Helper.

This past Monday, as we did some syllable work, I realized quickly, that even with Mrs. D., myself, and Miss F. (who comes into our classroom to help once a week), there wasn’t going to be enough adult support. We'd been reviewing breaking words into syllables and we had a fun St. Patrick’s Day worksheet to review the skills. Yes, it was only Monday and we were already reading and talking about St. Patrick’s Day… one of the fun aspects of kindergarten is no holiday is just one day.

We did some syllable work as a group and reviewed the concepts and it was time for the worksheet. The sheet had twelve words. Each word was one, two, or three syllables. There were three shamrocks and after reading each word, students had to color how many syllables a word had. Here’s the problem… most kindergarteners can’t read the words on the sheet.

Since every sprout needed almost every word read to them, three adults wasn’t going to cut it. Cue Billy. Billy can read, I mean really read. He reads at about a third grade level and we’re always trying to challenge him.

“Billy, do you think you could be a teacher and help read words?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Do you think you can do it without being silly?” I inquired.

Like most kindergarten boys, Billy can be silly and I wanted his help, but not if he was going to make it more difficult to complete our task.

He nodded.

Well wouldn’t you know it, Billy walked around the room and read and helped, without telling any answers. He wasn’t silly, he was a little miniature teacher. Maybe Billy will be a teacher when he grows up. I’d like that.