. Regurgitated Alpha Bits: January 2010

Friday, January 15, 2010

Sign of the Be Verb


As I may have mentioned before, we leveled our students this year in an attempt to lessen the achievement gap in each subject. Our largest group is the Intensive group and they are also the ones who have the farthest to go to meet fourth grade benchmarks.

They also have some of the best little personalities on the planet!

All week, my unbelievably awesome student teacher has been working with them on identifying the Be verb in their textbooks and using it properly when speaking and writing. They started off today by going on a Be verb hunt in a story they read. In small groups, they read the story and kept a log of the ones they found.

In the Intensive group we also have two blind students. Most of the time, they work without the assistance of a full-time aide and are the Rock Stars of the World, but they just happened to have one checking in on them today and she was working with them on the verb hunt.

With a big grin on her face and snickering under her breath, she asked me to come and see the work they were doing. I wandered over there and she asked young Kyle to give me an example of what he'd found. (For my long-time readers, Kyle is this kid, a visually impaired firecracker!)

Big grin on his face, pride and self-confidence brimming over, Kyle announced that he had found "was" in the story and that "was" is a beaver!

"It's what?" I asked.

"A beaver!" he repeated proudly.

Oh dear… we have some enunciating to do.