Goodbye, Reading Buddies!

What a great relationship we had between Lakeview's 8th grade Reading Buddies this year and our 4th grade ELLs! Here are two final letters from our 8th graders to our 4th graders.

A little gem I found while digging...

We received a crisis e-mail last year about a potential mega drop in funding for ESL programs across the state of Indiana. Our ESL director, Wendy Long, invited us to write letters to the senator, telling him why this was a terrible idea. Well, senators tend to ignore teachers. But...who can resist kids?! We all wrote letters to Senator Kenley (below is one gem of an example), and he actually did not sign that awful bill. We still have ESL; it worked! (At least, we'd like to think that we're that influential.) Side note: He responded to all our letters, and we all wrote him thank you notes!

Birthday Card

So...last Thursday was my birthday--the big 2-5. I was out all day in a meeting at the CIMC, but when I arrived the next morning, I had a whole stack of birthday cards from my kiddos. While they were all absolutely delightful and self-esteem-boosting, this one tickled my fancy in a particular way.

#1: I love that she thinks I'm 20; I was in college at 20!

#2: I love that I "look young" to a 5th grader!! No wonder my colleagues can't take me seriously; I'm just a baby to them!

#3: I love that she needed to clarify that looking young is a "compliment," since some women would be "insulted" if they were told they looked younger than they actually were??

#4: I love that she thinks I may not know her (hence "Melissa's friend") but that she's writing me a birthday card, nonetheless.

Overall, I have NO complaints about this card. It made my day! :)

How life will change...

James and I found out some life-altering news just a couple months ago. And Friday, we got to see this news for the very first time.

Isn't that just the cutest blob you've ever seen?! Well, we certainly think so. ;) 

The reason I've posted this picture to my teaching blog is that it will change a whole semester of teaching for me. We're due just two weeks before Christmas Break, and we're currently planning for me to take the whole Spring Semester off to be with Baby Steele. I'll probably post a picture of the baby before I take off in December, but it could be a while after that that I would post after that! Man...our lives are about to change (we don't even fully realize just how true that statement is!). But it's a change that we're looking forward to. :)

"Playground Plea"

Thank You to High Schoolers

Some students from Warsaw High School came to Club 456 for our last session and inspired us to dream big. Here is what the students thought of them: Click here for the YouTube video.

Using Data to Inform Instruction

Blah, blah, blah. Boring title. I'm sorry. Except that. I'm not. Not at all! Because we actually are in the process of using data to really, truly help a student. I can't wait to share how:

We have a 3rd grade boy going through the RtI process right now. (The photo is of all our 3rd grade ELLs.) As a non-reader moving into 4th grade, naturally, we're very concerned! We adminstered the Woodcock-Munoz test (Spanish AND English) to determine if a disability was present in both languages or just English. If it was both, we could say an official "yes" and start getting him the help he needs. If it was just English, we would know that that was due simply to the second language acquisition process.

The Woodcock-Munoz showed us that in reading and writing, his CALP level is a 1 in both languages but that his oral expression and oral comprehension are both 3.5 (again, both languages!). That's a huge contrast. I decided to ask Millie to go through a long test he had recently taken, noting the number correct from the ones I had read to him and the number correct from the ones he had read to himself. You'll never believe this:

Ones I read # correct: 10/13
Ones he read # correct: 4/32

Wow! Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! We're going to administer one more set of tests for reading comprehension with us reading it and not. We're also going to give him a writing prompt where we scribe for him and not. (That's a theory that the SpEd teacher has.) I'm so excited that we may actually be able to help this poor kid in a way that he can receive the help! Will keep you posted on how those tests go...

P.S. If this is truly a visual disability (as opposed to an auditory one), he's at a real advantage. Most activities in classrooms are auditory, so at least he's able to pick up on what's been talked about!