Sometimes It’s Hard to Know Who’s Helping and Teaching Whom

A few weeks ago, I mentioned Reading Club, where I, along with other folks from my church, go to a nearby elementary school and read with kids, once a week, during their lunch time. I wrote about their reading skills, which are significantly behind what might be expected at their grade level. I moaned to Kevin about how much needs to be done and how little time there is to make significant progress. He suggested a word-building skill, which I really did prepare, but then I remembered that Wednesday before last was the first time I was going to be with them since Christmas, and how they might want to (and they did want to) talk about their holiday and gifts.

This is the *author* of the books they like, but it’s not the characters they’re fond of. But it was all I could find at the nearest library.

This is the one and only book I could find at the library close to the school (the book with the characters they particularly enjoy reading about).

I had had a stack of books that they enjoyed reading, but I had taken them back to the library over the holidays. That first Monday (before my first Tuesday with them), I had visited the library closest to me to search for books in the series they like. I couldn’t find any. There was one book by the same author, and I got that one, but it wasn’t about the characters that they have enjoyed reading about. On Tuesday, before I went to the school, I stopped in at the library near the school, went in to look, and TA-DAH, there was one book!

The gray elephant’s name is Gerald, and the pink pig’s name is Piggy. The vocabulary’s relatively easy (depending on which kid is reading), and there are only a few words per page. But, seriously, there’s a plot, and sometimes an unexpected ending.

And, I did bring along one of the word skill games, with sets of letters and a list of words for them to create, just in case we got through the holiday conversations.

I got our table ready, wiping down the tabletop, and being sure everything I needed was at hand. The first of the three kids walked onto the stage, where we meet. He came and sat down, and, before I could say, “How was your holiday time?” he asked, soberly, “Did you bring Gerald?”

“Yes, I did,” I said. The two girls arrived, we chatted, and then we read several pages about Gerald and Piggy, before they had to leave with their classes.

These are the books I got at the other library. We actually read half of *I’m a Frog!* this past week, mainly because there were pages which only had “Ribbit, Ribbit, Ribbit” on them, which the poorest reader could, indeed, “read,” as she kept seeing it over and over and over again. If I show her the word, alone, on a card next week, I’m not sure she’ll recognize it, unless I draw a little frog beside it.

Here’s the book Kevin sent, and the kids’ envelopes with letter cards, and my list of words to make. We just got through the three-letter words last week. Hoping to move on a bit more each week.

That evening, when the knitting/crochet group met at an even different library, I went and got three more Gerald and Piggys, prepared for several weeks to come (books are checked out for three weeks and, if no one else requests them, they can be renewed twice! Possibly nine weeks to keep the books. In general, we read half of a book each week, so I’m good for a while.

And here’s the new routine, which worked pretty well last Tuesday: The instant they’re all there, they start eating and I open the book and let each child read one or two two-page spreads, while the other two chew and swallow a couple of bites. Then, I turn the page and move the book to the next kid, who reads one or two two-page spreads. We keep on doing that until we’ve read either to the middle of the book, or, from the middle to the end.

By then, they’ve finished eating. We dump their trays, I wipe off the table, and I hand them their envelopes with the letters, and we make words. That’s my plan for the next seven weeks, which takes us to Spring Break. Then, I can think about what we might do differently in the weeks from Spring Break until the end of school in May.