It has been a while since my last blog. In that time, LIST has been closed, and I have had a chance to catch my breath after a hectic first year of LIST and subbing.
We opened about two weeks ago. Our enrollment is a little low, but I am looking into different ways to further publicize our summer programs. Despite the low enrollment, it has been great to re-open and work with the students again. We have some return students that attended during the school year, and one completely new student. For those that attended last year, it has been really great to pick up where we left off. I am seeing improvement in these students in their reading fluency and their math and am thrilled to be able to work with them – this way they will enter the school year prepared and not forgetting what they have already learned.
The new student will be entering first grade next year, only she is working at a pre-school, kindergarten level. When she first came to me last week, she had limited skills in identifying the numbers (only identifying to 10) as well as limited skills in counting (again, only counting to 10) as well as limited skills in identifying the letters. There were only a couple letter sounds she could tell me - all things she should have learned in school and from her parents. At the rate she was going, she was going to enter first grade very far behind from the get go (you may wonder why she was not retained in kindergarten, but since attendance in kindergarten is not required by the state, schools often do not retain in this grade). Since she has started coming to me, she has now been able to learn and identify nearly all of the numbers to 30. She still has trouble with a few, but we are working on those. Also, she has raised her counting ability to 13 or 14 (the requirement for entering first grade is to know the numbers and count to 30). Identifying the letters is coming a long a bit more slowly, but she is making progress. It is so great that this child’s aunt is bringing her to LIST and paying for this assistance.
In other news, we had a LIST ebay auction and were able to make about $250 from some donated items from one of our donors! Also, we will be having our first LIST Art class on August 6 – for Second Grade students. Spaces are limited, so sign your student up as soon as you can! Finally, we also registerd with Cars4Causes, so if you have a car you are going to donate, the proceeds of that donation will go to LIST is you do it through Cars4Causes! Check it out: www.cars4causes.com.
Now that we are open again, I should be blogging once a week, again on Thursdays or Fridays. Thanks for reading!
