Internship Week 11

There are a couple things I would like to reflect on this week.  One of them being my action research project and the other being planning for a substitute teacher.
First, I will reflect on my action research project.  I have to say that I am so pleased with the way things are going! It brings me such joy to see the progress of my student, as well as his boost of confidence at the end of the week when we are finished with his guided reading story.  Even if I see one aspect of improvement, such as three more words being identified allowing the fluency to be more smooth, it brings an instant smile to my face.  I know my student is taking my project seriously, and I know he sees his own improvement.  I have thought about it and I think the next few weeks of my implementation I am going to show him his weekly progress.  I was going to wait to show him at the very end, but I think by showing him at the end of each week, it might motivate him even more! I am really happy that I decided to go with repeated reading strategies.  If there is one thing I could change, it would be to implement it with another one of my students that is on the same guided reading level as the student I did my AR with.  This would have been beneficial because they are already partner reading together, so they would have been working on the same story, as well as the same strategies.  Also, it would have given me more to analyze to see if the strategies would have worked on more than one student.  I will remember this when I do research in my own classroom.
The second thing I am reflecting on is preparation for a substitute.  This took A LOT of time to do.  In a special needs resource room, no two students are working on the same thing, or if they are it's on a different level.  I realized the importance of detail.  You are always on your toes in my classroom! I had to prepare my substitute for the spelling test day- which is certainly the most hectic of them all.  I wanted to give a detailed description so this would run as smoothly as possible for her.  I literally gave her a step by step instruction manual that will aide her throughout the day (hopefully).  I asked her to leave me a note to see what went well and what I could have done to better prepare her so I am looking forward to the outcome on Monday morning.  Overall, I feel that I prepared the sub well, but it is up to them to implement everything I laid out for them.