Caroline finds kids at Christel House positive, genuine, and excited about being at school,

I’ve been spending a lot of time working in the library at Christel House. Although I am officially assigned to the marketing office, I have only worked there one day because has yet to be set up. However, I don’t mind because working in the library is a ton of fun and I get to interact with lots of amazing people every day.

Lately in the library, we have been working focusing a lot on literacy and reading comprehension. Last week, we gave Grades 3-7 a reading comprehension test to see at what age level students are reading at. The kids take the same exam twice a year, every year to gauge their progress, and their results are recorded and filed. I graded all of the exams with my coworker, Janina (who s awesome by the way) and we both found looking at the results to be really interesting. The test consists of 48 multiple choice fill-in-the-blank questions where you must choose the word that fits best into the sentence. The scores are converted into what age the child’s reading level is. I found that most students’ reading levels were about 2 years below their actual age. For example, an 11-year-old student was on average reading at the level of a 9-year-old. Some students were better than others, and some were way behind. About 2 students per class were right on track with their actual age equal to their reading level.

I have also had the chance to read books with students one-on-one the last couple days. Before I read with anyone, I as them if they read books at home. You can really see a huge difference in ability between a child who reads at home and one who does not. Last week, I had two Grade 2 students read The Jungle Book to me, a book that I thought had some pretty difficult words for their age. The boy who read at home was trying to sound out words letter by letter when he got stuck, where the other child would either sit silently and not try to figure a word out, or just randomly guess what the word was based off one or two letters she recognized.

Today, I read with two Grade 4 boys named Uthimna and Chadwin who are part of an extra-help reading group at the library. Before we began, I asked if they read at home – Uthimna said yes and Chadwin said no. I read them a story about medieval knights which seemed to hold their attention for nearly the whole period – impressive. As we went along, I explained to them what jousting was and what a lance is, and then they told me they had seen it before in the movie 300. I thought these boys were a bit young to watch 300, but I just nodded and moved along.

Anyway, the difference between Uthimna’s and Chadwin’s ability was very noticeable. Uthimna quietly read each word along with me as best he could, while Chadwin sat and listened to the story. Chadwin was more fidgety and spacey, and I caught his eyes wandering about the room a couple of times. I kept them involved with the story by asking them comprehension questions along the way and their predictions about how the story was going to end.

I also sat and read Bambi with two grade 3 boys named Apilele and Kamva. It was awesome to see Apilele, the stronger reader, helping his friend with words he did not know, and trailing his finger along the words as he read Kamva did not lose his place. I told the boys how well they did, and they were really happy. Kamva told me at the end of class how he had never heard that story before and how much he liked it. When I saw him later at recess he excitedly asked me to remind him again what it was called.

Some grade R students at Christel House huffing and
puffing like the big bad wolf from the three little pigs

It’s so cool to see kids get excited about reading, something that I love, and it’s really nice to be able to foster the same love within these kids at a young age. Reading with students in the library makes me happy because they snuggle up next to you as you read and get so entranced with the stories. I enjoy spending one-on-one time with the students and learning about them. I especially love building personal relationships with them and seeing how they get excited to greet me each day and give me hugs. Sometimes when a class of 30 students walks in, I will get 30 hugs one by one as they file in and sit on the rug. It never fails to bring a smile to my face and brighten my day. The students at Christel House are so positive, genuine, and excited about being at school, and they are really what makes me look forward to going to work every day.