##### Straight Off the Tracks #####

      Friday was another exciting day in the second grade classroom! I felt more like a teacher when my practicum teacher told me I should give the spelling test to the students that day. I remember thinking, "Wow, that won't be too hard."....Then, there I was...standing in front of a room of eager and nervous students. I looked at the sheet of paper and saw a long list of contractions. Sure, saying the words out loud was no big deal, but then I had to think of sentences to go along with these words. This was a bit challenging considering contractions don't give you much "context" to form an interesting sentence. If the word had been "evaporation," I think a sentence might have come to my head much quicker. This challenged me and made me realize that when I begin student teaching and have to give spelling tests, I will look at the list in advance and write out clever and interesting sentences that I can use to add a little more fun and excitement to the tests. All in all, I think it went pretty well! I will most likely be giving the students their spelling test the rest of my practicum.
      The great thing about the school I observe in, is the opportunities they have for students who are a bit more advanced in their spelling. The more advanced students, who do well on their initial pretest of the regular words, are given the opportunity to take an alternative test with harder words.

Here are the regular words for the week: 17 out of 19 students scored between 10-15 

1. don't
2. we've
3. aren't
4. didn't
5. I've
6. won't
7. we'll
8. doesn't
9. hasn't
10. let's
11. she's 
12. he'll
13. we're
14. they've
15. couldn't

Here are the advanced words of the week: 4 out of 5 students scored 9-10

1. solid
2. liquid
3. gases
4. property
5. mixture
6. condensation
7. evaporation
8. precipitation
9. temperature
10. water vapor

      Friday I chose the student I will be doing my student assessment assignment on. She is young girl who compared to the rest of her classmates, is a little low in reading. I have not spoken with my practicum teacher about other areas yet, but I plan to focus more on her overall development in my next observation. Here is a sample of a literacy assignment and spelling test:

Spelling Test

      The student scored an 11 out of 15 on the regular spelling test this past week. I graded the test, and I noticed that she is having trouble with e and the e sound. In aren't, she spelled it arn't....forgetting the e. She spelled doesn't, dus'nt, and hasn't, has'nt. These incorrect spellings show that she is missing the e sound and not sure of where to put her apostrophe. In her spelling of the word we're, she wrote wer'er. She is unsure if the e can stand alone. I would recommend that the student be re-familiarized with her e sounds. 

Literacy Assignment

      In this assignment, the student was to read the provided story above and answer the questions. It appears that she is not reading her directions. In number one, many students chose to write the word hungry. This does not have a gr and a long a sound. I am curious why many students did this. In number two, she wrote down a word that means the same thing as little, but the directions clearly said to choose a word from the story. This would be the word small. While the student understood the concept of a synonym, she did not read the directions clearly. The rest of the questions were testing the students on their comprehension. The student struggled with getting some basic facts about the story correct. Overall, the student needs to spend a little more time with carefully reading stories and directions. I recommend that the teacher spend a little one-on-one time with the student for the next assignment like this. This will help them gain perspective on how the child is thinking about reading stories and answering questions.

      Overall, the day provided me great new experiences with testing and grading. I had to grade the literacy activity and spelling test above, and I got good insight on where the students are at in their learning and development.