The Three Little Pigs
While I have I been working with second graders at B.F. Day Elementary I have come across a number of students within the class who speak a different language at apart from English, one spoke Somalian, another Dutch and another Spanish. All being very diverse and all facing similar problems in their academics. Some students have problems with their reading and therefore need more help in understanding the books they read with me while others are struggling but excelling with some help on my part. I helped the Somalian boy with his reading a lot by having him tell me the story in a different way since he had memorized the story and wasn’t actually reading to me. He had some problems with understanding what the story was actually about. We were reading the Three Little Pigs, one of his favorites and clearly he had read the book many times since he would just say most of the words without looking down to read them and fly through the pages. I then had him close the book and tell me what the story was about and what he thought it meant. He had some difficulty recounting the story and so I had him go through the book only looking at the picture and tell me what he thought was going on based on the pictures. This went a little better and he seemed to enjoy reading the book even more. I then had him tell me why the last pig succeeded and he told it was because he was the smartest pig. I was so excited to have this young boy finally understand what this book meant and to actually slow down when reading, to actually look at the words and pictures to understand what was going on in the storyline. And so we continued our reading with a similar routine. I hope he has improved and I think he will, though English is not his first language, he can use different tools to help him in his reading, these same tools, stopping and looking at what is actually there and using whatever is present for context will help in other situations. On the playground when someone is playing a game he does not fully understand, instructions his teacher gives that he does not completely follow, etc. I think he will be able to use these same tools from reading a story about three pigs and translate it over into the rest of his life.
image: http://www.acidfreegallery.com/the-three-little-pigs-by-jerrod-maruyama/
Ms. Smith 