Monday, April 09, 2007

The Pine and the Willow




Date: 31 March 2007 (Saturday)

This post is 2 weeks after the event so forgive me for not updating the volunteer and children roll-call.

I used back the old format which was reading with/to the whole class using another of Judy Ling's big print and picture books titled, "The Pine and the Willow." The book was about the fates of two trees, the winding willow vs the straight and prideful pine. It tells the story of how the Pine despite being the better looking tree, suffers the fact that one would expect... To be made into furniture while the crooked willow continue to be left in the forest to provide fun and entertainment for people who came upon it.

The story is good for us to teach children on appreciating one's qualities even if one is not "beautiful/handsome" in the conventional sense. I asked the children for their feedback after the story and only slightly less than half enjoyed it. Ah well! :-)

We broke up into small group reading and I took R and J so that I could monitor their progress. R is okay, he is just mainly share and has a slight speech pronunication issue which I believe can be corrected over time as his tongue and palate develops. J on the other hand needs more individualised coaching but I noted some slight improvements after I realise her eyes jump over the words when reading so I need to train her to use her finger to follow the words and train her eye to look at where the fingers are pointing.

A good session as it went smoothly and the sense of satisfaction from teaching kidsREAD never ceases to amaze me. The other development is Az's elder sister asking me to help her in her picture composition. So now I set aside 1/2 an hour after the 1-hour kidsREAD class to coach Az's sister in english homework.

More in the next post.

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