Thanks!

Thanks for all the comments on which course I should take next term. It was pretty much unanimous that I should go for the course about teaching struggling adolescents in reading. I agree that I will learn more from that course as opposed to another course about teaching English Language Learners (even though I do think those skills/strategies are extremely important). Since it's almost 1,000 dollars a course, I just want to make sure I am getting the most out of each class and I have already taken a lot of courses geared towards ELL's. I am currently working with about 5 middle schoolers who struggle with reading fluency and comprehension. I am excited to learn some good strategies and challenge myself to come up with some ideas as to how I can work with them more effectively.

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One of my students was absent today, so instead of just wasting that 45 minute period, I went to one of the third grade rooms I used to assist in, since they still do not have a new assistant (even though I switched positions a month ago) and offered to help out with whatever the teacher needed. She asked me to take two ELL students and play a game with them on initial consonant blends. They had played the game before, so they were familiar with the rules, but I noticed right away, they were playing the game and using strategies, but they weren't really getting a ton out of it. The object of the game was to match consonant blends with word endings to see if a real word can be made. Each player has a pile of word endings and in playing the game, they land on certain spaces that allow them to take three blends and see if they can make any words. The point of the game was to make as many words as possible.

I immediately saw that one student was simply using the "self correction" clues on the back of the cards to see if she could make a word, without sounding out the words or thinking about the meaning of the "correct" words. It is so interesting to me how students learn "survival skills" when they are navigating activities and lessons that don't really make sense to them.

After I noticed the "strategy" that was being implemented, I encouraged both students to tell me the sound the blend made and then sound out word made by adding the blend to the word ending, whether or not a real word was made. I tried to encourage them to think about the words and decide whether or not they were real words or nonsense words rather than just checking the back of the card and seeing if there was a word listed that began with the blend they had.

Let me tell you, this game was not for ELL's. Nonsense words are supposed to not make sense, however many of the real words were so abstract, I had a hard time explaining the meanings, since they didn't come across many words they already knew.

There I was trying to explain the words slack, grim, clam, flush, and trot without any additional visuals or supports. I tried drawing pictures on the whiteboards and using the words in sentences, but these words certainly were not familiar to the students. At the end I switched gears, because although it is fun to play games, when the necessary learning is not really taking place, they aren't really that useful and effective as teaching tools. I started to show the blend cards one at a time and had the students take turns saying the sounds. Then I asked them each to come up with a word that began with that blend. They came with the words like star and play that meant something to them and practiced actually verbalizing the blended sounds which they were not doing during the game.

Had I actually planned for this activity, there are so many other things I would have/could have done, but I was just spontaneously trying to help out a friend since I know the workload of those teachers has increased since I switched positions.

It feels good to be nice. :0)