Adjusting to a New Teaching Assignment

In a previous blog post, I talked about taking on a different role this year. I was happy to be offered a 0.5 interventionist/support teacher position at my school.

I provide literacy and numeracy support to small groups of children. I started with a few groups based on the results of provincial exams last spring, but as teachers have gotten to know their new students over the last couple of months, my list of students has grown. But not the time I have to support them!

I have to admit, maybe even a little sheepishly, that I don’t miss the classroom, at least in the ways I thought I would. Instead, I am enjoying visiting other classrooms and seeing what kids and teachers are doing.

This year, I get to teach without needing to worry about the added administrative tasks that have been dumped on teachers laps during the last few years. I am free to address students’ needs as I observe them reading and writing or doing math. I plan my instruction to align with what teachers are doing, but also in order to help my students access that instruction more easily. I adapt to where my students are in their learning.

Working on l-blends in grade 2? We practice these in real words, spell the words, use them in sentences, read books that use some of these blends, like Click, Clack Moo.

Don’t know the names and sounds of letters, yet? We play games with letters, segment sounds in short words and blend them back together to say real words. We use Elkonin Boxes to segment and blend sounds.

Spelling is a concern? We practice identifying misspelled words in our writing; we learn about the silent /e/ at the end of words. We manipulate letters to make new words in a making words activity and play word ladders. We practice air spelling as we say the letters of a word and commit it to memory.

Reading fluency needs attention? We practice paying attention to punctuation and replacing words that make sense when we don’t know a word in the text and we read and reread text to improve our fluency. We practice reading so that it flows: read like you would if you were talking, I urge my students.

Don’t understand place value? We play place value games, use base 10 blocks to make multi-digit numbers, we use the 100’s chart to track numbers and talk about how far away they are from each other. We use an open number line to add and subtract numbers.

I notice how tired teachers are already and then I remember that was me last year. I empathize with brand new and early career teachers who are wading in a sea of deadline after deadline causing them to loose sight of what really matters in education: teaching and learning.

I’m happier this year. I’m reading a lot more and I’m working on some personal education projects during my free time. Nevertheless, I’m struggling with how to organize my non-teaching days. Sometimes, when I’m not feeling productive I give myself grace and remember I don’t have to have all the answers right now. This gives me the courage I need to reinvent myself.