The free write numbers of my foundational kids dropped noticeably in one class today. What is shocking is that the scores went down just at the time I stopped doing stories – the last free write was in November. Maybe it’s not such a shock. Maybe all this talk of relaxing needs to shift to relaxing during stories. And letting the speech output thing go if it’s going to mean noticeably lower free write numbers. Hmmm. I asked the kids point blank today if they preferred the personal interview (Four Truths, etc.) or stories and all said stories. See? We can’t get away from them. It always comes back to stories. I need to reflect on this and check on what is going on in my other classes. Maybe it’s just this one class but somehow I don’t think so. Maybe it’s because it’s after a three week break, but I don’t think it’s that either. The handwriting is kind of on the wall here. If this is true, I will continue with the SSR plan but do stories in the second section of the class instead of the interview format and all the other stuff I’ve been talking about this past week. Comments welcome!
