Change for Kids

This is my first post despite my 4 sessions at P.S.160.  I was assigned to Mrs. Jackson’s 2nd grade class and was told that I would help a 7 year old boy named I’nin. He had just moved to the neighborhood (South Jamaica, Queens) and had just enrolled at P.S. 160. He’s known as a “jumper” because he’s not able to sit still, hence all he does is jump all around. When I entered the classroom, all the kids were starring at me. At first it was awkward but I slowly started getting used to it. I sat with I’nin and asked him to read any book that he wanted to. He did a great job. Ms Jackson (the teacher) then assigned the class to write about moments in their lives. He decided to write about the time he fell into a hole near his house. I thought it was extremely funny. Despite the fact he spelled a lot of words wrong, the story had a great flow. That session lasted about 1 hr and at the end he kept asking me if I was going to come back after lunchtime was over. I explained to him that I too had class to go to!  He genuinely looked sad.

In the second session, when I walked into the classroom, he ran to his desk and grabbed a book that he wanted to read to me. The class was doing a collective writing assignment so I told him that we had to work with the class. His attention span when working with a group is extremely short: he looked around the class a lot, he started showing me his math hw, and asked to use the bathroom. After the collective assignment was over, they had to write a story that involved action. He decided to write about Spiderman and his enemy Venom (I was shocked that all the kids knew SO much about Spiderman). While i was helping I’nin, i also helped three girls (Angel, Nova, Mya). They all were writing stories about their families and asked me to draw their sisters and mothers with long hair. I obliged and they raved about my drawing skills (btw, I’m the absolute worst drawer ever..but they liked it lol)  When I didn’t have my full attention on I’nin he seemed really upset and sometimes would yell or throw himself on the floor. When he did that, I tried to keep helping him, so that he didn’t feel neglected.

In the third session, as soon as I entered the class, I’nin waved hi to me but then Ms. Jackson explained that he only did work on Wednesdays (when I’m there) so he would have to learn how to do work everyday, with or without me. So she assigned me a new child (Angel) who I worked with the week before. She is absolutely hilarious. She does these awesome accents and makes the funniest faces when she’s telling a joke. We instantly connected and even learned that we’re from the same country. But while helping her, I also helped her friends that were sitting next to her. The assignment that day involved writing a story using quotation marks. It was cute that all of them had trouble saying the word “quotation” but they all loved doing the air-quotes that i taught them (a.k.a making quotation marks with their fingers). Angel wrote a story that included a lot of dialogue. I loved that she figured out that the questions in her story also needed quotation marks. Prior to assigning me to Angel, Ms. Jackson explained that Angel had a lot of trouble with writing but after working with her, I honestly thought she needed help but also a lot of positive re-enforcements. While helping her, Angel had trouble spelling a certain word and in her frustration she said “That’s why I’m the dumbest in the class!” I was absolutely shocked when she said that. I told her she was doing an amazing job and when I was her age I didn’t know how to spell every word and I STILL don’t know how to spell every word. Also, I reassured her that she’s going learn tons of new words and there’s no need to be so discouraging. She still looked sad but kept on doing her work and did an excellent job. I think she will make great progress throughout the year. Oh btw, while this was going on I’nin was causing a scene in the classroom. He supposedly cursed out one of the students, so the teacher made him leave the classroom as a timeout.

I was there again this past Wednesday and as soon as I opened the door, one of the girls (Nicole) came across the room and told me that I’nin was kicked out the classroom because he hit someone. After she told me this, about 4 more students tapped my leg and informed me again. I will admit that I am sad that he left. I felt that I could have helped him if I was given more time but I do think that Angel does need a lot of help and more positivity, so I’m more than happy to help her for the next year. When I walked the kids down to the cafeteria, I’nin did spot me and came up to me and said hi. So I’m glad he remembered me and despite our short time together, hopefully i helped him in some way.

On Friday,  I worked with a new teacher and a new group of Kindergardeners. They seemed to be more well behaved than the first class I worked with and a bit more eager to learn. First I was given a poster of the alphabet and my goal was to get the children to be able to recognize the letter when they say it and to sound it out. I was assigned to work with 5 children and it was kind of difficult. There’s always that one bossy child who wants you to do it the way they normally do it in class and then there’s those two children who are too occupied with other things and start arguing over it and of course  you have the wild kids who would rather push it other than pay attention. But, even with all of that we still managed to get through a significant amount of the letters. The only way I really was able to get them to pay attention was to threaten to take away their “free time” and those kids love their free time so they quieted down very quickly.

The later activity I did was much more successful than the first. I practiced recognizing and reading one syllable words with another group of 3 children. We went over simple words like cat, bat, hat, and sat and even though they were able to sound out all the letters they didn’t seem to be able to sound out the words. So I tried things like asking them “what do all the words have in common” and how to sound out “at” when you see it. It took a lot of repetition but in the end they were able to sound it out and even spell out the words that i give them orally. It was a nice feeling that they were actually learning something and it made me very proud of them.

I met my students for the first time last week. They were apprehensive to begin at first, but I tried to build rapport with them by finding common ground. After talking for about 10 minutes, we discovered that we all love basketball. They told me about their team and the positions they play and I shared with them my days as a basketball player in junior high and high school. We all drew pictures of ourselves playing basketball. After sensing that I was “normal” they opened up and were a little more eager to start the sessions.

This morning, I met with my two students again. I knew they were distracted from the minute we sat down. One of my students told me later that it was because he was worried that he’d miss a spelling test that was supposed to be going on at the same time. I was glad to see how important school was for him, so I took them back to their teacher just to make sure they weren’t missing anything and luckily she said she’d wait for them to come back. They eased up a bit and started to concentrate.

We started the session by reading off the ‘site’ words. They are never really excited about doing this so I created a challenge for them. Although I’m using this as a tool to see what words they know and what words they are having trouble with, I made it a game for them and told them I would see who could go faster. It was a close game with only 10 seconds in between them. I know I’m going to have to continue coming up with little games like this to keep them interested.

Afterwards we began reading a book called “Chato’s Kitchen.” One student was really into it, eager to read the book to me. The other, however, could care less. I kept trying to get his attention by relating the story to him but it was difficult. I’m hoping that he can at least remember some of the details because next week, one of our activities involves summarizing what happened in one part of the story and drawing about it.

Overall, I think today’s session went well. My students seem comfortable with me and I feel that I’ve earned their trust. I’m hoping that for next week I can figure out a way to gain and hold their attention throughout the entire session.

Today I became more acquainted with the kids. They were so eager to tell me about themselves. First, we went through the shorter list of “sight words.” They seemed to know most of the words on that list. After that, we went to the longer list, but we only did one column. Since the “sight words” on the longer list are harder for them, I plan to make index cards to allow them to become more familiar with these words.

After reviewing the words, I read “Leo the Late Bloomer” to them. They really enjoyed the story and even read to me. After reading the story, they decorated their folders.

I would say that I was extremely apprehensive since it was my first official day meeting with my students. On top of that, I was already late half an hour since I completely miscalculated the time it would take to commute from my house to the school. Well, it took a whole two hours by train, ferry, and then the subway! When I finally arrived at the school, I was frantically searching for the literacy specialist since I found her room but she was not inside. There were also these questions nagging me in my mind: Is it really worth it to travel two whole hours just to do some volunteer work? Are my students going to like me? Will I be able to control my students? Am I really going to be such a great tutor where I can actually make some change? When the literacy specialist finally brought me my students, I knew immediately that I had made the right decision by choosing to volunteer for such a great cause. All my initial mental fears were immediately erased.

First off, the two girls were extremely friendly towards me as soon as they sat down. They both greeted me with very friendly hi’s. They were very curious as to who I was and what my name was. After I introduced myself, I asked them to tell me their names and some of their hobbies. They excitedly told me about themselves. I did not really have to struggle with them to get them to tell me about themselves. Well, one thing I found is that both shared these common interests: pleasure in reading books and in watching movies. Since they both enjoyed reading so much, I found it much easier to work with them. They were both very eager to tackle the lists of vocabulary words on the sight words sheet. There were three columns of words, so I worked with each of them individually first to go through the first and second columns and then I had them both recite the words together in the last column. In the end, I thought that this particular sheet of vocabulary words was too easy for them, and it was about time that they move on to the sheet of high frequency sight words. What I found striking is that both of them struggled with the same two or three vocabulary words. I am assuming that since both of them are in the same class, they are both very good friends. They were both so eager to assist each other on the pronunciation of the words that one of them struggled with when I worked with that specific one individually and that the other one knew how to correctly pronounce. One time, I had worked with one of the girls on how to properly pronounce this one particular word. When it came time for the other girl to pronounce that same word, she struggled with it as well. So then the first girl said to her, “I just said it not that long ago.” So then I told the first girl to let the second girl try it on herself first. After the second girl could not get it after a few tries, I allowed the first girl to help her. The way I worked with the girls on the pronunciation of the words is that I divided the words into different parts and had them sound out the different parts and then combine all of them together to form whole words. After we finished the sheet of words, I felt extremely accomplished when one of them commented that I was such a nice teacher.

Afterwards, I had them draw pictures on sheets of papers so then they could decorate their folders. What I found amusing is that one of them had originally set out to draw the apartment building she lives in while the other had set out to draw a movie theater with the screen and seats; however, when the one who had originally planned to draw the building discovered that the other was drawing a movie theater, she quickly changed her mind to draw a movie theater as well since she found that way more exciting. So then the first girl flipped her paper over and started drawing a brand new picture on the other side. I guess this is an example of the need to fit in with one’s own peers.

Overall, I would say I had a very productive first day with my students. I am looking forward to future tutor sessions with them!

The first day…ahhhhhhh. Well now that I got that out… the first day was interesting, to say the least. When I first met my kids I was very nervous. I mean my arms were practically shaking! It was a mix of excitement and I guess fear even. They were really great though, and they seemed to like me (I hope!). We spoke amongst ourselves at first, got to know each other little better and pretty much put down that first foundation so to speak. I asked them about their interests and had them decorate their folders as I took some notes, jotting down some details for each child. They apparently knew each other already; they were in the same classes before, and they worked well together. Not only were they well behaved, but they knew when it was time to settle down and get work done. They even helped one another at times. As I went over the words with one child, the other did his folder, patiently waiting for his turn.

I tried to go over the list of words with the two boys, but I could tell how much work they needed. The longer list of words proved to be much harder than the first and it was apparent in the way both boys struggled. They both need a lot of help but they seem very dedicated and willing to work on it. I am very excited for next week where I will have a reading prepared for them and I am hoping that we can knock out some more words together.

        Yesterday I got to meet the kids I will be working with.  I was a little nervous since I didn’t know how they were going to respond or act, but it went okay.  I introduced myself and told them that I will be coming to their school to help them with their reading skills.  I had a sheet of sight words and I had to go over with them the words to see what words they didn’t know.  One of the boys was very calm and did what he was told, he didn’t speak much though and drew a picture of his house and the park.  He knew most of the words from the sheet, expect for like about ten.  He was very focused and you could see he really wanted to get them right.  I tested him after to see if he remembered the words he didn’t get at first and he got them, with a little trouble though. 

                On the other hand, the other boy was very social.  He wanted to talk about the movies and wanted to color.  I told him a little about myself and he told me about him.   He had trouble with the words, though I think the sheet was too hard for them in general. He was hyper and couldn’t keep still much.  I had to tell him a few times to focus on what we were doing.  Towards the end of the session all he wanted to do was draw.  He drew a picture of a car.  Overall the first day went well.  At the end we got a folder so we could put the list of the words the kids needed help with.  We also had to pick out a book so we could read to them next week.  We need to practice reading the book and take notes on how we will be discussing it.  I think the kids will like this, since one of them wanted to read books.  They will be interested.  I am looking forward to our next meeting.

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