I have been very conflicted about eliminating my first guiding question. It didn't seem to fit in with the others, and I wanted to focus on how I can help Leo develop his identity as a reader, not my own beliefs. Those could wait, and so far, I felt a bit stumped about them.
However, my professors urged me (after exchanging looks) to keep the first question. They didn't specify why, but seemed sure that it all would come together in the end. It reminded me of The Karate Kid - Mr. Miyagi tells Danny to do all these things that don't make any sense, but later on he has unconsciously become a karate expert. So I went with it, and my question remains.
I was also advised to get some new books for Leo, about space, Star Wars, or whatever he's interested in. So yesterday, I went to the Columbia library. I was getting books for another project, so I picked up a few for Leo as well. I wanted to see if he'd read any non-Star Wars books before I caved completely, so I got him two hilarious Jon Scieszka books, and a command book called "There Are Cats in This Book." It has lots of flaps, energetic and colorful illustrations, and witty text. I hope he likes them! I will do anything to get this kid excited about reading and writing.
I also spoke with Leo's teacher. It appears that his parents are divorced, and he spends most of his time at his mom's house, who works. It's very possible she does not have the time to read to him, which would explain his indifference to most books.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Writing Conference
Today was my first official writing "conference" with Leo. However, I have been having conversations like this with him about his writing all semester. My goal today was to see if I could stretch his learning beyond his comfort zone - he usually draws pictures with one-letter labels. I wanted to encourage him to try and sound out more than one letter in his words. He does not take risks with his writing, and I'd like him to start doing so.
I used Katie Wood Ray's format for the Architecture of a Conference, which starts with assessment. I saw that Leo was drawing a picture of a volcano. He added various elements, such as an eruption, lava streaming down the sides, and several dinosaurs. I asked him when he was going to label it, and he told me that he didn't have to until after he colored it. However, I told him that if he wanted, his teacher wouldn't mind if he labeled it before he colored. He labeled "D" for dinosaur. Now came my teaching point. I asked him, "Do you think you could stretch out that word to hear some other sounds?" He immediately did so completely independently, and was able to spell out "DNSR." This helped me to see that he is in fact able to hear and identify consonant sounds, and needs work on vowel sounds. For now, though, I asked him for next time to try this out on his own. This is the "Clear Vision" part of Ray's conferencing technique. Next time I conference with him, I will look for whether or not he is trying to write out entire words instead of the first letter.
Reflection
The way writing is taught in this classroom doesn't exactly align with my own beliefs. Reading About the Authors, by Katie Wood Ray and Lisa B. Cleaveland, brought my attention to the fact that writing should be specific and intentional. This means that the decision making plays a huge part in the writing process - something I hadn't thought about before. I now see that a child knowing exactly what they want to write and taking the steps to do so independently shows that they are real writers. Just because a child can put letters on a page doesn't meant they are a writer, and it certainly doesn't mean that they are interested in writing. It's still a bit unclear to me how I could facilitate this independence, however. the idea that evaluation of a student's writing (instead of an assessment - by evaluation I mean placing a score or value on it) is harmful and places value or lack of value really stuck with me. I'd never thought of it that way before. Spelling tests and red marks were always a part of my life that I'd accepted as a child, but now I'm questioning whether or not that's the way it should be. I don't think I would want to use these kinds of assessments in my own classroom. However, I do know that what Wood Ray describe as a "writer-centered" curriculum is the one I want to use. That is, a curriculum in which students guide their own learning by investigating what interests them and what they want to know.
I used Katie Wood Ray's format for the Architecture of a Conference, which starts with assessment. I saw that Leo was drawing a picture of a volcano. He added various elements, such as an eruption, lava streaming down the sides, and several dinosaurs. I asked him when he was going to label it, and he told me that he didn't have to until after he colored it. However, I told him that if he wanted, his teacher wouldn't mind if he labeled it before he colored. He labeled "D" for dinosaur. Now came my teaching point. I asked him, "Do you think you could stretch out that word to hear some other sounds?" He immediately did so completely independently, and was able to spell out "DNSR." This helped me to see that he is in fact able to hear and identify consonant sounds, and needs work on vowel sounds. For now, though, I asked him for next time to try this out on his own. This is the "Clear Vision" part of Ray's conferencing technique. Next time I conference with him, I will look for whether or not he is trying to write out entire words instead of the first letter.
Reflection
The way writing is taught in this classroom doesn't exactly align with my own beliefs. Reading About the Authors, by Katie Wood Ray and Lisa B. Cleaveland, brought my attention to the fact that writing should be specific and intentional. This means that the decision making plays a huge part in the writing process - something I hadn't thought about before. I now see that a child knowing exactly what they want to write and taking the steps to do so independently shows that they are real writers. Just because a child can put letters on a page doesn't meant they are a writer, and it certainly doesn't mean that they are interested in writing. It's still a bit unclear to me how I could facilitate this independence, however. the idea that evaluation of a student's writing (instead of an assessment - by evaluation I mean placing a score or value on it) is harmful and places value or lack of value really stuck with me. I'd never thought of it that way before. Spelling tests and red marks were always a part of my life that I'd accepted as a child, but now I'm questioning whether or not that's the way it should be. I don't think I would want to use these kinds of assessments in my own classroom. However, I do know that what Wood Ray describe as a "writer-centered" curriculum is the one I want to use. That is, a curriculum in which students guide their own learning by investigating what interests them and what they want to know.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Progress?
After reading about Writer’s Workshop in Katie Wood Ray’s
“About the Authors” this week, I realized that I should revisit Leo’s journal.
Before, I had looked at each piece separately, but the reading had given me the
idea to do another assessment based on his work over a period of time. Looking
at all his pieces as a whole, and examining how they developed over time would
be a valuable process if I wanted to see if anything had changed since the
beginning of the year. The book states (p. 140) that children often repeat work
in order to feel safe and competent as writers. This is completely
understandable – I’d rather do something I’d done a million times that I knew I
was good at than try something scary and new. This uncertainty causes kids to do
things like draw the same house over and over (what I’d seen a little girl
doing in class a few weeks ago when flipping through her notebook - she had nothing but identical pictures of houses on each page). However, it is our job as teachers to
push them out of their comfort zone, and into a zone where they can learn
(Vygotsky, anyone?)
With
this knowledge, I saw Leo’s notebook with new eyes. His Star Wars pictures of
Yoda, C3PO, and Darth Vader were clustered towards the front of his
notebook – what had been the beginning of the year. His most recent drawings
depicted other things, such as a Christmas tree, a frightening bug creature, a
bear, and an extremely detailed pirate ship, complete with several pirates and
even a parrot (labeled with a P). He characteristically told me, “I only need
to label P once because P is for parrot AND pirate.” I couldn’t tell if this
was a wonderful use of his knowledge of P sounds, or just laziness, but it’s
clear that Leo has progressed since the beginning of the year regarding what he is choosing to put in his "writing."
Questioning Leads to More Questions
This week was a kind of “free week,” where we could choose
to do another type of assessment on our target child, or do something else. I
chose to spend this time building my rapport with Leo, as it’s starting to seem
like all our one-on-one time is spent assessing. This Saturday, I attended a
teaching conference, and something one of the teachers said stuck with me. She
said that above all else, it was important to have a relationship with your
students. This seems obvious, but it had never really occurred to me before as
a first priority. Now I realize that it makes perfect sense that student trust is critical – to learn from someone who they have a relationship with instead of someone they don’t know is a no-brainer for kids. So, this Tuesday, I attempted to get
to know Leo a bit better.
However,
after I talked with him, I had more questions. He never talks about his Dad –
is he in the picture? Do his parent(s) read to him? I remember having asked him
that, but he answered very vaguely. His concept of reading and mine could be
different – I realize that not all parents sit in bed with their children to
read books every night like mine did. However, I was again saddened by the fact
that Leo does not demonstrate a great interest in reading. This is what leads
me to believe that he does not read at home. I will conference with his teacher
next week, as she could give me some valuable information regarding Leo’s home
life.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Spelling Assessment
For my spelling assessment, I decided to use the Gentry Spelling Assessment on Leo. I believe it was appropriate because while Leo cannot yet write words independently, he appears to have enough phonetic knowledge to know beginning sounds of most words. I wanted to see if he had any knowledge of consonant sounds or ending sounds as well. The words on the left are the conventional spellings, and the words following are Leo's interpretations of those same words. The words in parenthesis indicate which stage of spelling development these words indicate.
1.) Monster = MsTR (Semiphonetic)
2.) United = tn (Semiphonetic) He heard the T first, and then the N upon repeating the word.
3.) Dress = S (Semiphonetic) He couldn't figure out what it started with, but he knew end sound.
4.) Bottom = B_______d (Semiphonetic) He left a space because he knew there were other sounds, and the B represents the T sound, as they are often confused in early spelling development.
5.) Hiked = T (Semiphonetic) He could only figure out the end sound - d/t.
6.) Human = 0 (Precommunicative) "I'm going to write a zero because I don't know that one."
7.) Beagle = B___g (Semiphonetic) Heard some sounds and left a space between then purposefully
8.) Closed = L (Semiphonetic) He said he also heard the beginning sound K, but he couldn't remember how to write it.
9.) Bumped = B____T (Semiphonetic) Similar to #4
10.) Type = T (Semiphonetic) Knew beginning sound - I'm not sure he knew what this word meant
Leo shows mainly semiphonetic knowledge, but it's apparent that he has trouble with beginning sounds. This makes sense, because his teacher has placed him in the reading group that works on this skill. He was inventive during the assessment by placing spaces between sounds he knew, because he knows that there were other letters in the words. He repeatedly told me that the sounds he was writing down were the only ones he knew, which also shows that he's aware there are other letters - he just doesn't know them yet. Once he has mastered one-to-one matching, he will have a better understanding of the way words look and the sounds that they start and end with.
Leo does have a lot of knowledge about writing in general. Orthographically, he knows how to write most letters (and most definitely recognize them) and has a good sense of directionality. He knows what a letter and a word is, and understands the function of many kinds of writing. He also uses talk and drawing in his writing, which I learned from reading Kidwatching, create meaningful messages. Drawing, which he always does in his writer's notebook, "helps children rehearse and develop ideas for writing, supplies information about characters, settings, and events; and disambiguates text; and it helps others understand what has been written" (Owocki and Goodman). Although he has not yet started to add complex text, I learned that drawing is a precursor to what will eventually develop into conventional writing.
1.) Monster = MsTR (Semiphonetic)
2.) United = tn (Semiphonetic) He heard the T first, and then the N upon repeating the word.
3.) Dress = S (Semiphonetic) He couldn't figure out what it started with, but he knew end sound.
4.) Bottom = B_______d (Semiphonetic) He left a space because he knew there were other sounds, and the B represents the T sound, as they are often confused in early spelling development.
5.) Hiked = T (Semiphonetic) He could only figure out the end sound - d/t.
6.) Human = 0 (Precommunicative) "I'm going to write a zero because I don't know that one."
7.) Beagle = B___g (Semiphonetic) Heard some sounds and left a space between then purposefully
8.) Closed = L (Semiphonetic) He said he also heard the beginning sound K, but he couldn't remember how to write it.
9.) Bumped = B____T (Semiphonetic) Similar to #4
10.) Type = T (Semiphonetic) Knew beginning sound - I'm not sure he knew what this word meant
Leo shows mainly semiphonetic knowledge, but it's apparent that he has trouble with beginning sounds. This makes sense, because his teacher has placed him in the reading group that works on this skill. He was inventive during the assessment by placing spaces between sounds he knew, because he knows that there were other letters in the words. He repeatedly told me that the sounds he was writing down were the only ones he knew, which also shows that he's aware there are other letters - he just doesn't know them yet. Once he has mastered one-to-one matching, he will have a better understanding of the way words look and the sounds that they start and end with.
Leo does have a lot of knowledge about writing in general. Orthographically, he knows how to write most letters (and most definitely recognize them) and has a good sense of directionality. He knows what a letter and a word is, and understands the function of many kinds of writing. He also uses talk and drawing in his writing, which I learned from reading Kidwatching, create meaningful messages. Drawing, which he always does in his writer's notebook, "helps children rehearse and develop ideas for writing, supplies information about characters, settings, and events; and disambiguates text; and it helps others understand what has been written" (Owocki and Goodman). Although he has not yet started to add complex text, I learned that drawing is a precursor to what will eventually develop into conventional writing.
Kidwatching: October
October 9
• Leo has a LOT of pictures of Star Wars in his writing journal. He has not labeled many of his drawings, especially at the beginning of the year
• He shows me "Goodnight Moon." The first time, he flips through the pages and names all the objects, narrating: "You stole my cats! You stole my bowl of sugar!" etc.
I wonder where he got this idea?
• He flips through it again and tells me to look for the mouse on every page. When I asked him how he knew to do that, he said that he's found them before.
He likes picture search books - I think he'd love the "I Spy" books.
• Small group: Leo is working on the letter N. He volunteers "nice" for a word that begins with N, and the children copy the words on their own pages.
• He writes his "a" backwards and pauses between each letter to look up at the teacher's word list. He writes bottom up, instead of top-down.
• They then draw nests in a box on the page. Leo's is attached to a tree and shows detail.
October 11
• During introduction to handwriting lesson: "I knew it was going to be "Mom" because we wrote that in summer school!"
• Leo and his friend Nick are reading together and singing the fireman song from their class poem book.
During "Word Work"
• "O is my favorite page!" he tells me - he likes the octopus. Instead of tracing the letters, he colors the octopus's eyes red and tells me he has red sunglasses on.
• "Hey, this arrow is showing me the way to go!" (He has noticed the arrow pointing on the letters he should be tracing. Once noted, he traces all the letters on the page)
During group work
• He missed school yesterday, so the others fill him in on "The Log Hotel."
• He does not point to the words they are reading and is picking his nails and staring into space
Does he have one-to-one matching?
• He still volunteers "No excuse words" during the actual lesson, but did not exhibit interest in the story.
For the record, it was a terribly boring book.
Some of Leo's artwork
• Leo has a LOT of pictures of Star Wars in his writing journal. He has not labeled many of his drawings, especially at the beginning of the year
• He shows me "Goodnight Moon." The first time, he flips through the pages and names all the objects, narrating: "You stole my cats! You stole my bowl of sugar!" etc.
I wonder where he got this idea?
• He flips through it again and tells me to look for the mouse on every page. When I asked him how he knew to do that, he said that he's found them before.
He likes picture search books - I think he'd love the "I Spy" books.
• Small group: Leo is working on the letter N. He volunteers "nice" for a word that begins with N, and the children copy the words on their own pages.
• He writes his "a" backwards and pauses between each letter to look up at the teacher's word list. He writes bottom up, instead of top-down.
• They then draw nests in a box on the page. Leo's is attached to a tree and shows detail.
October 11
• During introduction to handwriting lesson: "I knew it was going to be "Mom" because we wrote that in summer school!"
• Leo and his friend Nick are reading together and singing the fireman song from their class poem book.
During "Word Work"
• "O is my favorite page!" he tells me - he likes the octopus. Instead of tracing the letters, he colors the octopus's eyes red and tells me he has red sunglasses on.
• "Hey, this arrow is showing me the way to go!" (He has noticed the arrow pointing on the letters he should be tracing. Once noted, he traces all the letters on the page)
During group work
• He missed school yesterday, so the others fill him in on "The Log Hotel."
• He does not point to the words they are reading and is picking his nails and staring into space
Does he have one-to-one matching?
• He still volunteers "No excuse words" during the actual lesson, but did not exhibit interest in the story.
For the record, it was a terribly boring book.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Book Handling Assessment
Leo’s responses are in italics
1. Show book; title covered by
hand. “What’s this?”
I
don’t know this book. It’s a famous book because it has a badge (points to
Caldecott award on cover).
2. Display book. What do you do
with it?”
Read
it. Sometimes you just look at the pictures if you don’t know how to read.
3. “What’s inside it?”
Pictures.
4. Hold on to a page. “Show me a
page in this book.”
Leo
is able to show what a page is.
5. “Show me the top of the page.
Show me the bottom of the page.”
Leo
is able to show the top and bottom of the page.
6. Present book upside down and
back toward child. “Show me the front of the book.”
Leo
indicates front page, and knows “title.”
7. “Show me the beginning of the
story. Show me the end of the story.”
Leo
shows the title page and the end page.
8. Turn back to the beginning of
the story. “Show me with your finger exactly where we have to begin reading.”
Leo
starts wiggling in his chair, and will not indicate the first page.
9. “Show me with your finger which
way we go as we read this page.”
Leo
indicates left to right, says, “I would read this way.”
10. “Where will we read then?”
Leo indicates top line to bottom line, with return sweep.
Leo indicates top line to bottom line, with return sweep.
11. “Read the book to me.”
Leo declined
“Pretend to read it.”
With
me reading every other page, Leo reluctantly hypothesizes what is going on in
each picture.
12. Read one page. “You point to
the story while I read it.” Read slowly.
Leo
does not match spoken with written words.
13. Turn to a page with print and a
picture on it. Turn the book upside down. “Can you read this now?”
No,
because it’s upside down. And I can’t read.
14. Show student how to use masking
cards to close “curtains” over “window.” Ask child to close curtains until they
find one letter. Now two letters.
Leo
was not able to complete this activity due to lack of attention
15. “Show me the first letter in a
word. Show me the last letter in a word.”
Leo
indicated both first and last letters.
16. Comprehension: “Tell me
something about the story.”
I
didn’t like it. Because I don’t like books, except Star Wars books.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Reflection
Last week, I came to an understanding about Leo, one which is probably true regarding many of the children in his class. Leo doesn't like to read - and I have no idea what to do about it.
After our literacy survey, I had an inkling that he wasn't entirely enthusiastic about reading, but this week's observations have given me a fairly solid view of his ideas on books and literacy. He is fairly evasive when it comes to talking about reading. Last week, I gave him a book handling assessment. Trying to get him to tell me about the story based on the pictures was like pulling teeth, and he displayed the same avoidance of the subject matter by talking about Star Wars instead of the questions I was asking him. After reading "Snowy Day, I asked him what he remembered about the story. He said he didn't know, and when I pressed him, he told me, "I remember that I didn't like it." I was shocked. Leo is a great kid, and I know that he's smart, but his response took me completely by surprise. I do not believe children can be good readers unless they are excited about what they read - so how do I get him excited about reading? And how do I broaden his interests beyond Legos and Star Wars? I think children should be able to read about whatever they are interested in, but there will come a time in their lives when they have required reading. This time is when many children lose their love of reading - and I think that's a tragedy.
I've also noticed another pattern with Leo. While he is a good student, and does exactly what is expected of him, he does no more than that. He just doesn't seem excited about learning. It seems that he's mainly extrinsically motivated, which is why he follows directions so well.
These recent observations have caused me to add another Guiding Question to my list - how can I motivate students? How can I get them interested and excited to learn - and most importantly - how can this motivation come from within?
After our literacy survey, I had an inkling that he wasn't entirely enthusiastic about reading, but this week's observations have given me a fairly solid view of his ideas on books and literacy. He is fairly evasive when it comes to talking about reading. Last week, I gave him a book handling assessment. Trying to get him to tell me about the story based on the pictures was like pulling teeth, and he displayed the same avoidance of the subject matter by talking about Star Wars instead of the questions I was asking him. After reading "Snowy Day, I asked him what he remembered about the story. He said he didn't know, and when I pressed him, he told me, "I remember that I didn't like it." I was shocked. Leo is a great kid, and I know that he's smart, but his response took me completely by surprise. I do not believe children can be good readers unless they are excited about what they read - so how do I get him excited about reading? And how do I broaden his interests beyond Legos and Star Wars? I think children should be able to read about whatever they are interested in, but there will come a time in their lives when they have required reading. This time is when many children lose their love of reading - and I think that's a tragedy.
I've also noticed another pattern with Leo. While he is a good student, and does exactly what is expected of him, he does no more than that. He just doesn't seem excited about learning. It seems that he's mainly extrinsically motivated, which is why he follows directions so well.
These recent observations have caused me to add another Guiding Question to my list - how can I motivate students? How can I get them interested and excited to learn - and most importantly - how can this motivation come from within?
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Kidwatching Notes : September
These are a summary of notes over the course of the month of September. My personal thoughts are in italics throughout the notes.
13 September, 2012
• Leo has chosen a class book for his independent reading. He is flipping through "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom," "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," and "If You Give a Moose a Muffin." Is this because they are familiar to him? They focused on Chicka Chicka Boom Boom at the beginning of the year.
• Appears to only be looking at the pictures, due to speed of his page-flipping
• During Read-To-Self, he reads a "Maisy" book, and is also flipping through the pages quickly. He reads it twice, and points to the pictures. He's now staring into space.
• During handwriting journals - Leo self-talks to find the "J" page. He says, "Juh Juh Joe."
• Good oral and conversational skills, as well as fairly high vocabulary.
• During group activities, Leo sits very still and quietly
• He raises hand and participates
• During group writing: Leo writes his name on his whiteboard at the suggestion of the teacher. After he finishes, he looks around and does not write any more. He participates at writing time, and does not have difficulty forming the appropriate letters to label their picture.
• During sharing time: He is silly and shares that his favorite song is "mashed potatoes."
• Being very social today - whispering to neighbors, not raising his hand as much due to the fact that he is busy socializing, instead of paying attention to the lesson.
20 September, 2012
• Library day: Leo has forgotten his library book at home, so he is unable to check one out. He is sitting at a table and reading a "Clifford" book. I ask him what it is about and he tells me, "Clifford." He is reluctant to tell me the plot details of the story, shows me the pictures and tells me to read it myself.
25 September 2012
• Tells me, "Guess what?? I played Star Wars with my brother IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT."
Star Wars become a recurring theme with Leo.
• During morning meeting: Leo has been thanked a number of times for sitting very nicely on the carpet. Is he paying attention, though? It's hard to tell with him.
• During shared writing: He is very focused on his own work and follows directions well - raised hand to volunteer answers. He doesn't usually raise hand for "what does this word start with?" questions.
• Raised hand to suggest an addition to the picture: "ball of yarn" to add to the cat picture, but did not know what it started with
• Volunteered "baby cat" for more detail as well
27 September 2012
• During prediction-focused lesson, he is able to participate in the story.
• He saw a brown image and a claw and predicted the bear in the shed. I'm not sure if he actually did or just said that after he already found out it was a bear, though.
• During Daily Five: Leo is in the green group, which means he needs help with letter sounds. He is doing a listening activity and following along with the correct pages
• After listening to the story, he can tell me what it was about.
• He plays a letter game and gets all correct answers.
• During another letter game, he doesn't know the first letter or possibly word for a picture of an "envelope," so he checks the answer on the back before he answers.
• During read-to-self: He looks at the pictures, and points to each animal and invents the story, narrating silently.
• When I ask him if he can read it to me, he tells me he doesn't know how to read.
• When I ask him to predict what is happening based off the pictures, he reluctantly tells me, "maybe the gorilla is telling him where to go, maybe they're scared..etc." Why does he start all sentences with "maybe?" Is he possibly afraid of making a mistake?
• When he comes to a page with many mice on it, hidden in trees and shrubbery, he tells me he's going to find all the mice. I think he's making the connection between a picture-search like Where's Waldo and applying his knowledge of that kind of literature to this book.
13 September, 2012
• Leo has chosen a class book for his independent reading. He is flipping through "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom," "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," and "If You Give a Moose a Muffin." Is this because they are familiar to him? They focused on Chicka Chicka Boom Boom at the beginning of the year.
• Appears to only be looking at the pictures, due to speed of his page-flipping
• During Read-To-Self, he reads a "Maisy" book, and is also flipping through the pages quickly. He reads it twice, and points to the pictures. He's now staring into space.
• During handwriting journals - Leo self-talks to find the "J" page. He says, "Juh Juh Joe."
• Good oral and conversational skills, as well as fairly high vocabulary.
• During group activities, Leo sits very still and quietly
• He raises hand and participates
• During group writing: Leo writes his name on his whiteboard at the suggestion of the teacher. After he finishes, he looks around and does not write any more. He participates at writing time, and does not have difficulty forming the appropriate letters to label their picture.
• During sharing time: He is silly and shares that his favorite song is "mashed potatoes."
• Being very social today - whispering to neighbors, not raising his hand as much due to the fact that he is busy socializing, instead of paying attention to the lesson.
20 September, 2012
• Library day: Leo has forgotten his library book at home, so he is unable to check one out. He is sitting at a table and reading a "Clifford" book. I ask him what it is about and he tells me, "Clifford." He is reluctant to tell me the plot details of the story, shows me the pictures and tells me to read it myself.
25 September 2012
• Tells me, "Guess what?? I played Star Wars with my brother IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT."
Star Wars become a recurring theme with Leo.
• During morning meeting: Leo has been thanked a number of times for sitting very nicely on the carpet. Is he paying attention, though? It's hard to tell with him.
• During shared writing: He is very focused on his own work and follows directions well - raised hand to volunteer answers. He doesn't usually raise hand for "what does this word start with?" questions.
• Raised hand to suggest an addition to the picture: "ball of yarn" to add to the cat picture, but did not know what it started with
• Volunteered "baby cat" for more detail as well
27 September 2012
• During prediction-focused lesson, he is able to participate in the story.
• He saw a brown image and a claw and predicted the bear in the shed. I'm not sure if he actually did or just said that after he already found out it was a bear, though.
• During Daily Five: Leo is in the green group, which means he needs help with letter sounds. He is doing a listening activity and following along with the correct pages
• After listening to the story, he can tell me what it was about.
• He plays a letter game and gets all correct answers.
• During another letter game, he doesn't know the first letter or possibly word for a picture of an "envelope," so he checks the answer on the back before he answers.
• During read-to-self: He looks at the pictures, and points to each animal and invents the story, narrating silently.
• When I ask him if he can read it to me, he tells me he doesn't know how to read.
• When I ask him to predict what is happening based off the pictures, he reluctantly tells me, "maybe the gorilla is telling him where to go, maybe they're scared..etc." Why does he start all sentences with "maybe?" Is he possibly afraid of making a mistake?
• When he comes to a page with many mice on it, hidden in trees and shrubbery, he tells me he's going to find all the mice. I think he's making the connection between a picture-search like Where's Waldo and applying his knowledge of that kind of literature to this book.
Labeling
Leo made this drawing during independent writing time. He's displaying a good concept of labeling his pictures (B for bear and L for lunch - "it's a dead person.") and feels confident about his work. However, when I asked, he refused to label any more parts of his picture. I still don't know him well enough to tell if this is because of a specific concept he had for his drawing or an avoidance tactic. I'm quickly realizing that while he is very good at following directions and meeting expectations, he doesn't often go above and beyond them. I need to investigate this further.
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