Schools Waste Time Grouping All Learning

 

From the minute kids start school they are put into specific groups for reading, math, etc. The teacher goes from group to group teaching the same subjects. The reasoning behind this is that they have grouped the children by their supposed ability to read, do math, or whatever the teacher thinks is necessary. This takes a lot of time out of the day and the teacher has no time to spend on science, art, etc.  I do not find it necessary to group so much learning.  The children get tagged even though names are given to the groups the kids know if they are in the top or the middle or the bottom.  The child gets bored and defeated by his group. The child feels "Why try if the teacher says I’m stupid by putting me in the Blue Bird group."  The rest of his school years he moves with the other teachers keeping him in that specific group because that is what his file from previous years says.  I have tutored children in reading who were capable of the top group that never moved from the lower group—why?

 1. The teacher automatically puts the child into the lower group without testing.

 2. The child would not speak up and tell the teacher he could do much better, but just accepted the role and would become bored and drift off into space. They would start to hate school.

Most of the children I got for tutoring would say to me before we even started, "I’m in the dumb group. I can’t read like the smart kid." I would have to prove that he could read like the smart kids. By making reading or math fun, stimulating, and challenging by adding a little competition you can make all the difference in a class.

When I start to teach reading I do not teach sight words.  To me it makes no sense.  Are we going to teach the kids to memorize a whole dictionary?  I also do not teach each letter sound by sound  to figure out the word.  The English language is too complicated and to erratic. Too many words are spelled differently such as here, hear, than, then, etc.  Most children when they get to kindergarten know all the letter recognitions, and sounds.   They first learn them by the parents, television, electronic toys, battery operated games, and most importantly, almost all have been in daycare where they teach letters and sounds.  It wastes a whole year if the kindergarten goes over and over the letters and sounds again. I start by using word family phonics.  Dr. Seuss is the best to start with. Nothing can beat HOP on POP! Almost every child knows that book and the CAT IN THE HAT, and other Dr. Seuss books.  Many are written using only 50 words. After I read HOP ON POP to the whole class I have them all sit on the floor in front of me. I tell the kids they are going to start to learn to read real words in books.

1.  I start with the “at” words.  I will show all of them in the Seuss book and then ask the kids if they notice anything about the words in Seuss’s book.  Someone always notices they rhyme. “Well can you think of any other “at” words that are not in this book” I will ask the whole class. I will go to the white board, put “at” at the top and write all the words the kids think of. I will make a fuss over how smart they are to think of all those words.

2. I start my first “game or contest” by saying "who can read 3 of the words?"  There is a prize of one skittle or M&M if you can read 3 of the words.  You would not believe how important it is to get that 1 candy. At first the shy child or the child who didn’t pay attention will not try, but believe me they all will get into it after a few times—winning that 1 candy is the biggest catalyst in the world.  Make sure to make a big deal of the kids getting the words.  Do this same  thing at least two times.  Show the books and show those words are in the books and they are actually reading them.

3. Next “game” after you list the "at" words again is to see who can make a sentence from those "at" words and add more winnings—1 skittle for each at word used in the sentence.  It must be a different word and make sense, i.e.-the fat cat sat on the mat with a hat and a bat. That equals 6 skittles.  They cannot use the same “at” words again and another kid cannot copy the sentence.  After a couple of times this will be their favorite game.

 4. The next part is to have the child make their own story using "at” words.  Have the children draw a picture of their story and you or you and your aid 1 at a time write the child’s story on scrap paper for them to copy onto their own paper.  Do not write a story on the board for them to copy! It has no ownership for them.  There are many reasons for you to have the kids tell their own story.

 A. Originality, we are teaching the child to use their own thoughts.

 B. You are teaching the child how to write in sentence form.

 C. You are teaching the child how the written word must be kept together and not letters all over the place.

 D. You can now teach how to form letters correctly.

E. Spacing by putting a finger between words.

Do not get upset or discouraged by the way the paper looks—by the end of the year these kids will be authors. Do not expect penmanship!  Correct the kids in a way that is funny, not condescending.

 5. The next game using the “at” words is to find them in library books.  At the beginning of the year I make two files for each child. 1. Is for their stories and science papers such as they did when they made their “at” paper. I will keep this folder in a convenient place for the parents to be able to look at anytime they come to the room and to be able to see how the child has progressed. 2. I have a folder for our “I am so good” stickers. They will get a sticker for special things they do, such as manners, helping others without being asked, and achievements such as our finding the words in library books. For these stickers I made a paper from publisher calendar on my computer.  It has the same box areas—6 across each line and I took out the day numbers so it is only blank boxes. This I keep on my desk and when the child gets 6 stickers across the line I will give a treat or something special (you can use candy or toys from the $1 store or I use the dollar store party treats because there are soo many in a bag). When I am using a word family such as” at” I know each book will have loads of them in it so I will give 1 sticker for 5 words found.  The first time you do this it all will be slow and some kids won’t want to participate—but the competition always wins over.—in all my years of doing this it has always won and become the favorite game of the class.

What I have found is that some kids at the beginning have a fear of competition but with your help they will come around too.  After a couple of times of using these games the kids realize they really know words in books and are beginning to read.  What an accomplishment!

I will keep up teaching word families all year and doing the games because it is the favorite game of  the class.  They don’t realize out they are working.

I will, after a couple of months of doing the word families, start them reading individually in books—not in groups but individually. I start with the Lakeview series because it has more word families but I have also used the Bob books.  It may seem more difficult at first and different than you have learned in college or at seminars—but it works!  All my kindergarten class leaves reading Dr. Seuss and other library books and up and children do not feel stupid when learning to read because it is individual.  Some kids can read anything from chapter books to science books and when they started kindergarten in September  they did not know how to read.  Miss Gail