Fridays Are Fun

During Christmas Break Tink's teacher came into my store.  She received a Coco's Gift Card from Tink for Christmas.  While she was in we started talking about the education system.  From the conversation I made the decision to volunteer in her classroom.  Wish I would have thought to do it before.  I love it.  I delay opening my shop one hour to go to the school.  What a great thing to be able to do.
If you read this blog, you know my passion is reading.  My super power is reading.  I spend my volunteer time testing the children.  They are first graders.  State Standards (dislike State Standards), dictate what is the words per minute the children should read for their level.  Every week they have a different store I test them on.  It is a one minute timed test.  I track wpm and errors.  The kids put their times on a graph and color their score.  It ends up being very time consuming.  Their are students on a watch list.  They read the weekly story and a second story as well.  The extra story is to test their ability to sound words.  I am thankful they are working on this skill.  If a child cannot sound words, spelling is very difficult. 
Today was my fourth visit to the school.  Last week I took candy and they each got two pieces after their reading.  It has become time consuming because I have to do make up tests if the kids missed the prior Friday.  There are extra charts to complete for the students that have the second story.  If the teacher were doing it herself, she would have to dedicate 90 minutes or more a week for this.  It would be impossible.  I sit in the hall at a table with the students.  That way we are not interrupted.  The teacher would never have the ability to have such a large block of time for one on one reading.
Tink loves my going to her classroom.  The students love that I give out candy after the test.  Some of the students are getting their parents to bring them to the shop now.  Bonus for me!!  Being able to go in and help the teacher is only going to make things easier for my grandkids.  Tru Stories does volunteer for her kids.  Unfortunately, a germ infested school is not a good place for TS to go in the winter months. 
Today I noticed a huge increase in the reading skills.  It is like a light went on for some of the kids.  For the readers that have exceeded their level, next week we move onto putting punctuation into the timed reading.  I am blessed to get to see children learning to read.  Seeing a passion begin to grow in a few of them.  It is obvious that some students have the advantage of reading being a part of their lives.  Probably, had parents reading to them since they were born.  My grandkids have always been surrounded by books.  TS does not have time to do her own reading.  She does make time to keep books in her children's lives.  I was not read to on a regular basis.  I remember having a few books when I was young.  I made sure books were always there for my kids.  There were not many nights they went to sleep without being read to.  Proud that is something that is continued with my grandchildren. 
Not sure I would have made a good teacher.  I should have been a librarian.  I spent all my free time in the school library from 6th grade through high school.  While I was in junior high I did story time for the younger grades.  Loved that!  Reading opens up the world to all of us.  Even if it is on the computer, reading about bugs.  Reading is learning.  One hour a week I am part of the process!