I called the students over to my small group table. It is 10:25 and we are just beginning our small group reading block for the day. The room is bustling with excitement and noise, as it always is when we first begin small groups. Students are checking the Smart Board for their station and beginning to get to work. I move toward my table, just as Ted is sitting down. He is moving very slowly, and looking down at the floor. The other 5 students are practically running to the table, already asking me what we are going to be doing today. Ted sits down in the chair beside me and lays his head on his hands, he doesn't speak.
I begin our group each day with a review of the sight words we are working on that week. I flash the five words to each students and use the constant time delay chart to track their progress. This takes only a couple of minutes, and each student watches and waits for their turn quietly. Today, Ted is last to recall the words. This week's words are at, be, from, this, have. As I am moving around the table, I notice Ted kicking his leg against my chair. Right before I move on to Ted he asks to go to the bathroom. I tell him that he can go after we are finished with our review. He looks disappointed and I can tell he was feeling anxious about reading the words. As I hold up the cards in front of him he begins to move around in his seat. His eyes are looking at mine and not on the flashcards. He reads the words "at", "from", and stops when he gets to "be". I ask the students to stop and wait if they do not know a word, if after 3 seconds they have not read it then I give them the answer. This is included in the constant time delay, and helps the student not learn the word wrong. I read "be" aloud and he echos me. We move on to "have", and the same thing happens again. Ted stops, and then drops a pencil in the floor. He picks it up and is having difficulty refocusing on the word. I say his name and ask if he knows this word. He shakes his head no, so I say the word and he repeats it. The last word is "this". Ted looks at the flashcard, then the word wall, and reads the word "this" correctly. I tell him what a great job he did since we had only introduced the words the day before. He does not ask to go to the restroom again. I move on and do not bring it up.
Next, we use our magic wands to write the new sight words in the air. Ted raises his hand quickly to ask if he can give each student their magic wand. I give him the wands and he hands them to each student quickly. I hold each word up and with our wands the students and I write each word in the air. Ted is smiling from ear to ear and does each word with me, however, his eyes are looking up and down, as if he is struggling to find the word on the card and use his wand at the same time. As I noticed this, I decided to put a card in front of every student with the word we are writing so they can look down, rather than trying to focus on me, the word, and air writing. After I did this, Ted seemed more comfortable and focused.
The last activity for the day involved an I-Spy sight word game. I created a sight word mat with the five words the students are learning and other sight words they may not be as familiar with. They get to use magnifying glasses to find (spy) the word I say aloud. This is the first day that we have played this game, and the students clap and bounce in their seats when I describe what we are going to be doing. Ted smiles, but does not seem as excited as the other students. I have to give two reminders to Ted and another student to sit in their chair and turn their voices off so we could start the game. As I was giving each student the game board, Ted was leaning out of his seat and touching the ground. I lightly tapped his shoulder and he refocused. I gave out each word and the students found that word on their board. All students were able to locate each word I said. I gave two reminders to the group to listen and look at the beginning sound before they found the word. Ted took his time and was able to successfully find each word.
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