Prompt #3 - Goldenberg

Hi everyone!

The month of April describes numerous things for me: Busy, busy, flooding, busy, and a little bit of sunshine! However, aside from dealing with the flooding and water damage in not only my home but also my tutoring classrooms, I have come to realize certain things. Last week I was forced to deal with slight changes in the students I was tutoring. Due to the weather, most of the teachers and students were absent therefore, LET THE CRAZINESS BEGIN! Students were moved around due to conflicts with missing teachers, teachers were forced to substitute classrooms, etc. My kindergarten class had several students absent as well as the teachers' assistant. That is where I came in. I helped the teacher take attendance, monitor the children before their tutoring sessions, as well as monitoring the children monitoring the new class pets (Did you know that goldfish and freshwater snails do NOT get along well in one tank? Get two separate tanks = problem solved).


The point of this blog is to focus on how the culturally competent teacher should be able to use a variety of assessment techniques appropriate to diverse learners and accommodate sociocultural differences that affect learning. Within both of my classrooms are language barriers of some sort. More significantly with my kindergarten classroom the language barrier is between Spanish and English. I would say about 95% of the students in class are of Spanish background and speak Spanish fluently. According to Info works of RI, more than half of the population in the elementary school is of Hispanic decent. The remainder include 27% African-American, 8% White, and 6% Asian (infoworks.ride.edu). With reasons unknown to me, there are no ESL (English as a Second Language) programs being offered in the school. However, the school managed to create what is known as “Walk to Intervention”. This program focuses on student’s deficit in skills across reading on different levels. Teachers and tutors focus on skills such as phonemic awareness, short vowel sounds, phonics, etc.



In order to reach proficiency in a second language, theorist Claude Goldenberg explains, "Students (English Language Learners) should learn to read in their first language (Spanish). This promotes higher levels of reading achievement in English" (p.14, American Educator). Accommodating socio-cultural differences that affect learning are very important to a student's success with learning a second language. Linguistically, students use the method of "transferring". "Studies show that literacy and other skills and knowledge transfer across languages" (p.15, American Educator). Goldenberg also clarifies that this learning achievement is not only a difficult task for the ELLs and their teachers, but also the ones who create a curriculum based on what worked all along. If learning a new language at a young age will help with literacy and other knowledge for the child's future, then that curriculum will most likely help other ELLs as well.


Being aware of a student's background will help the teacher or any instructor learn what needs to be focused on with literacy skills. Observing the kindergarteners in the classroom before "Walk to Intervention" truly shows me their personalities and backgrounds. They all play with one another and never single a student out from reading stories together. With most students in the classroom being of Hispanic decent, I hear them speaking Spanish to one another with the teacher saying words like "mucho ruido!" (A lot of noise), when the noise level reaches a certain point. These habits tell me that the students will most likely use what they already know in Spanish when learning to read in English. They speak fluent Spanish and will hopefully use those grammer and langugage skills to transfer that knowledge to their English.

Until next time...thanks for reading!

Prompt #1 - New Beginnings..

How time flies!

It has been a full three weeks since I first started my tutoring sessions in Providence. I have to admit that I was not very nervous about this new experience because I was more excited to start working the kids. I am assigned to three students in kindergarten and another three students in first grade. Working with early elementary/elementary students will most likely be my concentration so this is a great start to experiencing teaching. It was not until I met with all three students in both my kindergarten and 1st grade class that I might try and experience an older grade such as fifth or sixth grade. However, that will have to wait because I truly am enjoying myself with the little ones! My first day of tutoring was pretty exciting because I did not know what to expect as to what I would be doing with the kids. I got there on time for my first and definitely not last impression of this elementary school in Providence.

Being the worrier that I am, I took a trip to the location of the school in order to become familiar with the area and parking. Needless to say that it really helped me because my first day was an easy trip. I entered the school surprised by its location. It is turned away from the main road, which I realized after when I actually found the name of the school posted on the building. The building itself looks relatively new inside and out. When I first entered the school, I noticed the wide, open spaces between all of the classrooms and administration offices. The central theme to the building as far as the color scheme could be explained as crisp and clean with bright colors: white, light blue, yellow, green.

As far as the classrooms that I tutor in (kindergarten and first grade) the general space of the classroom is used quite well. Everything seems to have a space; whether in a cubby or box, books, crayons, pencils, computers, etc. are widely used by the students in both classrooms. Kindergarten and first grade is clearly more centered on colorful pictures and graphs representing the days of the week, colors, letters of the alphabet and so on. There are a lot of colors and things going on on the walls of each classroom but somehow the students know where everything is and are reminded of their representation every day. The teachers also integrates this as well. I observed their routines with the students every morning. For example, with a new and improved alphabet song to get them started with reading time.

The feelings that I associate with this school are wide ranging from diversity to caring friendships. The students come from such diverse backgrounds with languages that are completely opposite from English. However, the way the teachers teach the students helps them learn as a unit the real fundamentals of the English language. Being a "Reading Buddy" is so gratifying just knowing that I am contributing to a students knowledge of their second or perhaps even third language, English.

The first of many things..

Hi Bloggers!

My name is Liana and I'm 19 yrs. old. This is my second year at RIC and I've just realized what I want to do with my life. Teaching has always been in the back of my mind but I was never sure I could do it. I finally got the courage and took this class, FNED 346. I don't regret my decision at all because I'm actually really enjoying it and I'm excited to apply to the FSEHD in the fall. Aside from my hopes and aspirations, I am enjoying my other classes this semester too. In my spare time (if any) I always spend time with my family. I live at home which is possibly the best part about being in college in my opinion. I wouldn't change it for the world. I work at my town library which contributes to the BIG reason as to why I am not going to school to become a librarian. I will be posting more of course, but for my first post I think I will leave off here. Later guys! :)