Aug 19

When the principal comes in the room everyone gets nervous! Even I was thinking how lucky I am that she found me actually doing something helping students. I want her to be pleased that I'm there, not like I'm looking around to find something to pick on or to write about in that "research" those professors do.

Today I began questioning why we're doing spelling and vocab together. Especially for students who are this far behind, their spelling is atrocious. Students with LD or students who are just behind without the label might not have a vocabulary that is on-grade-level (in fact, we know they don't), but I would say their vocabulary is way above their spelling. So we're having children study the spelling of, let's say, fourth grade vocab words, when they can't tell the difference between "right" and "write." Maybe we should start with those in a systematic way, but I'm not sure we do. Individualized spelling lists may be the way to go, but again, do these lists add up to anything when all is said and done? We need to find a way to review and keep children actively involved in these.

I also had the opportunity to watch the special educator do her thing. There's something about watching a special educator teach that's different from watching a general educator, and I'm trying to put that into words. She's direct (or he, I should say), watchful, knows who's doing what and not afraid to discuss what's going on, lightly humorous, getting down to business quickly. There's something about the type of humor I can't pinpoint, but something that doesn't put children down for not knowing, automatically reinforcing children who are doing the right thing. I need to get in there and do some full-class activities.

At this point we're not using our personnel well. We have four instructional assistants aside from the two teachers and myself, and we continue to do full-class activities that are the same for everyone. We're also struggling with the testing. This is very helpful for me as a teacher educator, since I think we tend to believe that one one-minute fluency timing tells us all we need to know. We did the fourth grade passage, and 4.5 for those who did well with 4.0. Because all the students we retested did so much better on the 4.5 I suggested testing everyone on 5.0. We have to start that tomorrow.

Meanwhile my grammar assessment showed that the class average was about 50%, but we did have some students who scored fairly well. There were two 14/15s and two 12/15s. I was really glad I took the time to write little notes to each child's parent -- they clearly felt proud they did well.

I also noted that sixth graders aren't too old to have all the hands in the air to answer a question Also they're not afraid to read aloud, a common issue for children with reading problems. It's easy to see all the hands in the air and assume everyone's engaged, though, and clearly this isn't the case, even with all the adults in the room. Makes me feel we should be doing something else-- planning small group activities at very least! I suggested a practice test tomorrow; I'm not sure if the students really understand they'll be tested Friday on vocab/spelling for a grade.