Once again, I was able to witness the progress of a student as they learn to read. I am working with a second grader who is not working at grade level. He has been coming for a few weeks now, and each day he comes, I see progress. One of the activities I do with him is to review sound/spelling cards – cards that have the spelling of each sound on them. When we started this activity, he did not know 11 of the cards. This week, he was able to name the sounds of all the cards! Next week, I am having him focus on specific spellings for different sounds so that he learns all spellings and does not recognize the sound by only one spelling. I am also going to focus on blending or sounding out skills as well. Right now, he is good at blending three letter words, but anything over that is difficult.
One upsetting occasion this week occurred when I was working with a third grader. I do not really remember how we got on the topic, but he mentioned to me how he never really feels good about himself, except for maybe when he is playing soccer. This is not the first time I have heard such comments from students in the past. I have had first graders tell me how they think they are ugly, or that their ears are too big. What breaks my heart is that all of these students are amazing, talented and imaginative with so much potential. Some may not be straight A students, yet, but they are terrific kids. Whether it is through messages they get at home, or more likely, messages they get through TV and movies, they already have low self esteems. This is why we put the first tenant of our acronym to be:
L Love yourself
I Invest in your future
S Step up (to the challenge)
T Together we will succeed
LIST
It is my desire to influence this student and the others that come to LIST that they might form a better opinion of themselves then they may already have. Along these lines, I am seeking to encourage students in their interests and talents. An example of this is of a fifth grader that comes three days a week. He likes to draw and has an eye for art. I am attempting to encourage him to draw something for LIST so that we can showcase it on one of our walls. Right now, he is a bit shy, but I am going to keep encouraging him to use his talent in this way.
Finally, since our schedule continues to be full, I have also been advertising for more volunteers in various places. If you are interested, please contact me, Kim Vellenga at kvellenga@listhelps.org. Also, if you know of someone that might be interested, please pass on this email address to them. If you’d like more information about our organization go to www.listhelps.org. We will have a second volunteer coming on board soon, but we can always use more!
