DRL 10: Henny Penny

This was my last session with Angel. For letters, we studied the cursive form of "b" and "j." Aside from our usual way of doing handwriting, I gave her an additional worksheet with sentences that she had to trace and rewrite so I could assess if there is an overall improvement in her handwriting. Based from what she had written, I think she did improve in this area. She just needs to make this certain skill automatic in her system because when she does other activities, she has the tendency to revert back to her former handwriting.

For PA, decoding and word recognition, we took up homophones. I think she needs to improve a lot in differentiating the meaning of homophonic words. She can recognize that certain words may have the same sound but different spelling but she would sometimes pick an inappropriate word to be used in a sentence.

For vocabulary development, she does not have problems with forming compound words provided that there are limited number of words to pair up.

Compound words activity

After the compound words, Angel identified some animals that were flashed to her. She enjoyed giving the sounds of those animals. She also showed enjoyment during the sorting activity of animals.

Naming of animals and sorting activities

In the 10th lesson, I have chosen Henny Penny as our reading text so that I could give her more exposure to stories with sly characters and with tricky situations. She has identified the trick done by the fox in the story through the prompts I have given her but I still think that she has some problems identifying tricky situations because she sometimes changes her answer if a certain question is reworded.

Reading of the text "Henny Penny"

-------ooo0ooo-------ooo0ooo-------ooo0ooo-------ooo0ooo-------ooo0ooo-------ooo0ooo-------

All in all, the summer of 2013 gave me a lot of insights with regards to young learners. I was able to get out of my comfort zone and try new things. I was used to teaching high school students so it was a great challenge for me to handle Angel. I had to adjust my teaching to suit a younger learner.

I learned a lot about activating schema and how giving an experiential learning environment can make wonders in a lesson.

It was my pleasure to be the teacher of Angel this summer. I was able to enjoy her company and I hope that she brought with her good memories from our lessons together this summer. I hope that Angel continue to study diligently at home to support what she is learning in school. I wish her the best in her studies. Lastly, I would like to thank her mom for enlisting Angel in our class and for being a very cooperative parent. I could see how she supports her kids in her studies. Kudos to her!