Title I at Glen Alpine Elementary: 5th Grade

On my last visit to Glen Alpine Elementary, I followed a few of the students after lunch to their Title I class. All the students that worked together were in the fifth grade, and there is five students in the class I observed. The students work on reading sentences and paragraphs, and writing in cursive. The students go to Title I every day except Tuesdays. I went to the lesson with a girl from my class named Kayla. She told me that she really likes going to Title I because it help her to better in all her other classes. She also talked about how she liked how there were only five students and one teacher, and she thought it was better and that she learned more in Title I then in her large, regular class. Another student in the class where I did my practicum was in the Title I program last year, but wasn't invited to it this year. I was told by the other students in Title I that he wasn't aloud back into it because he didn't get enough work done while in Title I. I was a little concerned at what the student was given or put into in place of the Title I program. Obviously there was a reason this student was in the program, and he didn't leave the program because he was caught up to grade level. This particular child was pegged as a problem child, and I have to admit that I didn't view him as that large of a behavioral problem. He asked a lot of questions that seemed a little excessive, but he seemed like he wanted to know why he was doing what he was doing all the time. It seemed that when he asked a question he was regarded as a problem because he didn't listen rather than a student. I really enjoyed my time spend in the Title I program because it allowed me to see the extra help that some of the students needed and were getting. My concentration area is in English, and so Title I programs are something that I am very interested in. I possibly may get my masters in something related to reading. I could definitely see myself being a reading specialist, and this experience really gave me a much better view of what type of skills you need to do this type of job.