Saturday, September 6, 2008

Kindergarten - Times Two

It's almost like a social experiment - taking two kids, with almost identical experiences, and putting them in different classes with very different teachers. Sarah's teacher, Mrs. K, is very laid-back. loving, nurturing, and focused on hands-on learning. Sarah is doing great with "kids-spell". She can write complete stories just by sounding out the words and writing the letters she hears. "Wuns upon a tim thar wus a litl grl", she wrote this morning. Amazing. But ask her to read a word, and she freezes. She hasn't made that connection yet. She can read anything that you've read to her, because she has an awesome memory. She knows a lot of sight words. But show her the word "pig", and she doesn't know how to say puh...i...g......... puh..i..g........ puh.i.g..... pig! It's so odd, because if I asked her to write the word pig, she could do it in a second! It's just the way she's learning.
Then there's Abby. Her teacher, Mrs. S, is very structured and disciplined. She's also loving and sweet, but she runs a tight ship. Abby knows which letters are vowels, and what sounds they make. She knows her blends (th, sh, etc.). And she obviously practices phonics, because she can sound out any word I show her. But she doesn't like to write, I've never seen her do "kids-spell", and she gets really upset if I ask her to read a book, because she wants me to read it. She loves books, stories...she doesn't want to struggle through the words.
I'll try to remember to post about these differences every now and then, to record their accomplishments and take note of how the different approaches to learning will ultimately get us to the same goal - proficient reading.

p.s. I forgot my camera yesterday at the picnic. Ugh! But, some other people had theirs, so I'm hoping to get some emailed to me.

Edited to add a picture!

2 comments:

Jenni said...

This is so interesting! It's amazing how different personalities are and how children learn in different ways. It reminds me of my literacy class for young children i took last year.

Jenni said...

We're doing a lot of dictation these days. She tells stories and we write down verbatim everything she says.