Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Wednesday WOW : ELL in Kindergarten


Wednesday Wow
 


Currently, I am on February break in the snowy tundra known as Massachusetts. Last week at school was a whirl of activity... snow--early release, 100 day, snow delay, and Valentine's Day ! If I wasn't observing closely, I would have missed one of the best gifts of the week.

One of my Kinder Kids, Carlos** entered my room in November with very little expressive Spanish or English Language. His parents do not speak any English. He qualified score wise to be in reading intervention. He knew only 1 alphabet letter. I wasn't sure what he would get out of his 4 days a week, 30 minutes a day with me. However, I was a kindergarten teacher in the past so I knew at least he would get additional vocabulary with me, skills at his level, and frequent repetition.

Glide forward to the week before Feb break, Carlos is looking at me when we are playing Alphabet Go Fish and he is grinning from ear to ear. He is beginning to ask all of us for the card by the actual letter name. In addition, I notice he is paying attention to which ones I share and don't have matches for. Midway through the game, he has 8-10 sets of uppercase with lowercase letters and he is giggling now. I think back to where we were in November and I am so proud of him !

**Anonymous name change

 Enjoy your week !