Notes
During a personal check-in, I asked if RaeEllen and Gordon and LK were excited for Valentine’s Day, and she said yes! In addition to parties at school, she has carried on the tradition her mother began of the children being visited by Valentines Bear, who leaves presents and treats for them to find in the morning. :-). She also shared that, in addition to this course, she is working on her Master’s degree online from ESU. It is an accelerated program with courses lasting seven weeks. She has two now, which will end in March, and then another one will run from March to May. I expressed my admiration that, in addition to being a wife and mother and full-time teacher, she is working on her ESU work AND this class for her seal of literacy! She shared with me the “pockets” of time she finds to do coursework. Amazing!
When asked how this coursework was going, she said that the modules were “manageable.” She has one more thing to do for Module 3 and then it will be complete.
I said that our primary purpose today was to explore what might become her area of inquiry, and reminded her of what she had said about successes and challenges in literacy instruction.
I asked what she had been thinking about, and she said she wants to work with a group of three (Aylane, Rogan, and Elijah) who have benchmarked in phonics. They are ready for Skill 7 – predictable vowel teams. She plans to work with them during an extra block that she will create where she can pull them to the table while the rest of the class does silent reading. She will be identifying new instructional strategies from Module 5 to expand her “toolbox.” She can monitor their progress using the PSI.
We will meet again on 2/24/26 at 3:00 pm.