Naysayers

I admit that when we are given a new curriculum for our District, I am often one of the first to start saying, "but for Immersion we can't...,  or we need to change...."  Sometimes these are valid complaints, and sometimes I find myself renegging on that argument after I try it out & find that it DOES work for Immersion students. Of course there are certain absolutes, like, talk to me all day about how important it is for students to learn short vowel words first, but there is no such thing in Spanish, so I won't be teaching that rule for Spanish. However, the Lucy Calkins teaching series for Writing is one change that I have enjoyed teaching this year more than ever! The new emphasis on non-fiction writing is actually a gift for 2nd language learners, as their initial vocabulary has to be very real and concrete.

Teachers aren't the only ones who have to confront new teaching & uncharted waters. Our parents are often called on to help their children at home for a language that they have never studied. I don't even try to argue with them when they tell me "I/We can't"... or  "I don't know how..." or  "But my child doesn't want to..."  But I really appreciate it when they take the recommendation & run with it.

This week I was very inspired by a parent who loves her child (as we all do!), and is willing to at least TRY the teacher recommendation. I recommended that these parents ask their 1st grader to read aloud to their 6th grader (also an Immersion student), and then retell the story in her own words. (The idea being that the 6th grader could understand & help the 1st grader in the retelling process more fluently than the parents). As she related the story to me, this mom said that they had tried that before, but that the younger child had never liked reading to her older sibling. The next part was the part was what grabbed me.."But I told my daughter, you know what? This is Sra. Dalman's homework for you, so we're going to try it! We want you to learn to read & retell even better!"  I LOVED THAT! Thank you to all you moms & dads out there who take up that challenge & put in the extra time to help your child achieve the dream!

Oh, I'll still be defending best practices for Immersion education, and you can hold me to that!

Still learning,

Sheryl René