Lit~ril(U Stud~nls Education majors help children with writing skills It was a cool September morning. Surrounded by clean chalkboards and colorful alphabet posters, Sidney Deener Elememary School first graders sat chaHingexcitedly as srudems of Dr. C lara Carroll, associate professor of education, fil ed into their class room ready to help the children with their writing skills. "1am learning a ba pples." So began one fi rst grader's paper about apples. T he author was one of many young writers in Julie Brown's first grade class who was being hel ped by a college scuclem in Carroll's Emergent Literacy class. Carroll began taking her students to local elementary schools for monthly visits abou t six years ago. O riginally, the class visited Westside Elementa ry. where Richard Denney was principal. When D enney became pri ncipal at Sidney Deener, Carroll and her students followed. T hey worked with students on reading and writing, applying their teaching skills towhatever the elementary students had been studying. "Ho nestly, [this program] is o ne of the best things we do in this class," Carro ll said. "I can never duplicate this in a [H arding] classroom." Carroll said the program benefi ted the first graders by allowing them to meet one-on-one with the college students who were trained (0 help them become bener readers and writers. Her elementary education srudents benefited by being able (0 put into practice what they had learned in class. "I can read pages and pages about how to educate a first grader, but that will never be as helpful and realistic as accually sining down wi th a kid and talking to her and hel ping her fix her mistakes and see what she's good at," senior Kathryn Pevahouse said. "This prepares me to actually teach and to see the [teaching] process. It will help me prepare to deal with real children instead of what's in a book and what statistics say." The young students and their college partners spent the autumn morning describing and writing about apples, revising paragraphs and getting to know one another. fu junio r Valerie Mowrer helped her younger partner spell the word "really," another Hard i9,Z student was tyi ng her partner's shoe fo r him, while anmher couple (Oak turns read ing from a book. Fi rst grader Serena Cox enjoyed wor king wi th her parm er, sen ior Heather Jernigan. "I want this girl to be my parmer fo rever because she's my best fri end; she helps me do my work," Cox said. Brown, who has worked with th is program for three years, said she would like the studems to continue wo rki ng with the same partner in each of their monthly visits so they would build relationshi ps wi th each other. She said her first graders loved working with (he H ard ing students. "The kids get to wo rk with the college kids, who they think are cool, and they get that one-an-one attention from them ," she said. "They were so excited, and they couldn't wait for them (Q come back." -Molly Morris While cleaning up the work stations in the Education Resource Center's Curriculum Lab, located in the Thornton Education Center, senior Leah McKinney rearranges the marker station Oct. 24. "The Education Resource Center is a fun environment to do class projects and collaborate with other education majors," Graduate Assistant Jessi Griffin said. -Jon Byron Students ofthe Emergent Literacy class, seniors Lindsey Blackburn, Logan Hunter and Holly Walker and junior Rachel Candy, listen to instructions on how to work one-on-one with first graders at Sidney Deener Elementary School on Oct. 10. "Actually work– ing with children in an elementary school setting is such a good experience and helps prepare us to be the best teachers we can be," Hunter said. -Jon Byron
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