Thursday, December 04, 2008

I Have a Granny and a Grandmother

I've been working hard to improve my guided reading lessons with first graders. I still feel like they are sub-par, but they are getting better.

Recently one of the books we were reading had a girl and her grandmother in it. The girl called her grandmother Gran. I wanted to be sure the students were able to read that word because I figured it was not one they would immediately recognize. So I asked the kids what they call their grandmothers. I expected to hear things like 'grandmother', 'grandma', 'gram', 'nana' and such.

The first child says, "Eyfly". I said, "No, not how you go to visit her. What do you call her?" He repeated his answer. I tried again to clarify and finally realized that he calls her that.

The next child says, "Flower" or sometimes we call her "Mentenuga".

At that point I realized that I teach in a very diverse school. (I did already know it, just not as clearly as I did at that moment.) These students do not lead lives similar to mine at that age. I love that about my students. I just need to remember it so that I can build their background knowledge appropriately.

1 comment:

Jpm said...

When my niece was born my dad was about 50 something. He really didn't want to be called grandpa,or anything simmilar. She calls him by his first name. It's funny to hear but its what he wanted.