I appreciate it..Teachers are going through alot of stress. Our state makes us take a test every year to see how well our kids are learning. The test in Florida is the FCAT. The levels are from 1-5 .If a child scores a 1 in the third grade he/she can be retained up the 3 times.All of our schools do well in this area. The tough part is the mandate from the federal government. They are out of touch.They want our mentally handicapped childrento pass the FCAT as well.I'm sorry , but you can not expecta child with a 76 I.Q to function as well as a regular education child who has a 100.
WhenI got my class I was sick. I had many parent request and many of those kids come from caring parents.Caring parents generally produce sharp kids. I also had a load of tough kids that the principal handpicked because they were trouble makers. When I saw my list of "hand picked " kids I was depressed in July. I thought there is no way. Among them was Kevin a non reading hispanic. My wife used to be in the classroom but is nowour network manager.I ask her, "What do I do with Kevein?" She reminded me that she used the
Abeka phonics program with one of her non speaking students.
Because Kevin can't read , he was often out of his seat running around my room or stealing my supplies. I constantly had students go through the
Abeka Handbook for Readers
with Kevin everyday. We take 3 Dibbles test a year. A Dibbles is simply a screening assessment to see how many words a minute the student can read. I had ran a screen on him last week to test vocabulary.{Star test}.He scored 2.5 grade level..which is very good. On his first test in July he scored a zero..He flat out could not read. Yesterday the media specialist tested my kids. I said, "Hey, what was Kevin's score?" She said 68.Words per minute..I had already promiced 5.00 for the child with the most gains. We all stood there with our mouths open.
The principal is video taping our class this morning. I beleive he is wanting to somehow find some Abeka books.
It's a
Christian curriculum and godly principals are woven throughout the book as well.
God bless,
Chuck7
Praise Report.
