I often wonder why my students don’t understand instructions or don’t follow along during lessons. Yesterday I caught a glimpse of what is going on with some of them!
Each week we make a little book about 3”x4” that shows our letter of the week and five words (with pictures) to “read” to me and then take home to read to parents. This week the letter is T and the words are table, tail, tub, tire, and toe. Each child reads their book to me at my desk.
After one boy finished he said, “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Mrs. Maurer, how does Santa make all those toys?”
Oh, my!!!
After I gave him my little spiel about all the hard-working elves I just sat for a moment and wondered how long he has been dwelling on Santa’s production problems instead of his phonics lessons!! I make it a point to NOT use toy as one of our T words because of the endless discussions that invariably ensue, so I’m not sure what even prompted his thought process.
This is just one example of the things that children obsess about. I have another student who is already counting the days until Halloween and talks about it every single day! If you consider all the frivolous things they can think about and add the day-to-day stresses and problems of their home life, it is no wonder their minds wander in class. One of the things we teach them is how to concentrate on the task at hand, but it obviously takes a while to actually acquire that skill.
The random things that come out of their heads. Focus and concentration are two of the difficult things we teach.
Posted by: teach5.wordpress.com | September 18, 2011 at 02:35 PM