Our county used these funds to hire ESSER teachers, and at the end of the 2020–2021 school year, I, without hesitation, accepted the offer to be an ESSER teacher for the upcoming school year.
I provide academic support to second graders.
I feel the pressure every day.
Every morning, I meet with (I am supposed to meet with) eighteen second-graders identified as needing Tier 3 reading instruction.
At 8:30am, my first group arrives. I have three to four students in a group and every thirty minutes we focus on phonemic awareness, phonics, word study, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency. My last group leaves at 11:00am.
I work very hard to stay organized, not wanting to miss a second of instruction.
When reading groups are over, I gather the four plastic folders I used that day to guide my instruction. I place the leveled books back inside the folders, and every other day, I hold on to one leveled book. That is because every other day, I use a recording form as I listen to a student read aloud. I use this form to assess both accuracy and comprehension.
This photo shows my Guided Reading table ready for students to arrive. This group has three students. Each student has a leveled book and a take-home book. Because it is an even day, I have a chair by my chair with a student folder, recording form and its corresponding leveled reader.
I pull the take-home books out of the folders because those will go home with the students the following day. I place those folders and any returned take-home books into my designated bag and head over to the book room.
“Simplifying and organizing are the key to a serene environment.”
Serene is definitely my goal.
When I arrive to the book room, I return one folder at a time and get the next numbered folder. I look inside to make sure there are enough leveled books and take-home books. I place these four folders into my bag and head back to my room.
When working with Tier 3 students, I must use a county approved program, so I am using LLI, Leveled Literacy Intervention.
Once I return from the book room, I set up for the next day. This photo shows the four LLI folders I will be using the following day. One folder is used twice because both groups are on the same level. On top of each folder are the leveled books from that folder. On top of the leveled books are the take-home books from the recently returned folders. The Post-it Notes remind me of the times each group arrives.
I try to arrive at work between 6:30am and 7:00am. I must be there by 7:30am. I sign in for the week and check my mailbox once a week. As soon as I head into my portable, I flip on the lights, spray some Febreze, check my Damp Rid hanging bag, unpack my backpack and start unstacking chairs. I set up the Guiding Reading table, place that days read-aloud on the carpet, make sure I have the next day’s printed book cover stapled to the accountability board, change the date, place the bin of picture books on one table, and math manipulatives on the other table….
One side of our accountability board. I print out the covers of every book I read to myself and every book I read aloud to my students.
The other side of our accountability board.
My room is ready.
At 7:55, I walk into an established Writing Workshop routine. The table has two chairs ready for conferencing. Stapler. Tape. Scissors. Pencils. Notebook paper. Erasers. Garbage Pail.
At any time between 12:30pm and 1:30pm, second grade teachers can send their students to me for An Extra Dose of Number Sense.
After snapping this photo, I joined them on the carpet.
At 1:30, I reflect on my day.
The first week back from winter break, I was a substitute teacher for a week.
This past Friday I was a substitute teacher again, this time for a different second grade class. I took a deep breath. I thought about the purpose of these ESSER funds; it is to address learning loss. If I had not subbed that day…A split class. Different people coming in to cover. Definitely learning loss, and since we are trying to avoid learning loss, I went in with a positive attitude, choosing not to dwell on the fact that I would not see my own students and I did my best to foster learning gains.
I found white construction paper sitting in a cabinet, folded it and each student received a brand new writing folder. I had an idea, something I had not done with them before. Instead of just being able to come to me for editing, they could sit next to me, and I could write words on their folders — words they wanted to use in their writing. They could be word collectors.
Freedom Summer sat in a bucket, wearing both an Ezra Jack Keats Book Award sticker and a Coretta Scott King Book Award sticker on its cover, and none of the students were familiar with its story. Segregated 1960s South. The perfect read-aloud.
Second Grade Standard: Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
The silence grew. They felt the sadness. They had so much to say when the two boys, best friends, one black, one white, finally thought they could swim in a pool together and the pool was purposely closed.
We found two orange cones outside and I divided them into two teams — one group had six and one group had seven. Odd or Even, a second grade standard. Now they saw why it mattered. I joined the group of six. Now it was even.
We jumped to the cones and ran back. We laughed. We were happy.
This is my story. My life as an ESSER teacher.