Field Experience

I completed 5 hours at the school I work at, Wellington Elementary.  I spent my field experience in two places:  my classroom and a kindergarten classroom.  In my classroom, I have a monthly family story time, where the parents/caregivers are invited to the classroom to hear a story that either I read or I find a guest to read.   I create a family friendly activity for the students to do with their family and each child also gets a copy of the book that was read.  In the Kindergarten classroom, I observed the classroom teacher during story time and noticed how she used not only books in the classroom, but also books on an online program called Tumble Books that our library has membership to.  It enables the teacher to be connected to more book titles than what the library holds.  I also observed a 4th grade classroom coming into the Kindergarten room to be book buddies with the Kindergarteners.  Each 4th grader is paired up with 1 or 2 K students and then the 4th grader reads to the K students or at this time of the year, the K students are reading to them.  It is encouraging for the 4th graders to be such good role models for younger students. 

This experience I think helped me strengthen some of the teaching standards.  One such standard is implementing technology.  Technology is an ever present force in classrooms of today.  In allowing books to available school-wide at the click of a button is wonderful.  It allows teachers to encourage literacy in a new and exciting way, to even the youngest of students.  Another standard that I feel I strengthened was collaborating with colleagues/parents/others.  I feel that encouraging families to be involved in their children's education on a hands-on level is important.  I also know how crucial it is at such a young age.  Reading is important, even if the child isn't old enough to read himself.  Having parents see that reading is important and even allowing the child to make up a story based on the books pictures, is laying a foundation for a love of literacy all throughout their school career and hopefully into their adult life. 

I learned that many opportunities are around the school to engage children in literacy and it doesn't always have to come in the form of a teacher reading to a child.  I think encouraging parents/family members, as well as older students within the school to become good role models for our youngest learners, we will hopefully create a life long love of reading!