First Day in the Classroom

Today was my first day in a fifth grade classroom in an inner city elementary school in New York. For the next few months I will be going to this classroom once a week to work with the students and help enhance their literacy skills. I have been assigned to work with a group of four students all of which need the most help in fluency. Since today was my first day in the classroom I spent the time I had there observing the teacher and students. I was able to identify the four students I am assigned to work with although they do not know I am their tutor yet. Next week when I return to the classroom is when I will have formal introductions with the students and get to know them better personally and academically.

During the time that I spent in the classroom today students completed a math lesson and a reading lesson. I was able to get a sense of what the students' behaviors are like and their ability or inability to listen to directions and complete the tasks they are assigned. When I first got to the classroom the teacher had all the students sit in a circle and share their names and one thing they like about books. Based on the student's responses I was able to conclude that most of the students read books to help them gain knowledge about something (a lot of students listed books they liked based on a hobby as theirs such as football) and also some (but not all) students said they liked the read books for fun because they were interested in seeing what happened in the story as they read further into it.

I noticed just on today's observations while the students were doing the math and reading lesson that every child is on a different level ability wise. Some students are great readers pace wise but are not able to comprehend what they are reading which is something I will keep in mind to work on with the students. I will also be emphasizing the importance of fluency when I do my lessons with the students in order to help them become more fluent readers. While the students were doing the math lesson, which involved solving a multiplication or division with decimals problem, I noticed that some students are not even able to begin solving the problem correctly. Some students were trying to solve a division problem using the format of a multiplication problem where one number is placed on top of the other. This is a problem, considering the teachers said the students have a test over the material tomorrow.

Overall I really liked what I saw in the classroom today and I am looking forward to working with the fifth graders. I have only ever worked with kindergartners and first graders before so this will be a whole new experience for me and I am ready for it to begin!