Tuesday, September 20, 2022

lower case letters

I'll resist the urge to go all E. E. Cummings in this post, despite the content screaming for it.  You can thank me later.

I spent the morning with magnetic lower case letters and rotating groups of kindergarteners.  The teacher divided them by ability; what we did with the tiles varied accordingly.  Not that I was given instructions.  Use your imagination was all the direction the teacher felt I needed.  

It's nice to be trusted.

The first group had no trouble with anything except the b and the d.  I told them that I had the same problem in school, too, until I realized that the b carried his belly in front.  We had some fun tracing b's on ourselves - starting with the stick at our heads down to our big bellies - while I considered all the parts of the b and the d, marveling that kids who barely understand that the letters in a word or a sentence have specific, meaningful places are able to remember which letter goes which way.  

The next groups needed a little more help.  We went more slowly, concentrating on the individual letters before sounding out c-a-t.  

Not c-a-f.  

Nope, even though the t and the f look pretty much the same if one of them is upside down. Put the j in the mix and only the dot saves the day.  The fact that the i has a dot, too, is just unfair.

And don't get us started on the u and the n.  I finally realized that the vowels were pink and the consonants were yellow, but up until then I was as flummoxed as they were.  

By the time the last group arrived, we were all a little tired.  One scholar has no English, one's gaze was focused somewhere beyond the drawn window shades, and two were eager if unable.  We matched the tiles to their counterparts on the magnetic board, taking special delight in the beautiful g.

Cleaning up was easy and efficient.  They went to run around at recess before returning to work on math.  I drove home and took a nap.

4 comments:

  1. A new attendee to our Ladies Who Lunch group yesterday is 54, not yet retired, worked with us 25 years as an English teacher in our special school-within-a-school program and loved every minute of it. She now teaches Latin part-time at that same school and had reconnected with me wanting to know if we would let her come join us. Of course. The first thing she said when she arrived, "Delaine, I have to apologize to you. Years ago, maybe 3 or 4 before you retired, you complained about being so tired (I was about 54 at that time) and all I could think was, 'why don't you get more sleep.' Now I get it. I am tired ALL OF THE TIME." I laughed and said, "you only teach 3 periods!" "I know, isn't that crazy? Anyway, I'm sorry." We both laughed so hard.

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    1. I'm exhausted after an hour, and I can do what I want to do without making a lesson plan.
      a/b

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  2. It's easy to forget how complex our language is once you've moved on from the beginning stages of learning and have developed automaticity.

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    Replies
    1. It was stunning. I was watching those little brains struggling and I could see why.
      a/b

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