Boys and Girls Club Wk 4

This week at the BGC, I was able to have my students write and finalize their writing samples. During the first day of having the students work on their comics, I tried to help them understand that their comic should have a clear beginning middle and end. This helped seldom because the students would get sidetracked easily by other things or people around them and lose track of what they were doing. They were more focused on drawing rather than conveying an idea or story through comics. One of my students was not able to come up with anything to draw or write about although in the beginning she did seem enthusiastic about Captain America. I wonder if this is due to a lack of imagination/ creativity, motivation, or lack of adequate modeling/ differentiation. The other students seemed to not think as hard of what to write down and drew pictures of super heroes they liked.

Afterwards, I worked with a student in the computer lab who struggled with the Study Island modules they had to complete by the end of the school year. As I was helping this student, I realized that she lacked a lot of comprehension, critical thinking, and phonemic awareness. I would read the questions, read the answers, and repeat several times. It seemed as though she couldn’t comprehend what I was even saying in order to make an educated guess. Most of her guesses were random but she became excited when she got them correct. When I asked this student to sound out the words she didn’t know (which was roughly about 95% of them) she was able to sound out the individual letter sounds but wasn’t able to put them together. It was very frustrating to try and teach this student things she should have at least some understanding of. I began to wonder what the cause of her being so behind was. At first, I automatically assumed that it must’ve been a lack of parental support. I became frustrated with thinking that some students were not reaching their potential because some parents do not realize what a huge effect their influence has on their child’s learning. Based on the article “Why Some Parents Don’t Come to School”, it is sometimes out of the parents hands how much time they are able to provide their child with academic support (Finders, Lewis, 2009). Some parents may feel like they cannot assist their own children due to their own academic struggles. Others may work multiple jobs and do not have time to support their children. Others just may not understand that sending their child to school is not all that contributes to their student’s success. Whatever the cause for this students inability to read, write, or comprehend questions, it is the responsibility of their teacher to not assume and get frustrated by the outcome and focus on improving the student’s process of attaining knowledge of comprehension.

Overall, I was able to get an adequate amount of writing samples from my students. Most of the students were able to celebrate their “Study Island” success with a pizza/ and dance party. All in all, looking back, I can say that I have learned much from these students and urban students, although different in many ways, are as equipped for success in their academics as other students when the instructor facilitates an environment that they can grow in and has an open mind about what they can accomplish.