One of my favorite things in the world is to watch a student take the first small steps towards reading. Often this happens in the fall, at the beginning of the year. But we recently got 2 new arrivals from Mexico. Despite the fact that we only have 2 weeks of school left, it is wonderful to have a few new faces and great to get them started on the road to learning English before the summer begins.
At the beginning of each class, we go clear though the alphabet and say each letter and the sound it makes ("Big A, little A /a/, /a/, /a/"). Then we begin working on our lowest level books. These books are very much a pattern and contain a few sight words, and some harder vocabulary words that can be guessed based on the picture. I pre-teach the vocabulary words, then sit back and watch as quiet utterances slowly turn into reading. I absolutely love it. It is so neat to see them make the connections between unknown words and the pictures. It is wonderful to hear "/p/..../p/... turn into "pencil". It is inspiring to see the pride on their faces as they see what they have accomplished.
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