New Student!

A few days back the class got another new student. The day before he began Mrs. Kempton was sure to tell the rest of the students that a new kid would be joining them the following day. The next day, all kids kept asking about him. By giving the kids notice to his coming before hand, and doing so a day early, built the excitement. Rather than him appearing and having everyone ask who he was, he was greeted by excited kids eager to get to know him.

He first came in while the rest of the class was in specials, this was done so that he would be tested and meet his teacher without kids surrounding him. The first assessment had the child pointing to pictures that ended with the same sound.

For example in the image above, both glue and two end with an "oo" sound. After this assessment he was tested on letters and numbers. In the end he showed to have known 12 uppercase letters and 11 lowercase. He didn't know they called letters though. He couldn't read his name, when his name was written he knew what all the letters were, but he didn't recognize it spelling his name. He new what numbers were as well as some rhyming words. Did couldn't quite print match, which is following the words being read with his finger on the page.

He was also begin to understand the concept of beginning and ending - first and last. This is important for new readers and writers to understand. Without knowing that the FIRST thing they hear when "Kite" is said is "Kuh" they can't begin to write the word even if they know that the letter K sounds like "Kuh". Identifying the first and last sound is a necessary tool when writing and reading at a young age.