The first weeks of a school year are primarily dedicated the idea of “getting to know”. Students get to know their teachers, classmates, classrooms, rules, expectations, and the daily routines. Teachers get to know their students, roles in the building, new staff, and new parents.
Embedded with “getting to know” the students is the students’ academic performance that a teacher must take into consideration before diving fully into the teaching arena. We must ascertain what our students know, their skills, strategies, learning styles and attitudes toward school & learning. This is accomplished in many ways through short group exercises, whole group meetings, individual assessments, and simple observation. It’s an arduous, time-consuming task that comes to fruition somewhere around the fifth week of school.
From the time school started last week until today I have been busy working on this part of the “getting to know” idea. I have established where each of my students stand in terms of their basic math facts…we shall work on these according to their needs from here on out. I also, among other areas, took a first look at their reading.
There are several ways to identify a student’s proficiency in reading, including vocabulary, comprehension and fluency skills. This past week I first relied on my ear. I listened to them read a story. Much information can be gathered from simply listening to a person read. You can gain a sense of their reading speed and how it fluctuates within and between sentences. You can hear the inflection of their voice as they navigate the punctuation, tackle the idioms, and “become” the character(s). You can identify the strategies they use to pronounce difficult words and fix minor mistakes as they read. You can see how well they can follow along while another person is reading.
Listening to my class read aloud this week was indeed a pleasure. Each of them, as they read from the same story, helped bring the story to life. I found myself relaxing while I listened to them. They lulled me into a state of “teacher-euphoria” (a state that teachers find themselves in when their students perform particularly well at something). I enjoyed the story as it was read to me, allowing myself to become an active listener.
In other words, they read beautifully!
I’m excited to be working with a group that shows such promise. I’m eager to begin the journey of reading comprehension with them…if their reading skills are any indication---I’m sure we’ll travel far!
Mr. Casten
August 29, 2014
Copyrighted material of Michael C. Casten
