ELL

My school is in it's third year of implementing writer's workshop.  Each year, our students know more about writer's workshop and have improved stamina and skills, which is really exciting.  In kindergarten, however, it's a different story; with a large free and reduced lunch population, our students come with a huge range in pre-academic skills like drawing, letter formation and recognition and knowledge of sound letter recognition.

I am a teacher in White Center and a member of the Washington Education Association, NEA and SEA.

I oppose House Bill 1410 and Senate Bill 5444.

Our schools face huge funding cuts. Yet these bills do not include increased funding for schools.

They are a false funding promise and a distraction.  We need more help from Olympia, not a bigger hindrance!

Higher education among teachers improves instruction and student learning, but this new legislation wouldn't compensate teachers for their advanced degrees.  How can we pay back our student loans without compensation?

Well, I've officially launched the workshop now.  My third graders are beginning to build their writing muscles and many of them have bought into every bit of it, especially the idea, or rather the philosophy, that their lives are worth writing about and their stories are worth saving a record of for the foreseeable future.  The main means by which I have taught for these outcomes, because it didn't just happen, has been by reading and complimenting their work.  I confer with students and if they are on track, writing personal narratives, then I rave about it and say "you've got to write that down, get it on paper right now."  When they tell a big "watermelon" topic story, I help them find their "seed" small moments story and get that started.  I constantly make references to the d

I work with English Language Learners (ELLs)  at a school with a large bilingual population as a support teacher.  This year, like many years, we have new students who are in intermediate grades (3-5) and read at a kindergarten or first grade level, and their math skills often correspond.  These students come from areas where school is not necessarily available.  Clearly, the classroom teacher cannot meet all the student's instructional needs, but then neither can I in a half hour or forty-five minute block.  Luckily, we should have an instructional assistant to work with this particular ethnic group this year and their time can be focused on the most struggling students.