachother the simple effort of strengthening the weakest block in the tower can really make a difference.     

Progress

Progress is definitely the theme for today.  After trying some new things this week with alphabet recognition, the kindergarteners are showing improvement in their identification skills.  From the first few weeks when they knew none of the letters that the class went over - for the most part, they are able to identify the first 11 letters.  We have also began working on their sight words, this week we covered the first 3 "I", "the", and "he".  Today 2/3 of the kids knew the words in order and out of order.  I am very excited about these improvements!

Improvement

Friday is testing day.  This morning I administered a reading test to a 4th grade group..and they did awesome.  The open ended question portion is always a little tricky (so I try not to look), but there sentence writing skills are improving on a weekly basis.  Their ability to comprehend the material is also improving, evident by there near perfect or even perfect multiple choice answers. 

We practiced the spelling words one more time on the white board.  The kids really like being able to write on the board (perhaps its the colorful markers).  100% for all students.  It's nice to see as the week goes how the number of incorrect words decreases.  I really hope the results translate back to class, it's always nice to end the week with some awesome grades for the Friday folder (which like its name suggests, goes home to parents weekly with grades and completed assignments). 

Early Dismissal

The state of Indiana requires a certain amount of time to be spent on professional development, or "kid free learning time".  However, the state has also mandated that school districts are no longer allowed to have half days.  In order to build this time into the calendar without taking away from the require number of minutes for instructional time, Merrillville elementary schools are releasing students an hour early every Thursday for the remainder of the year. 

What this means for the students is:
1) one less hour of school
2) one more hour of fun

What this means for an ESL student is:
1) one less hour of school
2) one more hour of fun
3) possibly one less ESL session a week

This last factor, leaves students missing out on help that they need.  For instance, 2nd grade does not come to ESL on Thursdays.  Now this may not seem like a huge deal except for the fact that next year they begin taking the ISTEP test and those scores have a profound impact on the school as a whole.  Also, students that come during recess because of slacking grade performance miss their allotted time because of the exclusion of morning recess. 

Focus

First graders are rolling right along on their sight word lessons.  We are now on list #3.  They are catching on to the patterns that exist within the worksheets and are able to complete them more independently.  I see this as a good thing, but possible negative consequences might be their overambition.  Some students like to work ahead and don't understand the point of staying together as a group.  Working as a group allows  them the time to comprehend the material and not just complete the "work". 

Review

This week is review week in Kindergarten for letters.  They have completed the first 2 sets of letters/sounds "s a t i p n" and "ck h e r m d".  That means that this is a great week to drill the students and work specifically on identification without worrying about falling behind on new letter sounds. 

Today, we used the Leap Frog "Letter Factory" DVD as a visual aide.  The students were able to see the letters in action more or less.  Hopefully, they will begin to associate the letters with their sounds through these repetetive techniques. 

Progressing Slowly

I'm beginning to get a little frustrated with the progress my kindergarteners are making.  Every day we review the letters and sounds that they learn in their classroom, and everyday they give me the sound and more-often-than-not cannot identify the letter.  As a child of another generation, perhaps I fail to understand the tremendous expectations that are placed on young children these days to produce results.  A 6 year-old is now expected to know not only their letters and sounds, but to make words out of them, put those words into sentences and than read those sentences (of course some of that comes later in the year).

The phonics part tends to be the more difficult part in my experience, but these students can look at the letter and sound it out without knowing what the letter itself is. 

I have begun reciting the ABC's with them while pointing to the letters in order, but I feel like its almost time to consider alternative options.  I think this week the lesson plan will stay about the same, but I will begin to discuss options with my supervising teacher.   

Constant Change

Today was the official start day, or "trial run" for the Title 1/remedial reading programs in our building.  What that means for ESL is changes to the schedule. Although we began pulling our kids several weeks ago after we finished the initial prep work, we were working on a tentative schedule.  Today, the official schedule kicked in.  We will now be able to tweek the schedule to allow for extra one-on-one time for specific students who need work on different skill sets. 

The minor changes to the schedule have been progressing rather well so far.  The students are adjusting to the new groups really well, and I am looking forward to the challenge of having students with different needs.  Me and Mrs. Davidson (ESL teacher) are discussing separating groups based on levels during the same class time to work on skills that are more catered to each group. 

Interactive Writing

This week the professional development focused on the idea of interactive writing.  I feel like this type of writing can be extremely useful for a small class setting.  I utilized the skills I learned during my first grade sessions last Friday.  We were working on building sentences using our sight words and the entire group participated in forming a sentence for the word "see".  I saw it as a nice segue between me giving them a sentence and them writing one completely on their own. 

Also, I used the concept of interactive writing during the "see" worksheet itself.  I had students come to the board to fix the misspelled words.

I try to include the students in the discussion, instead of simply dictating to them; however, I think that there is definitely more that I can do to include them.  Perhaps if they participate more than they will be more invested in the material and therefore absorb it better.

Education is Like Baseball

Education is very much like baseball.  The students are the players and the teachers are the coaching staff (with administrators being management).  After a summer vacation, students like players need some time to warm up - but after a while you expect them to get back in the groove.  A perfect example is the recent addition of Manny Ramirez to the Chicago White Sox lineup.  Manny has complained that the reason he hasn't played his best games for the Sox is because of his absense from the sport for most of the season.  Although this initially might have been true (more or less) it is clearly time for him to stop making excuses and step it up or consequences will be introduced.

The same thing is true for students.  Sometimes teachers need to introduce consequences (or rewards) into the situation to induce results.  A student of mine has consistently struggled with the concept of completing homework at home.  He has a questionable home life and is, as I believe to be the case, often overlooked.  He also suffers from a lack of intrinsic motivation.  In order to improve his grades, he will now be missing morning reccess to work with me on his homework - which I think is a small price to pay for significantly ::crosses fingers:: higher grades (or at least more likely).  Similiarly, Manny Ramirez should be let go by the White Sox if his batting average does not increase (or at least fined for wasting "our" time).      

Be Flexible.

Flexibility.  One of the most important part of education is the ability to be flexible.  This afternoon, while working with a first grade group on their weekly (ish) sight word packet, I discovered they lacked a basic foundation in vowels.  The word today was "can" so I decided to move from the sight word itself to a lesson on the short vowel sound of "a" using the http://www.starfall.com/ website. 

All of the classrooms in my building are equiped with lovely 42" flat screen tv's that are conveniently linked to the computer.  I was able to work directly from my computer on the tv which allowed the students to follow along.  We studied the sound by picking an interactive review story and reading it out loud (with some help sounding out words from the site). 

Originally, I had planned to begin leveled reading in an attempt to improve fluency.  This diversion included reading, but also was more targeted toward their needs.  I plan to concentrate on the vowel sounds as they present themselves in future sight words.

Kindergarden Corner

Our school has replaced the antequated "Letter People" used in education for a significant time period with the English-origin "Jolly Phonics" program.  This program allows students to complete the initial alphabet training prior to the mid-point of kdg and begin reading at a faster rate.  The program also includes blends and diagraphs that make it easier for students to sound out more difficult words, increasing their reading level.  The problem that some ESL students face is lack of previous education experience.  Students that begin with a year or more of pre-school often have a firm grasp of the alphabet and are able to identify the letters independently or at least in ABC order.  Students that do not attend any prepatory school may not have this same ability.

The Jolly Phonics program assumes that students begin kingergarden with a basic understanding of the alphabet. 

This year, we have 3 kindergarden students in the ESL program; this is particularly below our average of 10-12.  Two of the students have fairly adequate conversational skills, where the last one struggles with English pronounciation and sometimes mixes Spanish and English words in response to questions (or speaks in Spanglish, as I like to refer to it).  All 3 are able to recite the alphabet outloud - yet, none of them can identify the letters using a visual reference.

Up to this point, I have followed the sequence of Jolly Phonics which skips around the alphabet in a pattern that I am unaware of the reasons behind.  The letter is paired with a motion which helps students to memorize the sound (the motion is eventually second nature and disregarded all together later on).  The kindergardeners are doing pretty well on the motion and sound, but are having trouble identifying the letter attached to both.

Today, based on the recommendation of my supervising teacher, I began having the students recite the ABC song while following along on a alphabet poster.  The hope is that they will begin to correlate the letter with its name. 

       

1, 2, GO!

The beginning of the year is always a little rough.  The biggest challenge for an ESL classroom in a district that offers several opportunities for students to improve their skills in the major areas of study: reading, writing, math; is scheduling.  Establishing a schedule that is compatible with all the other services (for the most part) and allows for students to receive the maximum amount of instructional time possible is no easy task.  Over the last several years, the elementary school I work at has put in place a modified block schedule.  This new way of planning the day means that our ESL schedule is more or less determined by administration.  This has its benefits and challenges, as one may imagine. 

One challenge is that our particular program has less prep time required than some of the other remediation initiatives.  This means that the ESL staff is ready to begin several weeks ahead of the initiation of the "official" schedule.  In order to do so, we must improvise slightly and always be prepared for changes to our tentative schedule. 

This week we are still in limbo; next week we become "official".