Journal #9: Elementary School Visit

My last visit to the elementary was interesting at best. It started with Caitlyn and I driving to the school, me going to the literacy teacher's office, only to find her not there. I then went to class without a lesson plan and found that another volunteer in my class had some activities I could do with the kids. I started off by timing the kids on their fluidity in reading one to two sentence phrases. They have recently been working on timing themselves as to how many words they can read in a minute. They all took turns, and I even had a celebratory moment with one girl. She was able to read 8 out of the 10 phrases in a minute, and not only did she work through them all, she read them well, paying attention to punctuation. I was extremely proud of her progress and have noticed a large improvement since February.

I did however, have a mishap in the classroom that I was unsure of. One of the little girls I work with had told me she was tired. I then asked why and she said she had gone to bed at 2 in the morning because she was at a club for her sisters 26th birthday. After telling me that she went on to say they let her drink alcohol there as well. I took what she said into consideration and was concerned about the behavior. I also realized though, that this little girl likes t elaborate all her stories in search for some attention. She has also told me that her Grandmother is alive and 160 years old. I am going to see how she is next week though, and if it seems that she iterates an odd behavior again, I will probably tell the teacher and see how they should handle it from there.

In any case, I have only one visit left to my school and I am saddened to leave the kids. They are always so happy to be working on reading and literacy, even when it is difficult for them. I have very well behaved children in my group and it doesn't take long for them to adhere to the directions I give them at all. Overall these past nine weeks have been extremely helpful, eye-opening, and most of, fun.