New Technology

Working with a young man from the Ukraine and I knew I would be out of town for our first meeting so I asked him if he had Skype and yes he did so I sent him a request and he accepted so last night we met even though we were in different parts of the state. It went well but it is obvious that he is more technologically inclined than I. We got things covered but we will try to meet face to face as it was very obvious that our sound was a little out of whack and in dealing with a language where grapheme phoneme relationship as far as speech is considered is very important. He picked up the sounds very well I thought but he is struggling a bit with the short /e/ and short /i/ which I really thing being in the same room with will help him and me both. My hearing and dialect will influence but if we keep going and keep working we will be fine. I learn more from my students than they can ever learn from me.

Slow but steady pays.

Been working with and intervention group and have been going over sounds and the letters that they represent with my group. Why that is what the data we have compiled on these students say they are missing. Today they were progress monitored and 3 of the 4 tested out. The one that didn't test out is from another country and is really going through an extended silent period. But if I just keep going slow and steady I may just work myself out of an intervention group and into another one that needs some academic foundations that they may have missed in the past. The hare may be faster but the slow and steady turtle won the race. Sometimes achievement comes in leaps and bound but more often than not if you just keep working with them on the needed skills to read they will get there.

The heart warming effect students have on me.

The other day we were working interventions with some of our students and my para was taking a couple at a time over to watch how the letters are formed in the mouth and lips. I was working the alphabet and the sounds that they represent with the others. I allow students to get loud and I get loud too. We have fun and we learn at the same time (at least I do). I get very animated with my good job, way to go etc. and I can't remember what I did but I was excited that one of them got the next letter in sequence and did something while I was congratulating them. One of my really reserved/quiet girls started laughing at me/or my actions and she got to laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes. Guess what, that brought tears to mine also. When parents ask me if I am ready for school to start or how my day was I often tell them great I work with angels all day long. Some think I am being sarcastic, I am not. The greatest thrill for me is to see a child smile, laugh, learn a sequence etc. Teachers really get to work with angels. We should never forget that! Even on our worst day we are someones best hope.

Lost in the translation

Tonight, I was trying to make a point about nouns and adjectives and their placement. I put up on the board the first thing that came to my mind "fast red car" and then asked a student to come to the board to write it in Portuguese. The chatter went up considerably as I was trying to figure out what the problem was. The young man went to the board and hesitantly started to translate. I was eventually found out that the phrase I had put on the board was one that my students said would not have been uttered in their language, but they did get the point. English is adjective then noun usually and in other languages it may be noun then adjective. I learn more everyday from my students regardless of their age.