August 23 - The Day I Turned 22

August 23 marked the second day of class, it also was my birthday.

We had 10 students show up for class and we covered two lessons. We covered lesson 3 and 4. In these two lessons we went over many literacy topics including: the alphabet, the before position, reading left to right, sequencing plastic colored letters in alphabetical order and reading them each out loud, counting syllables and defining monosyllables and multisyllables.

We also learned new consonants including n, l, and d, and identifying the initial and final positions of sounds in words. We defined what closed syllables are and how to determine what a short vowel is. We also covered high frequency and learned words including: it, in, and did, and used our colored blocks to determine same and different sounds.

We covered the 3 units of sound which are, sounds, words, and syllables. We introduced short vowel a, and covered the high frequency and learned words the and a.

We always follow the order of:

1) look & listen
2) echo
3) name
4) write

From lessons 3 and 4 we can conclude that:
monosyllable is a word with one syllable.
multisyllable is a word with two or more syllables.

high frequency and learned words are the most commonly used words. high frequency words follow the regular rules. learned words are pronounced differently than their letters indicate.

a phrase is a group of words that do not express a complete thought (a verb or noun is missing)

Our students seem to be picking up and catching on quickly. It is so inspiring to have them participate, come to class, and be engaged. It is very gratifying and humbling to be able to serve such people in our community. I am very thankful for this opportunity and am learning a lot about myself and teaching.

Day 6

Last Thursday, August 18th marked the first day of class. Students began arriving around 10:00 because class started at 10:30.

It was so nice to meet everyone and get to know new faces and names. We had 11 students total, some people repeating the class, and others fresh beginners. Everyone made their way into class, and we all introduced ourselves. Once, we were all settled we began our lesson.

We covered two lessons in our session which included: the alphabet, identifying same and different sounds, syllables, coding vowels blocked by a consonant with a breve, short vowel i, and consonants t, p, and s.

The lesson is a video and multi-sensory. The students use a plastic alphabet and colored blocked to determine same and different sounds. The approach is multi-sensory so the students are using more then one sense to learn these literacy skills. I observed the first lesson, and jumped in to help students who seemed behind or struggling. I will be observing and slowly beginning to teach lessons this upcoming week.

Day 5

Today was an exciting day at work. We had a screening session for another one of our ABRP classes. I got to work and got started preparing for the screenings.

Around noon, people started arriving. During the screening I administered the Gray-Oral Reading Test. We give four tests including a Diagnostic Decoding Survey, the IOTA Word Test, the Gillingham/Child's Proficiency Scale, and the Gray-Oral Reading Test. Each of the people must take each of these tests and from here we can see which class they should be in.

After we screening all seven students, I learned how to grade the tests, and completed all grading. From these scores we can accurately place these students in the correct class ASAP.

One student was especially inspiring today. She told me how she does not want to work dead-beat jobs anymore and how she is so motivated to get an education. She also explained how she was raised in the "hood" and how her Ebonics is flawed because of that. She explained how she wants to be able to speak in her neighborhood and also be able to speak in a professional setting. It was interesting to see intercultural communication and code-switching play out in real life. We then discussed the term code-switching, and she said she wants to be able to do it in her everyday life. She also told me she was VERY excited to be in this class, and is excited and determined to learn.

It was a very gratifying and honorable moment. It's so crazy to interact and really reflect and learn from our students.