Dear George, hope you're doing swell

One of the many fantastic posters on the wall of my CT's classroom. 

Reading Dr. Beers’ letters to George got me thinking about my students; the ones I’ve taught that make my mind wander with thoughts of how they’re doing in school now. First let me say that I know I’ve mentioned my job as a literacy interventionist before but I feel like I should elaborate. Last year I worked for an AmeriCorps program called ACE: A Community for Education. Essentially, ACE is an intervention program where I would see ten students one-on-one each day and we would work on improving their literacy skills. These students were kindergarten through second graders at a low-income elementary school in Southeast Austin.  We were trained to help the students with their fluency, phonemic awareness, automaticity and comprehension while reading. We worked on specific skills the readers struggle with until they reach a predetermined goal. An experienced staff of ex-elementary teachers supported us and guided us through the frustrations and confusion of dealing with a horde of five year olds.

            I taught Michael last school year from beginning to end. He struggled with his fluency and comprehension. What he lacked in skill he seemed to more than make up for in confidence. Whenever he would painstakingly read an entire sentence he would look up at me and say “Oh man, that was easy!” I believe that these confident statements masked his frustrations and insecurities about his reading abilities.  Without going into detail, Michael has faced more hardships in his seven years than I could ever imagine. The days he was at school were considered an achievement. When we started the year Michael was mostly at level with his peers. He was reading a DRA 2 (the average for the first month of 1^st grade is 4) but he stayed at this level for much longer than other students. It was a daily struggle for him to stay focused but by the end of the year he was reading a level fourteen–still behind his friends but the gap was closing.   His lack of motivation was so severe that by the end of the year I had to bribe him with a weekly trip to the playground or to play basketball so he would focus everyday. If Michael would receive five smiley faces for the week on Friday we would go outside for five minutes and I would push him on the swings and he would tell me about his baseball team, the Wildcats. This time was really special for me. He might not remember it in a few years; but I know I will never forget it.

            I can’t help but think (and hope!) that maybe in a few years Michael will show up in my classroom again. I always feel like there was more that I could do for him. There were those days I would get annoyed at his lack of attention or I felt tired or sick and didn’t give him one hundred percent of my skills. I regret that I never completely got him to grade level, which of course is only one indication of his abilities, but I can only hope that he is now a more active reader who can take pride in his accomplishments.  We really focused on phonics and as much on comprehension as possible but as Dr. Beers said “the point of reading is to get meaning and you can’t get to the meaning if you can’t get through the words” (Beers, 38).

            As I read about Dr. Beers’ students I see so many similarities between them and my old students. I’ll admit that it’s disheartening to read about Dr. Beers’ students who suffer from the same problems Michael did. They are five to six years older than him! What offers some comfort to me, though, is that there are teachers out there like Dr. Beers’ and countless others I’ve met who are working to help these students understand and appreciate reading. I hope to be counted among these teachers some day soon.  I’ve come to really enjoy observing in my CT’s class. I admire her passion and her patience with students who others have written off by lamenting, “these kids can’t read.”

When Dr. Beer’s said she wanted to start out as a 12^th grade English AP teacher I couldn’t help but smirk. I absolutely wanted to do that too! I value my AP classes so much that I wanted to recreate them with new students. The longer I’ve been in education; however, I’ve realized that those AP students aren’t the ones who need my help the most.

If you want to learn a little more about ACE: http://www.utdanacenter.org/ace/about/index.php

Remember, these kids could one day be our students!