ELA Instruction
After reading through standards for English Language Arts Instruction, I noticed a few things. While younger students and older students are obviously on different levels, common threads run along all of the grades. For example, children in Pre-K are supposed to be able to questions about the story. Older children will be able to answer detailed questions with detailed answers. Younger children will ask questions out of curiosity; older students should be able to work with questions such as "who", "what". and "when". When students are younger, they need more guided instruction than older ones. When students tackle the tasks they are learning in Pre-K, they will be able to go up to kindergarten, where they will learn on a higher level. After accomplishing the goals of kindergarten, they will be ready to learn even more.
As educators, and especially early childhood educators who are dealing with young children who are pretty new at literacy, it is our job to ensure that each student is learning up to par with their grade level. If a student gets lost in one grade, the next year he will get even more lost. We must make sure to see that each and every student is learning properly, so that they can advance even more.
Love your last paragraph!! So true and so important for all educators to know! I have a fifth grade student that is still struggling with vowel sounds! We as teachers always have to be on guard and never let things fall under the radar! If you notice a student struggling to keep up with the class make sure she gets help in her early years in school. Once a child gets older, it is much harder for everyone involved!
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I was just in a situation exactly like you described in your last paragraph. A few months ago, I noticed that one of my grade one students was really not retaining any information that was taught this year so far. He hardly knows which letter is which, and definitely doesn't know their sounds. I made sure to mention this all to the mother so that she could discuss with the school what the next step should be to help her struggling son. The mother just called me a few weeks ago to thank me for making her aware of the help her son needs. For now he's taken out by a specialist for one hour a day, and we are slowly seeing progress. I knew that if something isn't done this year then he'll just continue to fall behind in second grade and on.
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