Recap of October 10-12

Thurs 10-12 ELL/Chicken Noodle Soup Session

Can we talk about the fact that every little kid I have talked to in the past few weeks has a favorite song and it is "Chicken Noodle Soup"....I have got to know it before I go into the schools. It is all about communication.

We had a session with a woman, who presented on students who learn English is addition to their first language (EAL). Many of the strategies that she spoke about can be taken and used, if I am working with an ELL student. I thought that it was really interesting when she talked about decoding, and displayed the question "Where is our school?" in three different languages, Danish, French, and two Asian languages I believe.....actually have no clue......It made it easier to understand the struggles that ELL kids go through. Ripley's Believe or Not: The Los Angeles Unified School District ELL learners make up 40% of the district's total number of students

Wed 10-11 El segundo día de Yukish

This was our second and final day of Joe Yukish. We actually put into practice some of the strategies that he taught us about yesterday. We read a famous children's book called "Quack, Quack, Quack" by Joy Cowley. We watched Joe teach it to a little girl in South Carolina. Something that was very interesting to me was how the attitude of the girl changed before she read the book, till she was done with the book. She was happy but then became very annoyed with herself. Joe's insight into how to make her deal with her "word-skipping" technique helped not only with her understand of meaning and structure, but also with her attitude.

Tues 10-10 uno dia de Yukish

Today, we had Joe Yukish, a senior advisor for Teachers College Reading & Writing Project. He has taught reading for over 30 years. We talked about leveled reading for a while during this session. He showed us ways to recognize the differences between levels and if the children were at a certain level. He also gave us guided reading worksheets to help us work with kids at each level. He showed us how to calculate their proficiency to determine what they should reading on their own, and which leveled books, we should be reading with them. I have learned more practical information in one day of this class, than in most of my other graduate classes. This reading knowledge that Joe is conveying is going to be helpful in the Reading Buddies program, but other activities that I am involved in as well.