Week 3: Sight Word Testing

Today in my CT's classroom, I tested several of the students on their sight words. In second grade, the students are supposed to know all 1,000 sight words by the end of the school year. Honestly, I don't know how the students know all of the words because some of them were actually very complex. One of the words that I can remember offhand was the word 'molecule'.

Honestly, I really enjoyed administering this test to the students. It wasn't for an actual grade, but it definitely gave a lot of feedback on how well the students read in my CT's classroom. This will be great for when I get to lesson planning because I will know who to group together.

But to the real point about writing about this sight word testing. I was so surprised by some of the students. One student who has a lot of behaviors (anger management, attitude, etc.) knew so many words. That student had 955/1,000 words memorized. This showed how much potential that student has if they were to get their behavior in order. His behaviors are super limiting to who that child can become, and it really goes to show how important it is to be a good, supportive educator because we have the ability to help change those students.

Honestly, week three (technically?) was a heck of a lot better than week two (technically?). I didn't care for having a sub, but having my CT with me all day helped so much. I was able to observe her math lesson and see how she goes about teaching math to her students. Her strategies will definitely help me in the future when I teach my math lessons later on.

The picture I have attached is one of the classroom. It shows my CT's library center. She has a lot of carpet space in her room which is great for the students to read on. The only problem with all of this carpet space is that the students are very rambunctious. They like to flip around and do unsafe activities. Having that much open space really promotes these sorts of actions. I feel that if she had a more closed-off space, the students wouldn't have nearly as much space for these unsafe actions. The only problem with a closed-off space is that she wouldn't be able to monitor the student's actions to ensure that they were staying on task. I think she has her room set up the best way she can, but it is definitely food for thought.