“Si trabajamos duro, leemos bien.” —Chloe Walker
Chloe Walker, Member 2006–2007
The crickets are chirping outside and the sun has yet to release its rays onto the Austin skyline. I lie fast asleep and cozy in my apartment in North Austin. The silence is broken by the piercing sound of my alarm clock as the hour turns to 6:02. The next question becomes: to hit snooze or not to hit snooze
Rewind to seven months ago when I came to Austin fresh out of college, not knowing exactly what I had gotten myself into with this AmeriCorps tutor business. Six-year-olds. Fluency charts. 12-hour days. Bilingual education. Sticker cards. Phonological awareness. It was a lot to take in for a recent college graduate who spent most of the past year worrying about turning in papers on time and having a successful social life. In the past few months, however, these once mysterious terms have taken on new life and meaning to me and exemplify the power of the AmeriCorps experience.
Six-year-olds. I had never really interacted with them before. They are small. What do I say to them? Can I talk with them like normal human beings or is there some little kid lingo I have to learn? Will they understand my Spanish? Am I going to have to deal with crying and wet pants? These are the thoughts running through my head the night before I start working with Spanish-speaking first-graders at Walnut Creek Elementary. What I would come to realize is that six-year-olds are people, too. And they treasure the time they spend with you as much as you love spending time with them. Their brains are sponges and their minds are imaginative. A highlight of my day is when I ask Citlaly how she is and she takes the time to say "And you? How are you?" Or when Enrique stops at the end of the book and says, "What is your favorite part?"
Fluency charts. First-graders in Texas should be reading at level 10 by the end of their first semester. Number of words read minus number of miscues divided by the amount of time their high-pitched voices spit out the words equals fluency. And I need to keep track of every time every one of my twelve students becomes fluent at a new reading level. Charting this information was a lot to handle when I was still figuring out how to sing the Spanish alphabet with those extra letters. What these charts would come to represent, however, is the power of setting goals and pushing your students to work hard to meet those goals. My kids, once disinterested by the idea of reading the same book over and over again, began to squirm in their seats, yelling, "What number book am I reading today? Do I need to color my paper today?" Si trabajamos duro, leemos bien. (If we work hard, we will read well). And they did work hard, they got to color in their kid-friendly fluency charts, and they stopped reading like robots. And I couldn't have been prouder.
Phonological awareness. This is a cryptic way of saying what sounds letters make. Sounds are the building blocks of the Spanish language. For one of my focus children, Edward, who had recently moved from Mexico, letter names and sounds were a completely foreign concept. We spent countless hours in October and November reciting the sound chart: "pato, pato, p-p-p; tortuga, tortuga, t-t-t." Although Edward came to me as my lowest-performing student, knowing less than some kindergartners, he will leave me two months from now almost completely caught up to his peers. He has progressed almost a year and a half in reading in just a few months, and it all started with a little phonological awareness. The wonder of our job as tutors is giving that boost to kids who just need a little help catching up and watching them blast forward to reap the benefits of being a literate member of society.
Sticker cards. For most of my kids, the sticker at the end of the session is a given. They are mostly easily focused kids who work hard during our sessions. Efren decided one day, however, that he did not want to come with Ms. Chloe anymore. I was boring, I did not help him, and he did not like me and made sure to let me know that. On days that I could get him to leave the classroom and come to my tutoring table, he would sit with his back turned to me. Frustrated by his apparent indifference to learning, I had just about given up on him. Efren, however, became motivated by the power of the pencil. I created an individual behavior plan for him where he would get a pencil each day that he behaved well and got all of his work done. I've never seen a kid start reading and writing so quickly. All it took for him to change his attitude was a little motivation (and once he realized the inherent benefits of working with me—learning to read—he went back to the sticker chart). What Efren has taught me is that kids have an amazing amount of potential that should never be doubted.
Bilingual education. Students in bilingual education learn to read in their native language before learning to read in English. It's a novel concept and one that entailed teaching kids in a language that was secondary to me. I practiced reading aloud the book on my first lesson plan, El Ratoncito, el Oso Hambriente y la Fresa Roja y Madura, about 20 times. I looked up every single unknown vocabulary word and strategically placed Post-it notes with pertinent questions through the book. I never knew that reading a children's book could be so intimidating. When my kids let out their first laughs or answered a comprehension question correctly, I was put at ease. They understood me! One of the most valuable skills I have taken from my AmeriCorps experience is the comfort with conversational Spanish. My problem now is that every time I see a small child, I try and speak Spanish to her.
12-hour days. I've never worked harder toward one goal in my entire life. I've always been a pretty involved person and I think of myself as a hard worker, but with AmeriCorps, all 1,700 hours of my time have gone toward one issue. From the moment I arrive at Walnut Creek Elementary in the morning until 7:30 at night when I arrive home from my after-school commitment, I am tutoring, lesson planning, supervising homework sessions, planning celebrations for Dr. Seuss’Äôs birthday, thinking of new ways to teach my kids, attending Family Fun Nights, or a variety of other things. It has been an intense experience and overwhelming at times. Through it all, however, I have 30 other members that are undergoing the same experience, including six people sitting in my resource room with me every day. And when I watch my kids graduate from our program at the end of the year, reading with more confidence than when we started, I will know just how worthwhile those 1,700 hours have been.
Fast-forward to me in my bed at 6:02 a.m. I turn off the snooze and jump out of bed. I think of Efren when he is engaged and reading with me. I think of Edward and all the progress he has made. I think of Citlaly jumping out her seat to come work with me. I think of my fellow tutors waking up to greet their students. I think of the dedicated ACEE staff that supports me every day. There is no greater motivation to start the day than my students, my peers, and my ACEE bosses.