I met the students in the reading room, where they were working on a worksheet to try to identify the subject and predicate of a number of sentences. The paper was set up so that it declared a statement, and then asked the students a question about what preformed the action in each. I know this is kind of confusing, but the best way to explain it would probably be that it was very formulaic, and consisted of statements like this: “Billy plays basketball every Thursday.” And then asked questions like “Who plays basketball every Thursday?” The answer obviously being Billy.
Mina had problems with this, most likely because she was overthinking the questions, which were very simplistic. Despite being very easy to those with better grasps on the English language, these questions were probably very helpful to those just beginning to learn. A few days after going to this placement, I got a similar worksheet from my Spanish teacher to help us identify direct and indirect objects. Maybe all this is helpful to ELLers.
After finishing going over their answers on this worksheet, they started one that helped them to identify the predicate. They were required to circle the predicate of various sentences. Originally they started to circle everything but the verb, but eventually figured out that the predicate is essentially the verb to the end of the sentence.
The next worksheet was one in which they had to decide whether a predicate or subject was required in a sentence with a blank, and then had to choose from a word bank (or phrase bank in the case of the predicates) The students seemed to have the most fun with this because they had more opportunities to be creative with their sentences, and it did not really matter which word or phrase they chose, as long as it was the correct missing aspect of the sentences.
Back in the general classroom, the Ronaldo and Mina were placed in a group with the two lower reading students, and the class went around to different stations. Their first station was with the teacher, where they began taking turns reading pages from the book, Dear Mr. Henshaw. I remember reading this book and enjoying it when I was about their age. It is a simple read, but a very good book. It is interesting because it is different than most, being that it is written as a series of letters that a child sends to his favorite author, Mr. Henshaw. Through these letters we learn more and more about the child and his life. After a round of reading, the teacher would ask a series of questions about what was happening in the book.
The next station the students went to was a partner reading area. They took turns reading paragraphs in the short story La Bamba, another story I had to read at their age. The kids almost fought to read and if one would start reading more than they were supposed to, the partner would interject immediately. Not soon after getting into this section, all the students were pulled out for some sort of guidance activity I believe.
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