One day last week I witnessed something I should never have seen in a classroom.

I had a teacher have her students write a letter listing all the things one of the students did wrong. It bothered me so much - especially because I flat out asked the child what happened, and he said that they were throwing rocks and kicking him so he did it back.

We've had LONG conversations about walking away when you are mad/angry/upset.

So far, he has had an awesome week (earning enough rewards that his mom is going to take him out to dinner tonight and he gets a special reward from another teacher tomrrow). He knows that he can walk away to either me or two other teachers who will listen and care. It apparently worked.

Now, if only we could fix things for this child - even if it means switching his teacher - yes I know it's March, but it seems necessary.

A normal day, oh yay!

I finally got to teach all of my kids today. It's been well over two weeks since I'd taught according to the schedule I was given two months ago.

There is one first grader that I feel particularly drawn to working with. He's become my project. I've seen how much he has grown in just a few weeks and I'm determined that he will be really close to, if not all the way up to, grade level by the time the school year ends.

He's the kind of child that craves one on one interaction and that appears to be all that he needs in order to grow in reading and writing (and possibly math). If spending fifteen minutes with me means that he can focus better all day, I'm more than willing to make sure that I am in his class every single day.

Hopefully tomorrow goes as smoothly!

He used to be an easy child! What changed?

One of my children has decided he is NOT going to work for me anymore. He's decided that he doesn't want to try to read anything, let alone books that are exactly right for him, that he probably could read on his own.

How do I know that he's decided this? Because he is six or seven. And refused to identify both the hippo and dinosaur in the pictures of his book. Unless he's telling me the truth and he really is the ONLY first grader on the planet who doesn't know what a dinosaur is?

I spoke with his teacher and she is going to have a conversation with him about how important it is to try. I don't necessarily care if he can read all the words, all I care is that he tries his best and uses the numerous strategies that he has been taught in order to decode tricky words.

Wish me luck!

Music Day

Today, I taught music for half a day. Oh joy!

I learned that I cannot tap a steady beat and I already knew that I'm basically tone deaf. Therefore, I relied on the students a lot. They probably thought it was pretty cool that their teacher told them it was up to them to have the day run smoothly. And you know what? For the most part, they really stepped up. I had spent time in two of the three classes before so I knew names for those groups. The other group gave me a bit of a hard time, but nothing unmanageable.

However, that meant the third day in a row that I didn't get to work with two of my kids. I hope that tomorrow is better and that there aren't a million teachers out (Mon - 9/22 or so, Tues - 5ish/22).

Child 1

I work with six different first graders one-on-one, providing tutoring and reading support for fifteen minutes a day. The first child I see every day has a lazy eye and a bad attitude. I'm not sure if they are related or not, but it seems likely.

He reads at a mid-K level (although, I'm not sure if I agree with that since he reads both level 2 books and 5 books with the same accuracy). That means that we spend a lot of time working on the alphabet sounds and simple high frequency words (is, was, the).

In addition to practicing high frequency words, we read a new book every day. Most of the time it is a pattern book (The red balloon is going up. The blue balloon is going up. And so on.). Sometimes I find books that aren't quite as obvious, but then it's really hard to get through.

I'm not sure what to do to motivate this child - maybe something as simple as a sticker any time he at least tries to figure out a new word? I'm helping him with strategies to figure out words (re-read, look for parts you know, does that make sense or look right?), but it doesn't make it easier on either of us.

We'll see how he grows in the coming weeks. In the meantime, if you have suggestions, throw them at me!

Starting from scratch

Since I seem to be unable to keep up my other blog, and my life has changed a lot since I began the other one, I think it's about time to start over.

I hope to use this blog as a resource for myself and others who are teaching, as well as a way to express concerns that arise in and out of the classroom.

I have several ideas for posts, but if you have any input I'd be glad to hear it! I also plan to keep this much more anonymous than the other one, as confidentiality is so important in the public school setting and the whole dynamic changed drastically when the other blog lost its anonymity.

Look for my first "real" post up within the next couple of days.