I spent a morning last week training a group of teachers in ideas for reading strategy groups. It was a small group, and the training was very interactive. We had the best time. We talked about students we had taught and books we had read and books we wanted to read. The time just flew by. It’s funny to think that my passion for literacy all really began because I got a teaching position teaching a grade level that I prayed I would never get!
I taught third grade my first year of teaching. Those students came to me with a certain baseline in reading ability. Some were far more proficient than others, but they all had the general idea. I wasn’t starting from scratch with any of them. That was good, because my four years in the education department had taught me about how children learned to read. I had also learned a few methodologies in reading. But I had never really been taught how to teach a child to read. This never really concerned me until I was in the classroom and I was the teacher. Then it concerned me a whole lot. That first year, I think I may have just treaded water. I had a textbook and a teacher’s manual and I followed it page-by-page.
The next year, I applied and was hired for a position in a different district. There were several positions open at the time, and I told them I would gladly accept any of them, but please not first grade. First graders needed to learn to read. I was not sure I was the gal for that. That fall, there I was in a first grade classroom. Sure enough, they needed lots of help learning to read. And I need lots of help teaching them! Luckily, I am not afraid to ask for help. The reading specialists at the school became great friends of mine. They helped me figure out what to do and I went back to college to get my reading certification.
A passion for literacy is not all that I discovered that year. I also discovered that first graders are my very favorite age group. I’ll never forget my first day. It was so different from my first day teaching third grade. First, my third graders just came and sat at the table that was reserved for our class. There was no fanfare. First graders come in bouncing. They never walk. I think it is physically impossible in August. They bounce, skip, gallop, side step- anything but walk. Then they gather around the table, but I wouldn’t call it sitting. They kind of just buzz around the table like bees. I kept trying to count them that first day to see if they were all there, but I couldn’t because they wouldn’t stay in one place long enough to count. I eventually could at least tell that there were a lot of them, so we headed down the hall to my room.
My classroom was at the very end of the hall. We walked past every other room. I am sure the children were getting worried that first day when we never stopped at any of the rooms we passed. I remember looking at them that day, standing by their desks with their little backpacks. They looked so tiny! They still had little baby faces. I knew they had mommies at home who were crying because they were missing them. We unpacked and started getting down to the important first day business- lunch and getting home. These are the only two things that matter the first day.
In third grade, when I took lunch count, I asked, “Are you eating a school lunch?” If the student had brought a lunch box, he would simply say, “No, I brought my lunch.” It was simple and easy. (Now, teachers have this all on the projector screen and children just walk up and slide something over by their names. I taught back in the days when we didn’t even have a computer in our classrooms, so this was very old school. We had to actually talk.) I assumed this same approach would work in first. I asked, “Are you eating a school lunch?” Every single student said yes. But there were at least ten lunchboxes on the shelf by the backpacks. Something wasn’t right. I walked over and picked up a lunchbox and held it up. “Whose lunchbox is this?” I asked. A little girl claimed it. I asked her if she had told me she was eating a school lunch. She said, “I am eating that lunch at school.” Crap. I had forgotten that six year olds are very literal. Back to the drawing board with lunch count. My new question: Did you bring a lunch box?
This new question worked for about two years. Then I had a student whose mom packed his snack in a lunchbox. Every morning when I asked, “Did you bring a lunch box,” he said, “Yes.” Then at lunch time, I told all of the students with lunch boxes to grab them before we went to the cafeteria. He always grabbed his. I did notice that his mom had sent lunch money a few times. That seemed odd, but his parents were terrific. I thought maybe they were just being cautious in case he decided to eat a school lunch sometimes. Then one day his mom called me and said she had a favor to ask me. She said that her son was arriving home from school just famished. He was eating all of his snack at school, but she thought maybe he wasn’t eating his school lunch. She wanted me to check and see if he was eating what was on his tray. I think my heart dropped to the floor. I told her that he had been bringing a lunch box. She said that was only for his snack. He had been supposed to be getting a lunch tray, too. My morning question didn’t work! When I asked, “Did you bring a lunch box,” he thought he had to say yes!
I had the worst guilt ever. I apologized profusely. I became the lunch box patrol. Literally. If someone brought a lunch box, I asked if it had lunch or a snack. If it seemed questionable, I asked to see it. I started walking around the lunch table to see what the children were eating.
To add to that story, that same little boy had a terrible bike wreck in late fall of his first grade year. He was homebound for several months while he recovered. I volunteered to be his homebound teacher. I visited him a few times a week in the hospital and then when he went home. A couple of years ago, I was in a Dairy Queen drive thru and he was there. He was the manager of the store! He remembered me and thanked me for volunteering to teach him at his home when he was recovering. He said it had really helped him to feel like he was still a part of our class. I was so touched! Of course, I had to tell him the lunch box story so I could apologize profusely one more time.
On my first day in first grade I also discovered the joys of taking over twenty six year olds to the bathroom at the same time. My third graders had accomplished this without my assistance. On that first day, my first graders did not do anything without my assistance. I had the cutest little blond haired boy in my class. His mom had dressed him in a little polo shirt and khaki shorts. He walked into the boys’ bathroom and slipped and fell on the floor. I’m saying that very politely. This was a first grade boys’ bathroom. He slipped and slid a little bit on the “wet” floor. I happened to see it because it was getting loud and rowdy in there so I had peeked my head in the doorway to ask the boys to quiet down. As soon as the little boy fell, he started to cry, but he popped back up and ran straight to me and wrapped his little arms around my legs and sobbed. He had known me for less than an hour, but I was his safe place. And now we were both covered in pee. That was the moment when I knew first grade was where I was meant to be.
Now I think teaching teachers about literacy is where I am meant to be, but I sure do miss my first graders. They were a lot of work, but I loved them so much. They changed so much from August to May. By the end of the year, they could do so much more on their own. They didn’t need me for every little thing. Just in time for summer break, and a brand new group in the fall!
