Internship Reflections

Reflection Week 1:

This week was mostly spent observing.  I am assigned to Ms. Gant’s third grade classroom along with Jennifer Leasure.  Ms. Gant was very welcoming to us and any questions we had.  One of the first things I noticed about her classroom was how neat and organized it was, the walls were covered in a variety of educational posters, inspirational quotes and students artwork.  Her classroom is made up of a diverse group of sixteen students offering a mix of race and cultures. 

The students have a routine they follow every morning.  They come in, put their things away, and begin reading and testing on their AR books.  After they have finished with their AR, the begin working on their Scholastic readers.  Jennifer and I listen to students read who have difficulty reading and need a little extra help.  There are four students in particular that we read with before they take their AR test, these four children are considered at risk.

The first day went very well, Ms. Gant seems to be a wonderful teacher who care deeply about her student’s.  The student’s were very attentive and eager to help one another.  Looking forward to next week and getting to know the  students better. 

Reflection Week 2:

The day began pretty much the same as always, the students read and test for AR, then work on their scholastic readers.  After all the students have finished their AR testing the teacher begins to go over the scholastic readers with the entire class.  Students are called on to read from the Scholastic reader, after the have read all the sections, students are called on to give answers to the questions on the back of the scholastic reader.  This week students are also working on their Scarecrow stories.  They had already colored their own scarecrows and for this writing assignment they had to describe their scarecrow from head to toe.  The idea was to describe their scarecrow well enough for someone to pick their scarecrow out from all the others based solely on the descriptions given in their story.  The students will continue to work on their stories throughout the week and the final copy will be posted outside the classroom on a bulletin board along with the scarecrows they colored.  When the parents come for their meetings they will be asked to pick out which scarecrow belongs to their child based on their story.

This week we also began giving fluency tests to the students.  The student is given a short story to read and he/she has to read it over and over again until he/she can read it without any errors, one story can be read up to four times.  One of the children I worked with became bored with reading the same story over and over again, and the more he read the more errors he made.  He lost interest and simply gave up.  I noticed that while AR books with him in the mornings he does a much better job because its something he enjoys reading.  This makes me question the overall effectiveness of the fluency test.

Reflection Week 3:

This week I continued working on the fluency test.  I also was asked to being doing the Dolch sight words with the students after the fluency test.  The students are timed while they read the list of sight words, this has caused a problem for the students I have worked with so far because they are more concerned with their time than anything else, therefore they lose focus and begin to miss words they otherwise wouldn’t have.

This week the students are also putting the finishing touches on their scarecrow stories.  Ms. Gant asked Jennifer L. and I to go around and help the students proofread and edit their stories, this was a little difficult because I had to help them fix errors without really changing the content of their stories, I wanted to make sure the story was still their own work. 

I have noticed that the students do a good job staying on task.  They also work well with others and do not mind helping their peers.  The students listen to Ms. Gant and she rarely has to call any of them down, and if she does its usually only once.

Reflection Week 4:

This week the students have been reading Sarah, Plain and Tall.  Ms. Gant chooses students to read aloud and offers help to those who need it.  She also asks questions periodically and relates things that are happing in the story to “real” life experiences.  This seems to really help the students understand and make connections with what they are reading.

This week I had the opportunity to work with students both individually and in small groups.  I also completed the spelling assessment with my group members and the individual reading assessment with one of my third graders.  I have also been observing another on e of my third graders for my case study assignment, this particular student has a troubled home life and yet he continues to come to school every day with a smile on his face.  I have also noticed that he has impeccable manners, is very polite and really wants to do well in school.   However he does meet with the resource teacher on a weekly basis because he has some behavioral problems.

Reflection Week 5:

This week the students have been reading Molly’s Pilgrim.  This story is based on an immigrant family from Russia so the students are learning some Russian words as their vocabulary.  Once again as in previous weeks for this reading activity students take turns reading aloud with breaks taken periodically to discuss what has been read.  Ms. Gant also points out the Russian vocabulary words and their meanings as the students come across them in the text.  At the end of the week the students will be given a vocabulary test using the Russian words they have learned instead of the usual spelling test.

I have really enjoyed having the opportunity to work with such a wonderful group of children during my internship.  A great deal of my time was spent working with the low level students who are considered as risk, giving them extra help and guidance on their work.   These students in particular need all the extra help and attention they can get, which unfortunately isn’t always possible.  Ms. Gant also expressed to us how stressful it was not being able just to teach her students without all the extra paperwork and such that she has to complete.   Just in the short amount of time I was there I noticed how much extra stuff is put on teachers outside of actually teaching the students.  It seemed like every week she was asked to complete a new type of assessment on her low level students, this not only took her teaching time, but it took away from the students learning time as well.