Today is the last "phonics" class I’ll teach for the year. At least that’s my plan anyway. I don’t know how admission works at our school, but we don’t "do" phonics at our school normally. Everyone in all the classes should be able to read before they get here. They might not be good at reading, but they aren’t in the "ABC" phase of things. For some reason though, an entire class of students are right around the same level of reading comprehension and listening skills couldn’t read worth a damn out loud. Someone never taught them consonant blends, and when you have a class of 15 students, trying to hear one mess up a subtle sound when they all read aloud is nigh impossible Because of this weird coincidence, this single class got a phonics book for their February materials. This means I have to go in and help children work on their pronunciation, reading, and spelling.
Before the bell was supposed to ring, I told the students we would do a "line up game". This is a "kill the time" sort of review thing. I picked the brightest student as a model, then told him, "Tell me five words with the ‘CL’ blend."
"Clock, class, clam, club, clothes." he answered. He gloated to his friend that wasn’t paying attention, then went to the front of the line.
"Who can tell me five words with the ‘Wh’ blend" I asked next?
I called on his friend who was playing around, trying to catch him off guard. "What?" he answered.
"That’s one!" I replied.
Another girl called out, "Why?" because she didn’t know what was going on either.
"That’s two!" I answered with a wider grin.
Another girl shouted out, "Who?" but I think she was just playing around.
It still counted, "That’s three!"
Finally, someone figured out what was going on and started telling the boy what was happening. He finished his set of words before the bell rang. Even though they had been promised to line up early for dismissal, we finished class at the same time as everyone else.
