Post-Assessment

The semester came by too fast.

Half a school year's work culminated during the post-assessment. This session was the least session with our kids, and consisted of a basic assessment packet, very similar to the pre-assessment packet.

I've been worrying about Arvin's performance, but deep inside I knew he would do great. His reading comprehension, as well as following basic instructions and diction had all improved, and I felt so proud as he answered ore than 90% of the questions correctly. At first I didn't think much about it, but when I was compiling all of the lesson plans from this semester, I saw his pre-assessment packet last (my lesson plans are arranged chronologically, with the pre-assessment packet on the bottom) and I saw how from barely 13 letters of the 28-letter Filipino alphabet, he was able to write almost all of the letters in his post-assessment test.

This was his biggest improvement of all.

I couldn't have been more proud as I reverently placed his post-assessment packet in my clear book.

This semester was a very hectic semester, but it was worth all the effort.

Thank you, Literacy Training Service Program, for making me feel like a teacher for just a semester.

Lesson Plan 9

March 3 was a big day for everyone in the Literacy Training Service (LTS) Program. That day's session was to be our last session with our kids, and the final two meetings (on the 10th and 17th) were to be devoted to post-assessment. Post-assessment, if you will recall an earlier post about pre-assessment, is pretty much the same thing. We're even using the same pre-assessment packet to evaluate our students' reading and comprehension capabilities, except we'll be using a different story. But more on that on another post!

For the final session, my student Arvin and I tackled the letters 'N' and 'U', bringing our total letter count to 12 out of the 28 Filipino Alphabet letters.

"The Roadtrip"

To say that this session was memorable would be an understatement. This was the day we happened to catch two of our classmates riding with our professor (they had just gotten on when we spotted them) and our professor invited us to ride with her, too! (Hello, saved 7 pesos on jeepney fare!)

I took this video to immortalize that instance forever.

Bingo

The day's activities consisted of letter bingo, where I showed him different pictures, arranged randomly on a pile, and gave him a goal of forming at least one straight line. When I showed him a picture, his task was to identify the first letter of the word and tick it off on the paper.

As you might recall from my earlier posts on evaluating Arvin, he is a very fast learner and grasps new concepts easily, his one weakness is his rashness and carelessness. When I showed him a picture of a bird, which in Filipino is ibon, he was supposed to tick off the letter 'I' on his bingo card, but instead ticked off the letter 'E'. I pointed to him and asked why he chose that letter, and immediately noticed his mistake. In this I am very lucky, as he grasped how to identify and differentiate the 'E' and 'I' sounds quicker than the other students in the program.

Narda at Nanding and the Wordless Picture Book

This session's stories consisted of the story of Narda and Nanding, two siblings who live in a nipa hut and go to their aunt's backyard to play, but end up getting caught in the rain and catching a fever. Arvin and I tackled pronouncing and writing the letters 'N' and 'U', with words like 'nipa' (nipa palm), 'ninang' (godmother or aunt), 'nanay' (mother), 'ube' (purple yam), and 'ubas' (grapes).

For the wordless picture book, Arvin was showed a story of a boy who witnessed the logging of a forest, and as a result, when a typhoon hit their community several houses were destroyed and damaged. I was surprised, when, after letting him narrate, he used the example of Typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan) as the typhoon in the story.

This week we repeated last week's routine of making our own picture books, even Arvin. I made him draw two scenes from a reading activity and write the corresponding sentence on the blank space provided.

Preparation

Next meeting, on March 10, will be the beginning of Arvin's post-assessment. I'll have to start preparing the lesson and the assessment packet. Wish Arvin luck!