Today Hannah Turns 9

She is 9! 9 wonderful years. And 9 years when she had to learn things that children do not learn until much, much later in life.

In many ways, she is a wonderful 9-year old. In many other ways, she is way to conscious about life and death, way beyond her years. She is well aware of death and is afraid of people around her dying. She had to experience loss at a very young age and this has made her overly concerned about things may seem to be dangerous in her eyes: Snorkling? No mom! You can't do that, it's dangerous. Careful when you drive mom! What do I do if something happens to you? These are questions that no child should have to ask. But unfortunately, this is life!

Happy b-day Hannah! Today is a happy day! Let's celebrate life! We are proud of you and your accomplishments!

Podcasts for learning

This topic is more related to my computer class and language learning than to Hannah's literacy experiences.

In the link below, you will find a variety of podcasts that can be used for learning, or in the case of language teachers, can be used for language learning purposes. Radio Lab is among the new podcasts recommended. I still have to become a fan of Radio Lab. I listen to lit, but it is not yet one of my favorites. Who knows? Maybe in the future, it becomes one of my faves.

Check out the list:
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/film-festival-podcasting-classroom-resources?utm_content=blog&utm_campaign=FMFF&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

Reading Strategies and Common Core

While Common Core is supposed to teach children how to read academic texts by implementing reading strategies, missing from my daughter's classroom is an awareness of what strategies good readers use. So when I tell her "before reading the text, read the title and then go to the comprehension questions at the end of the text," Hannah says to me: This is not what my teacher tells me. This is very frustrating since I try to tell her what good readers do, but she fights me because she thinks I don't know.

Reading strategies are critical for anyone who is in school. You have to read long and complex texts, therefore, you need to know how to read and what strategies to use. So this summer, our focus will be on reading strategies so that she become a strategic reader. As Grabe and Stoller put it, what readers need to do is learn how to become strategic readers rather than apply strategies.

Conversation between Hannah and her grandma Betty

The weekend of May 25 was not easy. It was my husband's death anniversary. So we went to visit my mother-in-law in El Paso. We also went to visit my father-in-law at the cemetery. On the other hand, Hannah had a wonderful time with her grandma. I was impressed about her maturity. HEre is a dialogue:

Grandma, do you feel lonely (without grandpa)?
Yes Hannah, I was married to him for 70 + years. So I miss him.
So why don't you find a boyfriend?
No Hannah, I don't need a boyfriend.
OK.... Then you and my mom need..... Botox! (laughing).

How much is going on in her head thinking about death and life? If this is not maturity, what is it?

Accelerated Reading....

Accelerated Reading (AR) is a program developed by Scholastic. The program is designed to promote/help with reading fluency. Specifically, children select books that are at various levels of proficiency, as determined by grade level. For example, a book that is 2.3 is at the second grade, third month of school grade level.

Kids read and then they take a test. Picture books have 5 questions. Chapter book tests have 10 questions.

Our challenge is reading chapter books. I tried finding books that would be of interest to Hannah based on topic (e.g., books about dogs, for example). But clearly I did not choose the right book since the Puppy series is at a higher level of proficiency. We also tried expository textbooks, example, books on science like the life on penguins in the Antartica. Way tooo difficult.

Hannah likes Ivy and Bean the series on the two friends who are very different from each other. It's a wonderful series.  But getting her to read several chapters on one day is the challenge. So what to do? I decided that besides working with her wonderful tutor, she needs more support, like Kumon. We went there today and Hannah had no trouble concentrating. She was focused. Should we try it? I know it is drill and kill, but they will also work on the basics to give her some confidence, which is what she needs. Any feedback? Any thoughts?

This year....

This year, we have gone from over editing to little writing. So it has been hard to keep Hannah motivated to write. It is interesting to see that in my teaching, I seem to find strategies to help my students become motivated to write (or at least I believe so). However, when it come s to my daughter, I struggle to get her interested in writing.

In part, I attribute this problem to her struggles with concentration. It is hard to write when you can't concentrate. She is doing better though. This summer, no Argentina trip. So she will be going to summer camp and hopefully to the Writing Project at CSULA. This should help her with her reading, which is good, understanding (which is what she struggles with), and writing.

I am proud of her accomplishments. A girl who can deal with obstacles and so many life losses is to be commended!

Overediting in first grade

Hannah's teacher is having her students edit the writing they do. I think this is, at least in part, a consequence of the many years that we spent on making sure that the kids were fluent writers. So much emphasis was placed on fluency that now the pendulum has moved to accuracy. Kids in Hannah's 1st grade class writing several paragraphs in which they have to do pre-writing in a graphic organizer that asks them to write the intro sentence and then what happened first, next finally and a conclusion sentence. When the kids turn in their writing, the teacher writes a lot of red on their papers. Then, much like we do in an academic ESL class, she gives them a handout with some "mistakes." She asks students to correct the mistakes. The problem with this handout is that there are way too many mistakes in each sentence. And there is no pattern to the mistakes. My concern is that if you are going to have your students edit their work, don't overload them with problems, and find a pattern if there is one. As I wrote in another entry, teaching goes well beyond giving out handouts and getting students to do a lot of busy work.....