Why I Like Teaching Kids How to Read

The thing about my job that I love the best is the interaction with my students.

This year I have a whole seven students in my class. They range from five to eight years of age. So I am teaching three grades. But while I know the curriculum and the educational outcomes expected to be reached by all of my little scholars, I actually have the privilege to teach seven individuals and I have the luxury that I can focus my programme to their specific needs. This is both hard work, coming up with separate programmes, but very gratifying.

As a person with ASD with colleagues who don't really have a concept of what that means, I know what it is to be an, at times, isolated individual.  I particularly feel a sense of camaraderie with those kids who just seem, for whatever reason, square pegs in round holes.

The student with the greatest academic challenges - I suspect with undiagnosed Dyslexia, is one of those. To get this little boy who is on the cusp of learned helplessness to feel like school is for him, that he is clever and he will read, is my goal for this year. But just observing him closely I can see how well he can remember what he hears and sees if it is in the context of what he gets to do. He learns through doing.

Instead of focusing on deciphering text we are making words together. His words, about what he is doing and what he is interested in. I have started teaching him all the sound patterns through stories. I have given the letters personalities and stories to help him and my other students remember.

 For example Harry 'H' is a really calm and friendly letter. When he is around some of his friends he can calm them down and make them say different sounds. Harry can quieten Sally 'S' who is always singing so loudly. When they get together they say 'sh'.

Today my class has been doing a shared writing task. A story about Ignatius Ivan 'I' ,(vowels get double barrelled names), who is very itchy. The kids get 'e' and 'i' sounds mixed up. So if I start scratching they remember which it is. I draw cartoons of the letters and we talk about them as if they are people.

The kids decided that Ignatius was itchy because he was bitten by insects.  I did have to explain that a spider is in fact an arachnid to one enthusiastic author. They decided it was fleas. To finish our tale the students thought the best solution was to flea wash his dog.

 I really only started this programme this term so it will be interesting to see if the adventures of all the letters in the alphabet and the relationships they form on the way, can  help teach a child who has difficulties, to read.

Rote Learning

I'm back from the great meeting of minds. The speaker, despite making us move seats almost as soon as we were settled, was pretty good. He talked about human relations and making your work place a happier one by communicating with people as individuals and recognising them for their unique characteristics as humans rather than as the position they hold. There was a lot of friendly banter in the audience and only a couple of those silly games that are supposed to introduce his next idea. One was drawing a cat with your eyes shut. Not sure how that related to communication but it filled in five minutes. The talk, all in all, did give me a bit to think about generally and best of all I could easily control any urges I had to answer his questions or comment. It was looking good.

Lunch was fantastic and I could easily avoid temptation. Lots of fresh salad and a range of plain meat dishes and vegetarian options, (hurray no sandwiches!) and there were prawns. A very good spread indeed.

In the afternoon we split into collegiate groups; mine Maths/Science. It was one teacher's comment on getting back into the rote learning of tables to primary students that started the rant. I'm not sure how it escalated in to the ridiculousness of teaching up to the twelve times table in a society based on base ten. And then I somehow got maneuvered into my pet hate that why we as a society still use fractions and percentages to represent numbers that are just confusing to primary students and adults alike. I'd better not start, but why do we need to express... no won't go there. So I probably wasted about five minutes of the groups precious collaborating time.
To make up for my outbursts and dominating the conversation I took on a task that will take me an inordinate amount of time. Useful but more time than I really have to spare. Luckily I have my husband, also a teacher to help me out here. He needs to make up some professional development hours so.... 

Well my internal turmoil driving home was not great because I really only stood out in a crowd of ten. There is only a few more days of school before we break for Easter and then I get to exercise another of my passions; I'm off on camp as a Scout Leader.

Cluster Meeting Tomorrow

Tomorrow I am going to a meeting involving all the teachers in our cluster. We will listen to a speaker and then we will break into groups to discuss how we can support each other as teachers in our particular subject areas. I'm hanging with the Maths/Science teachers. I did some collegiate work in Writing last year so time for a change. As a generalist it doesn't matter where I go but I do have a Science degree and I am peeved at how Maths and Science always seem to be the poor cousins to teaching Literacy. Thirty teachers in the writing group and only one primary teacher in the Maths Science group - me - with nine other secondary teachers.

The drive is about two and a half hours and I shall have to get up early.  I will leave my husband with the bulk of the getting kids ready for school routine. I will just have to get myself organised and then I get all that solitude and think-time in the car.

The drive home may be a different matter. It will be tiring and I will inevitably go over in my head all that has happened during the day. On the positive side I may be excited at some new thing I have learned or someone interesting I have connected with. On a more depressing note there may be the recollection that I put my hand up one too many times during the question and answer session or appeared too opinionated at the small group session. I do have strategies but when my blood's up I find it hard to control myself.

 One strategy I use is to calculate how many people are in the room and how many questions are likely to be asked and then work out how many times would be socially acceptable enough for me to raise my hand or give a comment. Sometimes the speakers are interesting and I am keen to get more information. Sometimes they are just relabeling old ideas in a fancy packaging. Then I can't help it and find  myself and asking them things like "if they mean Vygotsky's zone of proximal development?" Then I look just like a 'smart-arse' and they come and find me at morning tea break and try to engage me in conversation. I don't like to stand out but have an uncanny knack for making it happen.

There will of course be food provided that I shouldn't eat because of my dietary restrictions (Like most Aspies I know, I have a noncompliant digestive system when it comes to wheat and dairy) but I will of course not be organised enough to have brought anything of my own that is near as yummy.

I will also get to catch up with colleagues I haven't seen for a long time and it does give me a little adrenalin rush doing something different for the day. But I know that I will be a wreck when I do get home. Worked up and hyper from the social activity. My long suffering husband will have to hear the debrief, my kids will not get the attention they require from their mother and I will have to face my own school workmates the next day.  I live in hope that the day will go well.