A Classroom Visit

At Alex’s urging today, I went up to his school to meet him for lunch and some classroom time. Apparently, there are a decent number of parents who dine with their kids at school every day, as they have special tables set aside for such mid day rendezvous both indoors and outdoors. Alex and I bought our pizza and sat outside with another kid from his class and her Mom, and had a very pleasant chat. Then, I went back to the classroom, where I sat on the mat with Alex while Mrs. E read a story. Then I sat with him at his seat as he cut out, pasted down, and drew a picture to illustrate his page in a book to be assembled later. Then it was back to the mat for the directions for their math lesson, which included counting how many red and how many yellow chits were dropped before them, coloring in a graph accordingly, and then doing the exercise again on the other side by picking up and dropping the two-sided chits again themselves. Alex was really trying to impress me, and he did a great job. I was heartened to see he was standing/fidgeting the whole time, but that was not considered an issue. I confirmed with Mrs. E that she does not require them to sit, just to stay in their place.

I learned that kindergarten, like law, is taught via the Socratic method: Most of the instruction in the math portion was in question and answer format, with the kids basically figuring it all out themselves.

I also happened to be there on the day where Mrs. E was evaluating the kids’ current reading levels, and she did Alex’s evaluation in front of me. She has various books set up for levels aa (prereading) to E, and the goal is for them to get to level E by the end of the year. She has a chart on the wall with stars representing each kid (though not individually labeled) so the class can see the whole class’ progress over the course of the year. In September, they were pretty much all at aa, with a smattering of As. In October, they were about 50% aa, 50% A, with one little girl up at level B. I watched her test Alex at level B today, and that is the level he tested into: the second kid in his class to hit level B. He was able to read 94% of the words in the book without help (missed only 2), and she said his self-correction skills — using the context of the pictures and the words around the word he is struggling with for overall comprehension — are very high for his age, that when she taught third grade some kids did not yet get those skills. His reward is that he is allowed to pull books out of the level B bin during reading time. He was very excited by this, to be one of only two people allowed to use that next level up of books.

I walked with the class to their music class, where Alex quickly showed me the instruments and set up (”Mom! They have risers!”), and then headed back to the class to chat with Mrs. E for a few moments. She said the his issues are really only impulse control and the inability to stay in one place, and she attributes it mostly to his age. There are kids in his class who are six already, kids in his class who have lost teeth already, and he and the other Alex are the two youngest boys. Despite some of the impulse control issues, she seems to genuinely like him, which was something I was worried about because of his behavior.

All in all, I am really glad I was able to do this today. I am planning on trying to do the lunch and hang out for a bit thing every other Friday or so. I think it will help him focus. And it was fun!