Gina Harris

9-4-07


Today was my first day of service learning. I am working in forth grade during their scheduled reading time (1:00-2:30). The students are rather wild, however, it may be due to the time of day. I have not been with them in the mornings, so perhaps they are calmer. There seem to be children at all different levels of learning. I have given a reading evaluation to two different students. In the classroom they cannot concentrate and do not read well. When I take them into the hallway, they are more focused and their reading comprehension is much better. The teacher is very nice, but it is her second year of teaching and I think she is still just getting to know her students.

9-6-07

Today I was so pleased working with the two same students I worked with on Tuesday. They were very excited to see me. We went out into the hallway to read and they were so eager. They are below a forth grade reading level, however, they really try to pronounce the words and do not get discouraged or distracted. I did notice that although they did not read fast or pronounce all their words correctly, they comprehended the story and we had a great time discussing and analyzing it. They were well behaved and when we returned to the classroom they did not act restless like the rest of the class, but worked on something else immediately. Some of the kids were reading and others were doing picture boards. There wasn't much guidance and I noticed even the normally on task kids were playing around. The teacher has a really good ignoring mechanism, but I'm not sure if it is a good thing in this case.