Entry 7:

Student 1: Spanish
This student was very interesting to observe. She was definitely an ELL student, but when she spoke English you would not know she spoke any other language. The reason for this was that she learned to speak English by speaking with her Aunt, English speaker only with whom she lives with due to family troubles. She how ever does not know how to read or write Enlgish very well. So when I was observing her read an AIMSweb assessment it was very interesting. She knew a majority of the words but only got them by understanding what the sentence was saying. Her visual ques were that of commas and periods, she did not understand what a question mark or exclamation mark were. All in all I think she did pretty well given her circumstances and just learning to read English.

Student 2: Spanish
This student came to the school mid-way through the year due to his father being in the military and getting stationed here.  He spoke very little English and could read even less. He did not get very much practice at home so he was not gaining or retaining anything he was learning. I also observed an AIMSweb assessment and his visual cues and syntax clues were present, but not utilized as much as they should be. He also would say words with inflections that were not necessary.

I think for furture teaching for both of these students would be to send them home with cassette tapes of reading materials so they can read in English and follow along, then have them start reading along with the tape. I also think that these student should be paired up with a fellow student to help them and encourage them to keep working on their English.