My second day at practicum went really well. I am really enjoy my kids. On Wednesdays I sat with a group of four students while they read chapter 6 from Hatchet. All of my group did really well with the reading section that they had. The only thing that surprised me was the fact that they struggled so much with answering the question that the teacher had assigned. The question was.."Why do you think it was Okay for Brain to eat the berries if the birds ate the berries?" The group wanted to answer the the question "because the birds ate the berries".The first problem with this answer is that it is not a sentence. The second problem is that answer doesn't answer the question it just restates part of the question. When I explained this to the group they looked at me like I was crazy. Finally after about 5 minutes of discussion we decided that a better answer would be. because the birds could fly so they weren't sick". Its not perfect and I was starting to help them write a complete sentence their teacher said it was time for them to go to their math class.
I feel that these kids know how to write a complete sentence they just don't do it. If it was my class I would not except work that was not written in a complete sentence because I feel that it is important for the kids to know that work needs to be the best they can do. When they go to middle school the teachers will expect them to write papers and have complete sentences.
The other important literary item that happened on Wednesday was that Angela and I did our QIWK assessment. After looking over the test for the first time today I was surprised to find that many of our kids did not miss any of the words. Some of our kids did struggle but overall they did really well. I think that the formal analysis will be a lot of fun to do.
Overall I am really enjoying myself and learning a lot in my classroom. I am also teaching my lessons on Monday morning which is making me nervous but my teacher said my lessons looked great and that the thought they will work well.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I'm glad you're enjoying the kids :) Good luck with your lesson on Monday, I am sure you will be great!
I find it funny that your students are reading Hatchet, because that is the same book that I read when I was in fifth grade. ha, I hated it.
I agree that your teacher should not accept answers that are incomplete sentances...and I am glad you were able to show your students what a better answer would be, other than, "because the birds ate the berries."
I am with Lila...I was going to say the same thing, and then I saw she had already said it. I despised that book in elementary school so I hope that someone else is helping make this a fun story for students to read...and that is you!
I'm finding the same problem in my third grade classroom - the kids know how to write correctly, they're just not doing it. I think the younger grade teachers like third and fourth should be correcting this problem. The kids must be learning what they can get by with. On my blog I was talking about reminding the younger kids of how they should be writing every time they write. I guess this kind of encouragement is needed in the 5th grade too.
Post a Comment