Sometimes it's like riding a roller coaster!

Teaching is like a roller coaster...up and down, up and down, Hardly ever smooth!

Today, I got another student. That brings the count up to 34. Pray for my sanity. 

I'm trying to get my kiddos ready to take a big benchmark test next week and it's been one GIANT roller coaster ride. It's never something I can expect. 

I'll admit I haven't done any official monitoring since the end of November, but I had an idea of where students were. However, today I had my mind BLOWN numerous times. Some of my kiddos that I had placed in the lower-mid range completely shocked me when they had some of the highest scores. It was discouraging when the same kiddos that scored so low still are in the same spot they were at the beginning of the year. I've tried everything to get them to learn their letters/words...I even was beginning to think that they were catching on. (I did have some kids that were at zero made a TON of progress) I'm really going to start cracking the whip on the ones that aren't making progress. I'm sure it happens in every school but I just want them all to be successful.  


My afternoon group has the bigger group of really low "readers" I have at least 6 that cannot recognize any letters of the alphabet. I've tried everything. I am now having my T.A work with them (along with the reading specialist for intervention) for additional time. I'm hoping that maybe he can motivate them more than I can. 


Next week is benchmark testing and the start of LEP (Limited English Proficient) testing (which I'll have 31 of my 34 testing for that) so I'm quite sure my kiddos will be tested out by the time that we are all finished. I'm just praying that I can show that all 34 of my kiddos have made some progress, whether it's extremely minimal or huge progress. 


Mary and I still have between 2-10 high shoolers come to our house faithfully every night. It can get tiring especially after a long day of work, but I find comfort in knowing they are safe and not being mischief while they're at my house. 


Ready or not testing, here we come!