People can think of kindergarten as a time of learning to play nice with others before starting school, when the real work will begin. While there is a definite element of truth in the essay All I Needed to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten and that way of approaching the kindergarten experience, kindergarten is actually a very important year academically…
One of the things the students and I share is a love of the end of an hour. That doesn’t mean I dislike my job or any of my students – in fact, the reason break time is so great is that I have those few seconds to chat with the students without our work being the priority. Oh, and there’s the stickers. Choosing the appropriate sticker for the hour can be the highlight for both of us.
Heather is a second-grader who loves to make up stories in her head or have her parents read to her. But learning to read has been a real struggle. She often substitutes similar words (home for house), makes the wrong sound for a letter (b for d), omits, adds or incorrectly sequences sounds (left for felt, sell for spell), or makes other random errors that just seem odd to her parents…