Moody Little Boys...

Ok so Norbit was very moody today, I don't know if it was because of the whole "OMFG ITS HALLOWEEN!! CANDY CANDY CANDY!!!" or if he was just in a mood... not exactly a bad one... but definately a different mood. Maybe he's finally warming up to me...

We started off reading a book that I got at my local library (he didn't like any of the other four...) but I think he was bored with it... it was called Tyson the Terrible, about this big ol' dinosaur who is big and ugly and scary... it was a suggestion by the librarian, but wiht me reading it I believe he was bored. I think I'm going to try and find some of my little brother's old Magic Treehouse books in the attic and seeing if he'll like those instead, they're small chapter books, with pictures in them and they go on adventures, so maybe he'll enjoy those.

After we were done with this, we started on the Sight words Dice activity. Basically I made a paper cube and used masking tape to put 6 of his missed Dolch words on it... Then he had to roll the cube and (wow that sounds wrong... you can't really roll a cube...) write on the graph chart what world came up how many times, until one word hit six. After that I had him write the words on the back however many times they were rolled, this was a bit of an adaptation because I was stupid and didn't remember that he was supposed to write the words out when it came up, so I changed the rules a bit.

We then started on the word packet, which Norbit usually loves, but instead today he worked on one section and told me he was bored... I was surprised, another reason why I could feel he was in a mood. So instead I had him write out sentances using the words from the Dolch test that were in the Dice game. He hates writing, so I'm trying to make him a little more comfortable with it so that he will actually do his assignments. He only wanted to play Candy Land, but there was no way he was getting around doing work. He did what I asked, and then we had 15 minutes left so we played Candy Land, First Grade level because he is still having trouble with some of the words like "walk" and "every".

I am seriously debating on staying after my 25 hours are up to continue working with Norbit, he is a very well behaved kid, and he is learning the words we work on quickly. I also spoke with Diane, another tutor, and she is thinking the same thing. These kids are great to work with, and we look forward to going in to work with them...

Like one of our articles said, it's not the words, its what we do with them... or something like that to another effect... I am changing them to fit the fact that Norbit and I are working with words.

Writing Woes

So we arrived to tutor today and the class was taking a quick test on their vocabularly workbooks called Avenues. The test was split into two seperate groups: the greens were the kids who are reading on the Second Grade reading level, and the pinks and yellows were the kids who are just below reading level or who need a lot of help with their spelling and reading (Norbit being in the pink category, means he's almost at reading level). It was a bit of a confusing day it looked like; there was a new student in the class and he seemed to be having trouble understanding a lot of what was going on. After the pinks and yellows had finished thier test, they were told to finish thier writing assignments. The assignment was to make a list of safety rules for Trick or Treating. Norbit appeared to be done, but when Ms. Taylor asked him about his work, he hadn't written anything. She asked me if we could work on that together for part of our reading time.
When we got out into the hallway and were settled on our dots, I asked Martin if I could take a look at his assignment notebook. He had hardly written anything on any of the assignments throughout the first quarter! He wrote the title of the assignment and left the rest of the page blank. I asked him why he never wrote anything, to which he responded that writing "made him nervous". When asked why he was uncomfortable writing, he said that he didn't know how to spell a lot of things. So we started working on his assignment, and I set a goal to come up with 5 rules for safe candy gathering. Well the first thing he wrote down was the a rule was to dress up and get candy. So I had to explain what Ms. Taylor was looking for, and after he understood a little better it was much easier to go over simple rules like looking both ways when crossing the street, and never going out alone.
Norbit really enjoys the letter switching activity that we do, which surprises me. He "isn't good at spelling" but he does really well with changing letters of words to make new words. His big problem with spelling is that he spells things the way he hears them. When he spells costume for example, he spells it kowstom. Something that I have learned is that if I can find something catchy to say about things, kids usually remember them. So to help Norbit with his "costume problem" I told him to remember that there were no cows in his costume this year. After that he spelt the word really easily, the e on the end and the c instead of the k he caught onto very quickly. We did some high frequency suns with some of his missed Dolch words, and he actually asked if we could do more of the letter switching activity. Why not? He is comfortable doing this because he excels at it... so why not encourage him to do some more... We also played the First Grade candy land today, and he only had trouble on a few words... he cheated tremendously today though, but he was very nice... he picked one of the go back some spaces cards on purpose because he knew he was winning and told me he felt bad for me and wanted me to win. I thought that was cute. I had him laughing at me today as well, because I asked him if he understood Spanish. When he said he did, I responded in Spanish that I do not understand a lot. He looked at me and said "well you know that... you know Spanish!" After this he was much more comfortable talking to me. He goes through his assignments rather quickly, so I need to find more to do with him next week, I think I might find a short book that is at his reading level, and that will be the book that we read a little at a time each visit, so he can listen for the fluency in my own reading; this being a suggestion from Ms. Taylor, I might as well try it, he enjoys listening to me read books.

Meet Norbit

Ok, so it was rather funny that I walked into the classroom today, and immediately five kids raised their hands and said to Ms. Taylor "Raspucia's tutor is here, but she's in Florida, does she know that???" it was rather amusing... so we sat and watched as they worked with Ms. George, the reading coach... some of the kids lost interest very quickly... others jumped at every opportunity to answer a question. Some would just copy the answers others gave, so activities were retired very quickly today. They have started a new project, called "Word Wizards", where they have a book they read a few times a week, and they have to learn to use some of the bigger words in sentances, both in school and at home... the Wizard of the day has to explain the meaning of three words (those for the day being nearly, empty, and..... found)... and then has to use them in a sentance... hes allowed to wear a wizard hat but if someone asks him why (like in the hallway) he has to do the same thing... then the tutors were given Charlie Dollars because we willingly sang the "Little Teapot" song... it was mentioned in one of the books the kids were reading... (well i should say offered Charlie Dollars cuz we were never actually given them... Ms. George forgot...)
After the kids were done with their activity with the reading coach (which ran 15 minutes over into our tutoring time...) Ms. Taylor dismissed the reading buddies to meet their tutors. Norbit who had never met me before was called up on his own... which he immediately responded to with a look on his face equivalent to "Oh Crap, what have I done now??!!" I tried to smile encouragingly at him, but he just smiled back... sort of like... "why is this crazy lady smiling at me?" After Ms. Taylor was finished up with Ms. George, she introduced Norbit to me.
We began working on his words which are on a considerably higher level than Raspucia's had been, but he actually grew bored with the ones we worked on, and he admitted it to me which was good cuz I was afraid he wasn't going to talk to me. Looking past the fact that our time was shortened because of the reading coach, we got a lot accomplished. I had him start on the First Grade reading level Candy Land, and he only struggled with a few words... its just very hard to start him working on something when I don't know what he has been doing with Ms. Taylor already, I don't think she had a set strategy, because he said that he never did any of the activities like the rainbow words or the word packets. I don't quite know what I'm going to start him with next week, I'm unsure whether or not I should try bumping him up a few levels or not... it's going to be difficult.

Officially Sad :(

So Raspucia's absolute last day was today. She seemed ok when we first started working on her word stuff... but she kept zoning out every couple of minutes. Then when we were working on Candy Land again (this time by ourselves) she told me she was sad about having to leave her friends and about leaving school because "she wants to learn". so instead of pushing her to do her other assignments (which she obviously was not in the mood for) I had her do a different one. I told her to write in her notebook first on how she felt about going to Florida. she came up with words like, nice, good, family, you know... easy things... so then I told her to write about how she felt about her friends at Charles Fortes, not how she felt leaving them mind... that comes into play later... but again she used good, nice and then she went on to sad, and i will miss playing with them, and i will miss my teachers. after that i let her talk about it... she seemed to feel better after that which was good. when it was almost time for me to go and for her to go back to class, thats when she went into sudden panic mode. she doesnt want to go on the plane by herself, and she doesnt want to walk down the tunnel connecting the plane to the terminal by herself. shes worried that her aunt won't be there to pick her up on the other side... and all sorts of other things like that, which naturally a second grader should be worried about. I felt terrible though, she was leaning on me and it felt like she was nearly in tears the entire time. I tried to reassure her as best i could, and thats when she told me that i was her best friend and that she liked me cuz i did a good job as a tutor and because i helped her learn things that she didnt get before. yeah... miss cahoon almost cried... so when she finally calmed down a bit i brought her back into class and just told ms. taylor that she may need a little extra reassuring because she was very nervous about leaving. then she let Raspucia give me a hug, which made me more upset... and then she had to go back to class.... i miss her already :( she was a great kid :( ms. taylor already has another student ready to be shifted to me, which is good... but its like starting from square one... i was used to Raspucia, and she was used to me and we had formed a bond... so now i'll have to do that all over again with Norbit, the young boy that has been assigned to me (and yes, another name from the movie).

Wednesday Wednesday

Ok, so... not much difference in today's routine... observation of the class went smoothly... and then we broke off with our reading buddies. The first thing Raspucia told me this morning was that she only has one day left at her other school, and that she was upset because she wanted to stay here and to learn and be with her friends. So of course for the rest of the morning there was that black cloud over our heads... but hey we worked through it. We started work on her blends and such... which is basically changing the sounds of words and switching letters around on a letter pocket to match those sounds.... she did well on that... then we picked some more of the dolch test words and did high frequency suns... those were ok... not as much fun as the rainbow words though... we read two books from her independent reading level, and they were the most horrible books in the world... the Doo-Bee-Roo i think one was called and Phillipa and the Dragon... she had some trouble with those so i think that next time we'll just use her own teacher selected reading books. after that we joined Paquito and his tutor for a game of Candy Land, but this time because Raspucia did so well with the Primer game, we moved up to the First Grade reading level game. She did ok... got stuck on a few words like "how" and "round"... she tended to pronounce how like who and she always attached an a to the front of round... the game took up most of the time, especially with four of us playing and the two kids going up a level and having to get used to newer and harder words. At 10 they rejoined their class, and I went to ask Ms. Taylor if she knew when Raspucia's last day would be, and apparently she is getting mixed messages from at home as well... so nobody seems to be sure when exactly she'll be leaving. Ms. Taylor is keeping one of the other students in need of a tutor up to speed, so that way when Raspucia does end up moving I can help him and he won't be too far behind from missing the first few weeks with a tutor. It's just sad. Raspucia shows improvement every time I see her, and she is never any trouble... so It's really sad to see her leave :( I'm going to be depressed now...

A Disheartened World

So I went to tutor Raspucia today, and was saddened to learn that in a week or two she will be moving to Florida. She is a sweet kid, and we are rather attached even though we've only met twice now. I do not think that she really understands what is going on, because she asked me if I would be coming back every Wednesday and Friday, so of course I told her yes and almost cried cuz I was upset.

We started working on learning some of the words from the Dolch test that she missed. I had her do some "Rainbow Words", which I supplied materials for from copies made from the big ol' packet thing we were given at training, and also colored pencils which I had to have my mommy sharpen because the electric pencil sharpener and I do not get along, and I did not have time to fight with the stupid thing this morning. Basically we chose the first five words she got wrong, and she wrote them out in all of the colors of ROYGBIV, except indigo... we used light blue and dark blue... stupid indigo...

Raspucia did awesome on that, so then we chose two books and she read them aloud to me. She confused the words "get" and "got" a few times, and she also added words to the stories as she went along, but when prompted she did them correctly. so then we played candy land as a last thing...

We played last week, and a few words she had a very hard time pronouncing... she had trouble with "pretty" and "who" last week, and this week she nailed them on first sight! I was so excited, and she was very pleased with herself as she explained that she practiced them at home so she would know them for next time we played together... I was so proud!!!!

After I won that game ( not on purpose... I tried to lose, shes rather competitive at Candy Land) we joined up with another pair of reading buddies. that game was hilarious... the boy was funny as hell, trying to pick the cards he wanted by cheating and looking at them for the ice cream cone and all that good stuff. Raspucia and I were an awesome team, and seemed a bit more unified then the other pair... it was amusing... but Raspucia also did not cheat, and still ended up winning by a great margin... so it was all good...

Raspucia went back to class, and I talked with Mrs. Taylor about when she would be leaving. The exact time is uncertain... but she thinks within the next two weeks... which really sucks... Raspucia is a cute kid and shes very easy going... so once she moves, I'll be given another reading buddy... Mrs. Taylor already has a young boy picked out who needs that little extra push, so the missed time won't affect him too much... but I'm still sad.... I like my Raspucia reading buddy... :(

My First Visit to Fortes Elementary

So I was very excited to start my Reading Buddies program today. There were three of us starting on this nasty, gross, dreary, rainy, Wednesday; however the kids seemed undaunted by the weather. We were brought into the Second Grade classroom of Mrs. Taylor in room 212, where we felt like specimens under a microscope. Every child had their eyes on us as we sat in the back of the class observing for the first 30 minutes. They were very well behaved and were very intelligent on the subject of short and long vowel sounds.
Looking around the room, it seemed to be a very interactive class. Lots of artwork and stuff you know... and each desk had a personalized sack thingy attached to the chair for books and folders to go into. All of the kids in the school have their own big lockers to store things in... it was like a little junior high school.
Once they were done with their vowel sounds (or once they were done being fascinated by the three strange women in front of the class) the teacher broke them into centers and showed us where the reading buddies individual boxes were. After that we were allowed to choose our buddies. I chose a little girl named Raspucia (yes this name was taken from the movie Norbit and obviously is not the name of the actual girl). The teacher called Rodney, Justina, and Raspucia to the front and introduced them to us, their new buddies. They were all very excited, and had huge smiles on their faces. I let Raspucia decide which little dots (the mats were circular) so I called them dots, and we went out into the hallway. We started with the Dolch Test, where I could see what level of spelling and reading she was on. She did really well, but skipped the words she didn't know without much of a trial and error or sound it out stage. After we were done with that we sat around and chatted about stuff like our siblings, favorite foods, favorite colors, and about Halloween. Then we grabbed the Candy Land game (adapted for spelling) and played that. The first game I let her win, but instead of just reading the words myself for my turn, I had her read them with me, sounding out the word after she said it, then moving ahead to the color.
When it was time for us to go, the three kids were upset. They didn't express it but you could kinda tell. We returned them to their classrooms and put their things back in their boxes. I told Raspucia that I was coming back every Wednesday and Friday in the morning for the next month or so and she was very excited knowing I would be coming back on Friday. So all in all it was a good day. I can't wait to go back and really start work on some of the words that she had problems with. I am determined to get her reading up to second grade level or maybe third by the end of my community service.