Wednesday, Day Twenty-seven

Today, was a typical day. In language arts, I had the third grade catching up in their workbooks. I have one student who is very bright but when I call on her to read aloud, I never know what to expect. There are times she does very well reading and then there are times that she struggles with simple words such as 'words'. I am watching her because I am not sure what is going on there. This class is very early and most of the students are very unresponsive. We struggled through and finished all that we needed. The students had already had a lesson in contractions with my ST, yet they still struggled through the workbook page. Two of them were really on top of it. But most when I asked how do we make a contraction of the two words has and not, would respond with the spelling of has'not. We still have some work to do.

In our reading about motivation I do see some of my students. I have one third grader who is always announcing were she is in her work and asking another student were they are. I believe that is a performance motivation although we are not a class that focuses on "normative grading practices (which imply that only a percentage of students are likely to succeed)" (McKeahie, 2006) and we do provide opportunities for revision and improving written work. She is very competitive amongst her classmates. That is not necessarily a bad thing, it seems to be her motivator. I would like to see all my students perform because of mastery goals. Since all my students have some type of goal in their IEP, motivation to obtain a mastery of the material would benefit them greatly.

Math in the fourth grade was interesting. I gave a quick review so we good test over the chapter about time and it went well. The test was a different story. This makes me feel that I did not teach it very well. My ST has given me many options to develop their understanding. I think I will retest and average those test scores. The students had asked for free time and I told them it depended on when we were finished. That was a mistake. I think they rushed through the test and did not do well. I think next time the answer will be "don't ask when we are in the middle of a lesson".

My little guy was too busy catching up on the work he missed when he left early to work with today. I did however send the set of alphabet flashcards and a letter home with him. He is doing better, in his daily work I will occasionaly ask him about a letter or number and very often he responds with the correct answer. We will get there.