Naomi Pederson #1

Once I met with Youngsil, I knew it was going to be fun. Difficult -- but fun. She is always so full of energy, it's almost impossible for me to keep up! She is so cheerful, it’s just infectious. She and her family moved here from Korea, and her brother is also part of the program. I know she is a really smart girl, and that makes it difficult, because she knows that she can communicate her thoughts, but doesn't quite know the proper way of saying them in English. It also makes it difficult to pick out books, as well. She is somewhat of a perfectionist, and her inability to comprehend the books that she wants to read is definitely a sore point with her. We try to pick out books that are at her reading level, but I get the feeling that she thinks they are either boring or stupid. When she does get interested in a book, though, she'll often read a few passages, until she stumbles a bit, then shoves the reins into my hands. Of course, we are supposed to be reading to our Little Buddies, but I also wish that if she just tried a little more, she would feel more accomplished, rather than dejected that she cannot read at the level that she understands.

Recently, though, as I've mentioned the fact that we will be working on a book together, she closed up, or became so uber cheerful that we almost ran out of time to talk about it -- she's very good at changing the subject or avoiding things that way. I think it's because she is afraid of reading out loud to people. She mentioned that at school, her entire grade is performing and singing something for an audience, and she is really scared -- except for when they sing a Korean song. I think she's afraid of making mistakes and faltering. She never says so, though, only that she doesn't like it, or that it won't be fun. I really want to be able to boost her confidence, but I am also afraid of pushing too hard and making her dislike reading and writing.

Being a part of Reading Buddies has definitely been changing how I look at learning language, especially for a second language learner. My mother was born and raised in Japan, and moved here 20 years ago. I've always known that it's difficult to uproot and learn not only a new language, but also an entirely different culture, but never really understood, you know? My brain could understand why it would be difficult, but not really grasping the entirety of the difficulty. With Youngsil, it's so apparent. Her brother is farther along with his English (maybe because he is older?) and I know she speaks Korean at home and often with her friends, but I can see her frustration when she cannot get the word or phrasing correctly in English. We picked out one book, Happy Hanukkah, and she didn't understand the concepts, rather than the words. We talked about Christmas, but I could tell it wasn't really talked about in her home. What must it be like to be her -- just starting to talk, and then not being able to communicate at all? Or when the words make sense as words, but not as sentences and thoughts? So much of what we say relies on understanding meaning beyond the words -- history, shared knowledge, etc. It just boggles my mind, especially since it happens quite often when young families travel. I know that I want her to fall in love with reading, but I also want her to be confident in herself enough that reading out loud isn't an ordeal.

The Family Learning Center Experience Thus Far

I must say that I am really enjoying my experience with the preschool at the Family Learning Center. It really is amazing how positively my mood can change from the time I come in to volunteer, to the time I leave, the kids that go there are all little rays of sunshine. It is such a moment when the kids look sad to say goodbye, but good to look forward to the next visit. I feel welcomed there and hope that I am setting a good example for the preschoolers. The first time in was an adjustment and time to soak in how they operate there. I was able to quickly catch on to their routines, usually when I first come in at one in the afternoon; they are having a snack and then shift to group time. During group time we all sit around as a whole and sing kids songs as well as count the days of the month and check on the weather outside, with songs accompanying all these activities. They are definitely very community-oriented at the Family Learning Center. After all the students are together, I separate with Mona’s classroom where the more one on one sessions begin.

The classroom I help out with consists of about 15 kiddos who are all very sweet and personable. I think over the weeks they have become comfortable with me being around once a week and are starting to be able to call me by my name, as I am for them as well. A little blurb I wrote about to share with friends and family is that I am “Developing a soft spot for preschoolers at the Family Learning Center here in Boulder. All the little girls ask me to draw them rainbows and flowers... One strange request was a fly, which actually turned out pretty cool. They hold my hand willfully and ask me what my favorite color is. The boys tend to keep away from me, but one of them told me I was a giant. I’m 5 foot nine and these kids must be about max 2 in a half feet tall. I read to them all about Curious George, insects and butterflies. I’m finding that reminding everyone they have inside voices and the ability to share, it's key.”

It seems that my role in helping these kids is to be there to help with reading and to set an example of how to draw basic things, just like the rainbows and flies, as I wrote about earlier. I notice, especially with a little girl named Isabelle, that asking questions about what words mean to her really helps her pay attention to the story. For instance, when we are reading a book about insects, and I continuously have to point and ask what things are, like “What is this?" As I point at the tarantula, and then Isabelle will say spider! And then I ask what kind and point to the words that say tarantula and then she says "Tarantula!" The only thing I find to be a struggle is having the power to get the kids’ attentions and keep it going so that they are able to learn and associate their understandings on completing a task. For instance, with one of the boys I work with, It was really hard to be engaged with asking questions with him because he just wouldn’t respond or even look me in the eyes. I just had to keep on being persistent in my intention in helping him solve the word finding game, it was a challenge but we both took what we could out of the shared experience, and I look forward to continuously help him and the other preschoolers with their daily activities. One more thing to note is that my prior know ledge of Spanish is really helping me connect with these bilingual kiddos with basic vocabulary, When I am reading and I know a word in Spanish and in English I will try to say both for a full understanding for both parties.

The Family Learning Center Experience Thus Far

I must say that I am really enjoying my experience with the preschool at the Family Learning Center. It really is amazing how positively my mood can change from the time I come in to volunteer, to the time I leave, the kids that go there are all little rays of sunshine. It is such a moment when the kids look sad to say goodbye, but good to look forward to the next visit. I feel welcomed there and hope that I am setting a good example for the preschoolers. The first time in was an adjustment and time to soak in how they operate there. I was able to quickly catch on to their routines, usually when I first come in at one in the afternoon; they are having a snack and then shift to group time. During group time we all sit around as a whole and sing kids songs as well as count the days of the month and check on the weather outside, with songs accompanying all these activities. They are definitely very community-oriented at the Family Learning Center. After all the students are together, I separate with Mona’s classroom where the more one on one sessions begin.

The classroom I help out with consists of about 15 kiddos who are all very sweet and personable. I think over the weeks they have become comfortable with me being around once a week and are starting to be able to call me by my name, as I am for them as well. A little blurb I wrote about to share with friends and family is that I am “Developing a soft spot for preschoolers at the Family Learning Center here in Boulder. All the little girls ask me to draw them rainbows and flowers... One strange request was a fly, which actually turned out pretty cool. They hold my hand willfully and ask me what my favorite color is. The boys tend to keep away from me, but one of them told me I was a giant. I’m 5 foot nine and these kids must be about max 2 in a half feet tall. I read to them all about Curious George, insects and butterflies. I’m finding that reminding everyone they have inside voices and the ability to share, it's key.”

It seems that my role in helping these kids is to be there to help with reading and to set an example of how to draw basic things, just like the rainbows and flies, as I wrote about earlier. I notice, especially with a little girl named Isabelle, that asking questions about what words mean to her really helps her pay attention to the story. For instance, when we are reading a book about insects, and I continuously have to point and ask what things are, like “What is this?" As I point at the tarantula, and then Isabelle will say spider! And then I ask what kind and point to the words that say tarantula and then she says "Tarantula!" The only thing I find to be a struggle is having the power to get the kids’ attentions and keep it going so that they are able to learn and associate their understandings on completing a task. For instance, with one of the boys I work with, It was really hard to be engaged with asking questions with him because he just wouldn’t respond or even look me in the eyes. I just had to keep on being persistent in my intention in helping him solve the word finding game, it was a challenge but we both took what we could out of the shared experience, and I look forward to continuously help him and the other preschoolers with their daily activities. One more thing to note is that my prior know ledge of Spanish is really helping me connect with these bilingual kiddos with basic vocabulary, When I am reading and I know a word in Spanish and in English I will try to say both for a full understanding for both parties.

Presentation Day

Well my final day with Josiah was last Wednesday and I couldn't have imagined it going any better. Josiah had the confidence to introduce us and displayed our books pictures like a PRO! But he did forget my name in front of 20 or so people... but I forgave him for it and we moved on real quick.

I'm very proud of Josiah for getting up in front of others and speaking even though it was only a few phrases. I didn't think he'd be able to mutter a single word but he proved me wrong and I'm glad he did.

Reading Buddies was a grand ol' time and I recommend it to anyone who likes fun. Which is everyone. So I recommend it to everyone.

-Eric Silberstein

The Final Goodbye

I am sad to say that this is my final blog post because this will be admitting that I will have to say good-bye to the SWAP program and my student, Valentina, as well. I have had such an amazing time and it is an experience that I will never forget.

However, I would like to happily say that Valentina and I found a good routine with our daily work. I had previously mentioned before that we were going to try and role play with written dialogues. We did try that once but my student wasn’t into it. She also said that she did not like using the flash cards. But by a chance spontaneous moment, we found something that worked for both of us, reading current events from the newspaper. This worked perfectly for us. What we would do is, I would bring a newspaper or a magazine and Valentina would a paragraph and I would then ask her what that paragraph was talking about. She would recite the best she could the meaning of what she just read and I would help her fill in the blanks. Then at the very end of the article we would both have a conversation of how we felt about it and often that would bring up another topic of conversation. Sometimes I would have a hard time understanding what she was saying so I would stop her and in another way she would have to explain in another way. This was the only activity that Valentina said she really liked doing and wanted to continue with. So we did this for the rest of our classes. I did feel a little bit worried that some of the newspapers I could get a hold of had hard concepts and words in them. I could mostly only find the New York Times and the LA times on campus but I figured that this is the level most newspapers are at. If she can get through them and comprehend what a higher level newspaper is saying then this will give her the confidence to pick up any newspaper and understand the content. Not everything, like in the workbooks is going to have simple words and concepts. At first, it was challenging but towards the end of the classes, Valentina was a lot quicker about comprehending what was going on and her reading improved as well.

Another thing to brag about Valentina that made me proud was when Valentina didn’t want to throw away the newspapers when we were done with class. She said that she would bring them home with her and read with her 7 year old niece that was just beginning to learn to read. I don’t know if she actually did read with her niece but if she does just once, then I have succeeded.

Not only was I teaching Valentina, she was teaching me. I have a thousand stories that I could share about Valentina’s words of wisdom or actions but one story particularly sticks out. By the end of the semester, I beginning to get fairly well informed on Mexican politics. Previously, the topic never really sparked my interest until one day in class. I remember at the beginning I was really tired from the night before and I had a million things to do after the class and needless to say I was a little distracted. However, a quick, mindless class was not where the conversation was headed. Fairly close to the beginning of the class we read an article about the new Mexican president that was inducted over the weekend, Pena Nieto. When we would stop at every paragraph to discuss what the article was saying, Valentina would be the one that tell me what was really happening in the artice, with background information, the political party systems and why the previous elected officials are corrupt. I found myself very confused at times with the names of the past presidents and who was associated with which party. I kept on having to ask for clarification and very patiently Valentina would help me. Valentina would even correct my pronunciation of some of the Spanish words and names as I have done with her many times with new English words. From that class, Valentina gained useful knowledge in explaining a difficult idea in English and I gained an insider’s perspective on a subject that I previously would have not known.

The last couple weeks the high school students have been coming to the time I volunteer with the middle school students. Once I was helping one of the high school students write a research paper. I was getting so incredibly frustrated because he was not focusing and did not do any research before hand. I felt like he expected me to write the entire thing for him, and I was not about to do that. But after being frustrated for a while I realized maybe he is just insecure about his lack of knowledge of how to write and organize a research paper. So he is being stubborn because he feels embarrassed. And this made me so incredibly sad that he felt that way. It reminded me about what we learned in ling 1000 about linguistic insecurity. About how maybe he felt his language was beneath the "standard language" and felt insecure about it. After that moment I was no longer frustrated but focused more on giving him the skills to write this research paper and more in the future.

This was the first experience I've had at family learning center where I was very frustrated with a student but it ended up working out and we finished his outline for the research paper. YAY!

Goodbye LING 1900! :(

Well tomorrow is the final day of reading buddies and I'm anxious to see how it goes. Last wednesday Josiah left the library in tears which was not how I visioned our 2nd to last meeting ending. He was upset because the reality of speaking in front of people settled in. My plan was for him to introduce us and thats all and when we practiced the introduction he did a very good job. But when his mom was picking him up and we talked one last time about the introduction I encouraged him to practice his lines and that's when he started to cry. So tomorrow should be interesting. I really hope he decides to introduce us and has the courage too or else it'll be a one man show and I'll be center stage.

Besides that final issue I think our final project together has been a very fun time. Josiah finally expressed a reading preference and it was for Star Wars material so I tried to play off this strength so he'd have some encouragement and would be excited for the project. Because before he really seemed to dread the idea of writing his own story. But my strategy worked and we wrote the story together and it was fun for him and I.

I'm sad that tomorrow will be our last meeting. I've had such a fun time hangin' with the little bugger every Wednesday that it's been a highlight of my week every week. So with a gap in my schedule my Wednesdays are gonna feel empty.

I'm very glad I participated in Reading Buddies and think that it's an activity every student could benefit from. I know it's cliché but reading buddies probably taught me more than I taught Josiah. I've become a better story teller (a personal goal of mine), improved my personal skills, and revisited my youth. I think I enjoyed most of the stories more than Josiah did to be honest. This is Eric signing off. Over and out!