Work Experience

Early Learners Grant, Spring 2005- This grant was given to the Manchester education department while my class happened to be around.  For this grant, we were sent out to different pre-schools and early learning centers in Wabash County to work with pre-readers.  We went twice a week to see our kids and worked in either small groups or one-on-one.  The whole reason we were there was to work with these kids on their emergent literacy. 

Tutoring- As of right now I am working with a struggling reader in 3rd grade two days a week.  We read for about 20 minutes and then play cards, color, or just chat for the last part of our time.  We are keeping a notebook of our experience and lesson plans during our time with this student.  What I have been working on more then anything with my student is his fluency and expression.  He had problems when we started with showing feeling when needed in the story and also reading smoothly.  He has gotten much better with continuous reading with me throughout the first of the year. 

Manchester Early Learning Center 2003-2005- This is a daycare that I worked at for almost two years.  I started out working with four year olds in a class called the Discoverers.  I was the assistant teacher for this class and worked in the afternoons every day, which was the time they played in the room and outside.  When I came back for my Junior year I was moved up with the same class that I had when they became the Explorers.  Again, I was mostly the assistant but I also did a little bit of "lead teacher" work with them.  This is about the time I decided I did not want to have my own classroom anymore because I did not feel like I could give enough one-on-one time to each child, which is what I truly want to do.  After a while working with this group, I moved over to the building where the after school kids came.  I became the lead teacher here and saw over most of the responsibilities in our classrooms.  I had one other helper and somewhere around 20 kids there on a regular basis.  They were to do homework when they first got there and then they could have fun until their parents got there.  I stopped working for the daycare because I needed to start concentrating more on school since I was only going to be around for another year. 

Observation hours- Since being an education major requires so many observation hours I have been in at least 10 different classrooms since being at Manchester with probably something around 100 hours or more.  Each teacher was different and had new advice to offer me.  There were children as well that were interesting in their own way.  I was also able to observe a social worker back home over Thanksgiving break at my mom's school.  I spent the day with her and sat in when she had meetings with students as well as a parent and teacher.