9/18~

The first day observing and teaching at Hutchinson Elementary

consisted of independently working with students one-on-one to
practice sight vocabulary. Most of the students I worked with today (as
informed by Mrs. Stedeford and her co-teacher) were underperforming
according to grade standards. Most of the students I worked with
simply needed further reinforcement hearing the phonemes making up
the words. One boy I worked with began to get upset because he kept
missing words. I reflect back on this moment as a mistake I could have
resolved by using the folding in technique so that this student
remained positive about despite his inability to readily identify most of
the sight words presented. In addition to this exercise, I also observed
a Kindergarten class do math stations. A couple of the stations
practiced the language arts, such as listening to basic directions or
reading the names of basic numbers.
10/2~
Today at Hutchinson, I again helped in facilitating a Kindergarten
classrooms activities, this time helping to monitor a writing lesson and
then assisting with another math activity. I then had the opportunity to
do a similar sight words activity with a different 1st grade teacher.
Instead of working in her classroom, she would send students out to
me so that I could do a predetermined set of literacy activities with
them. These included identifying sight words with flash cards and
reading two short stories using their current spellings words. The rest
of the afternoon was spent observing/monitoring whole class
instruction in Mrs. Stedefords classroom.
10/8~
We spent a very limited amount of time at Hutchinson today. The
entirety of that time was dedicated to practicing sight words using the
typical two booklets Mrs. Stedeford uses with her classroom. One of the
books is simply a list of the words, and the other is using the words in
simple sentences. As the latter book progresses, those sentences
become very simple stories. I admire this workbooks blend of both
sight word identification as well as fluency and eventual reading
comprehension (although reading comprehension is not measured in
either of these booksin fact, because they are working with high
frequency words, fluency in the main component of literacy I have
been helping these students with).

10/9~
Today I did my first lesson, which involved playing a form of Bingo
using the sight words from Mrs. Stedefords class. The group I led in
this activity consisted of pretty much the very average students. They
performed very well doing this activity, enjoying the use of a fun game
and food to reinforce important sight words. In addition to doing this
game, I was again asked by the same first grade teacher (whose name
still escapes me) to do additional literacy reinforcement out in the
hallway. This time I was asked to help them read books they had
checked out at the library. I worked with a number of students, a
couple with notable reading disabilities. Towards the end of the day, I
was also asked to listen to some enrichment students read a Junie B.
Jones novel out loud. They needed very little assistance, but one in a
while I would help them sound out an unusual word.
10/23~
Today I executed my second lesson, which involved working with Mrs.
Stedefords students in pairs as they created puzzles of 10-12 pieces.
These puzzles had the class set of sight words written on the backs,
and so pairs of students would earn their puzzle pieces to complete a
given picture by reading the words aloud. In addition, I also helped
students from the both Mrs. Stedefords class a well as her co-teacher
in reading the short story for the week, which included some new,
robust vocabulary words.
11/9~
Today was almost exclusively observations. I observed a third grade
classroom as they did both language arts and math lessons, as well as
worked with Mrs. Stedefords class for one last, brief time. I hope to be
able to come back in the Spring and work with her again.