Technology

The computers in the classroom were especially helpful this morning.  I had 3 different groups in the classroom and needed to occupy all of them at the same time with different work.  The computers allowed me to have students working independently while I instructed the other groups. 

The students also seem to really enjoy the program.  I think that helps them to be more focused.  How fun-ducational! 

Morning Madness

This week is off to a good start.  We are still helping with the Acquity testing, but the moderations to the schedule have been minimum.  Students are [at least slightly] refreshed from the 4-day weekend and are adjusting back to the everyday schedule. 

The fourth grade is still off on the stories, but eventually they will be back on track. 

The normal 5-day week is more consistent and hopefully students will be focused until the next break after having some time off.

Confusion

Once again the confusion continues.  This week some teachers have opted for no story, while others have opted for a short story or a regular length one.  This discrepency makes it difficult for groups that are combined with more than one class in the same grade level.  In order to make extra time for other students, there is no longer 2 adults available for every session, and multitasking plays a big role.  Fortunately, this is where my experience comes in handy.  It also relies on the relationship that we have built with the students which allows them to have patience.  Sometimes one group has to work independently while the other is being given directions.

The computers in the classroom definitely are benefiting our program already.  The ability to have some students working independently on the computer while others are working interactively is really comingi n handy.  When we had to take students next door to the computer lab it was much more of an all or nothing approach.  All students needs to be supervised, so all students need to stay together.  This way we are able to break off into smaller, more specifically customized groups. 

Fall Break

This week we are having fall break on Thursday and Friday.  This is first break we've had since Labor Day (Monday off).  The students are definitely ready for a little breather, and are showing the signs in their attention span. 

The Reading Academy software seems to slowing building the skills in the first graders.  Unfortunately, we have not had much time to work with the fourth graders on it.   The basic skills that it touches on are really the building blocks for all reading and language comprehension.  Hopefully, after fall break things will normalize again and we can use it more.  As of Friday we now have computer pods in our classroom!  This will make it much easier to access the program without interferring with a schedule class in the computer lab.  On the downside, the Title 1 program is now beginning to use the program and because of the limited number of licenses this may become an issue. 

I'm concerned because it is a short week that we will not have enough time to focus on the story and vocabulary before it's time to tst on it.  With the fourth grade classes still on different stories, this also presents a challenge of managing the time efficiently.  So far they have been doing very well on their weekly assessments (give or take a student and/or week), I have confidence that they will be able to keep it up this week even without the additional practice.   

Reading Academy

As the students get more use of the Reading Academy software, i've noticed some problems with the first grade group.  Some of the beginning lessons (rhyming, beginning sounds, ending sounds) are presenting the students with difficulties.  I feel that perhaps a lesson prior to using the program might be helpful for the students.  I am finding that when they have consistent difficulty passing a skill, they become discouraged; especiallly when other students are passing and receiving certificates.  Rhyming sounds are particularly difficult for ESL students because it is a concept that other languages do not have, which also makes it hard for parents to help at home. 

I have one student that is doing amazingly well on the program.  This student interestingly enough views it as a game, with levels to pass and puzzles to solve.  I think its an interesting concept that students enthralled in the gaming culture may benefit academically from this viewpoint. 

Extra Extra!

Once again we have tweeked the schedule to allow extra time for students that need additional one-on-one assistance.  I am now working with a kindergarten student, three times a week for 15-20 minutes.  We will be focusing exclusively on letter idenitification.  Hopefully this additonal practice will bring her up to par with the other ESL students.  

Split

A challenge of combining different classes of the same grade is that sometimes the teachers choose to insert or skip reading stories during the year.  When this occurs, you have two groups with different spelling words and related stories.  Worst case scenario, one class is reading a novel - this requires the entire week's sessions to be devoted to the reading and answering assigned questions. 

This week, two of the 4th grade classes have chosen to skipthe shorter "Time Life" story (which they will usually use during a shortened week - like next week's 3 day Fall Break week); whereas, one class is not.  This throws the routine off for this week and next until the classes reunite 2 stories from now. 

Fortunately, we have begun one of the lower classes on the Reading Academy computer-based learning software program and this will allow them to work on that while the other students continue the usual routine.  This class also is scheduled for more time that can be used specifically for spelling and reading. 

It is a unique situation, but we are making the most of it.  I am really excited to see the results of the program first hand.

Monday Morning

The 4th graders missed ESL today, they were scheduled to visit the planetarium.  The schedule for planetarium trips is on a 3-week rotation and offers the students an exciting opportunity to learn about science in a more hands-on and visual dominant way.  Even though they are missing a session of work, I think that this is an interesting experience for them and is especially helpful for some of my students that don't learn as well by reading information on a page.

The first graders that see me twice a day performed poorly on their spelling test last week.  I maintain that even with the extra practice we are doing, that if they fail to practice or study at home they will not succeed in this area.  Part of learning spelling words is memorization, and that takes time and effort.  Although, I do think the words were particularly difficult last week with the "qu" blend.  Based on this mornings pre-test, the students did not take any time to look over there words this weekend, but since they are marginally less challenging, the results may be slightly improved.  Crossing my fingers.

The kindergarteners need to be tested using the "Running Records" exam.  My biggest concern is that our ESL students have not yet learned there letters, and thus are not reading at any level.  I am interested to see how tests are scored when a student is not yet a Level A reader.   

Thursday Blues

Thursday is very much a review day.  Students mostly take their reading comprehension, vocabulary, and spelling tests on Friday.  Today is the last day to really practice the information and make sure that the students are prepared for the assessments. 

With my first grade groups, we are concentrating on rhyming words using their tricky words.  This is a concept that many of the students did not grasp in kindergarten for various reasons and will become increasingly important to them to be able to identify words that have the same ending sounds.

Child Abuse

Last Thursday, the professional development session focused on child abuse.  Although I considered myself fairly aware of the signs of child abuse or neglect; the obvious.  I realized that there was a considerable amount of information that is not highly publicized or recreated on your average Lifetime movie.

This week coincidentily I became acutely aware of a potential problem concerning this issue for one of my students.  Shocked, I went through the steps that we discussed which led to meeting with my principal.  I was amazed that just a simple overview of the things that school personnel should be on the lookout for, helped me to readily identify a possible risky situation. 

Alphabet

Kindergarten is progressing slowly with their abc idenitification. They are now on there 4th set of letters.  We are still working on colors, shapes, and numbers; but the focus is on the alphabet.  There is such a great mandate for learning the alphabet as the foundation for learning tricky words and being able to read starting in January with basic level A readers, that it is a pertinent skill for them to acquire.  There is one student that is particularly lower than the other 2 and can identify very few of the letters despite constant repetition.  This is going to become a hinderance very fast, if it is not already.  I am concerned that her lack of any language and previous educational experience will slow her learning down.  I have worked with 2 of her older siblings and they both still struggle on basic skills.  I was hoping that they would use their English skills to prepare her a little better for school, but even though she can speak in broken English conversational sentences and be understood - she appears to be retaining very little of the information we work on in ESL or that is worked on in class.   

Benefits

For the first time since the one 4th grader started missing his recess to receive extra time, he did not have any homework or classwork with him.  He is up-to-date on all of his assignments and is actually turning in his homework.  Now, we will be able to work on some other skills to help him succeed without limiting the work in order to have time for his graded work.  I'm hopeful that we might be able to cut back his time after the first grading period as a reward for his hard work.