invitation to learning support

I usually work with 4th and 5th grade learning support students, but this year, to balance out caseloads, I was also assigned 3, 3rd graders.  These students were chosen for me because they didn't have many needs that needed to be addressed with pull-out instruction.

One of these boys gets one-on-one decoding instruction with me because I have no one else to put in his group.  It's a pretty good deal for him.  I'm not sure if he thinks so, but he's always very pleasant to work with.

Just recently, another boy has started one-on-one writing instruction with me too. Some days I go into his classroom and other days he comes to my room.  I think he was a little surprised that I just appeared one day and started asking him all these questions about his writing and holding him more accountable for what he was putting on paper. (I did tell him that I was going to start working with him on his writing a few days a week, but I'm sure to him it was still sort of strange.)

So today, after writing a thought down on his paper, he looked up and said, "Do you think "Austin" should come here for writing too?"  He then explained that Austin sits next to Jimmie and they are good friends, but Jimmie wants to work and Austin is always distracting him by talking to him.  Apparently, Austin never wants to do any writing and he just sits there.  My student was quite concerned about this behavior.

Hopefully this means he thinks my instruction is useful and not just that he's lonely!

It reminded me of when one of my 1st grade students from a few years ago told his friend that he should start coming to my room for math because it was fun and there weren't many other kids.

Forget the referral process, let's just make it an open invitation to learning support!