Aug 31

Today as I saw another day of full-class activities, I thought about how important it is to be sure every child is engaged in full-class instruction. The sped teacher I'm working with is creative about this, and often combines it with physical movements too, such as: if you're listening, put your hand on your head; if you have your homework away and your paper in front of you, stand up; etc. I wonder how whiteboard responses would work with this class. Actually, the class seems remarkably well-behaved, even though the paraprofessionals don't really take much of an active role. We need to do something to increase engagement and not just listlessness. They're pretty good at just sitting, which is good and not good. It's sort of a false sense that they're learning just because they're not acting up (well, it appears that way to me). I've been really itching to introduce the vocabulary words. I always think of a lot of connections I want to share, but I'm certainly not going to interrupt the teacher to try to do something I think is creative. Not a great way to make friends.

I again enjoyed my reading group. I try to ask comprehension questions that incorporate other subjects. For example we were reading about golf, so we discussed why lower scores are better and how to calculate how many strokes it took the golfer per hole. The story takes place in the same state in which we live, so I'm bringing a map to class tomorrow. I've been reading about how even college students have absolutely no idea how to read maps. They're very engaged in this group, in discussing details about the story. I'm also working on summarizing paragraphs after they're read. The book is very well-organized in that paragraphs are numbered and generally stick to the topic, so it's easy to summarize. I tell my students that summarizing written material is the #1 study skill that students need, or #1 writing skill, to succeed in higher grades.