Reflections

By Ashley Larson

As we near the end of our first quarter of the Impact Learning Center it is quite obvious God has been working here. I have spent the last 8 weeks in the 4th and 5th grade classroom, and I’m excited to announce that almost all of my students have advanced at least one grade level in their reading packets! Even now as I write this blog I’m sitting in class watching the students quietly reading books of their choice, completely immersed in whatever adventure their book is taking them on. Anyone who has worked with this age knows how tough it can be to get them focused and quiet for long periods of time, especially on books. It has been our class goal though to make reading a fun experience, and these last few weeks these youth have been begging for extra long independent reading time! Each kid is unique in the books they like to read and it has been fun for me as their teacher to have book discussions with them. Quincy and Garett, two boys in my class, both love non-fiction books about volcanoes, snakes, sharks, and other animal and weather topics. They have been teaching our class a lot of interesting information in those areas during our weekly book discussions. Jocelyn is one of my favorite readers because she uses so much expression and does a great job acting out different character parts. Tabitha raises her hand many times during quiet reading to share all the connections she has with the books she reads. These are just a few of the students who have really started to take a personal interest in reading.

Besides reading, I feel as though these kids have really grown in other areas too. For instance, we have really pushed putting others first in our classroom and it is amazing to see them respect one another by listening, complementing, and encouraging each other during program time. There have been much fewer conflicts these last couple weeks. Instead I’ve actually had more issues of kids wanting to talk and laugh with one another during class time! That is a problem I have taken some joy in dealing with. Overall, the first quarter of ILC has been very rewarding and I look forward to meeting with a new set of kids next session.