Reading Comprehension

Subbing for the first-grade teacher, I was able to fulfill my favorite part of working with the children: reading a story aloud to them. This time, it was a cherished book: “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs,” by A. Wolf (as told to children’s author Jon Scieszka and illustrator Lane Smith). It’s a retelling of the fairy tale from the point of view of the incarcerated wolf, who attempts to set the record straight after being unfairly maligned since the story was first told.

“My name is Alexander T. Wolf,” he begins in the first paragraph, “but you can call me ‘Al.’”

A hand went up. A question already?

Yes, Angie?

“My daddy’s name is Al.”

More hands were raised.

Let’s continue, I decided, anticipating a protracted interruption for a recitation of other familiarly known people named Al.

A few additional non sequiturs later, we had finished the story. The assignment for the students was to choose which version (the original or this retelling) they liked better and why, in at least two complete sentences. 

My favorite response, again from Angie, was this: “I liked the new version because the fox was in jail.”

What fox?

“The fox in the book.”

You mean the big bad wolf, who told the story?

“I thought it was a fox.”

Show and Tell

Third-grader Remi was concluding the day with her “Star of the Week” presentation. It’s a prolonged show-and-tell in which the children take turns revealing themselves to their classmates via poster, photographs, drawings, and personal artifacts.

There were photos of Remi as a baby and others at various ages, with family members, and at different vacation spots.

“This is my dog,” Remi said, pulling a stuffed animal out of a tote bag. “And look, she has puppies,” unzipping four smaller stuffed animals from the mother dog’s stomach. Remi also talked about a purple plush carry-all bought for her in Italy by her musician father.

“And here is my favorite,” she said, holding up a locket on a ribbon. “It was my great grandma’s.” She opened the locket. “This is a spot for a small photo of me, but I didn’t put one in yet.”

I was standing next to Athan, one of her classmates, during this part of the presentation. He motioned for me to lean over so that he could say something. When I did, he whispered conspiratorially, “Sometimes when two people are in love, they put photos of each other in the locket.”   

Kid Stuff

One five-year-old little boy, in the course of one unforgettable day in kindergarten, asked or told me the following:

• Where’s [the regular teacher] Mrs. B?

• I like baseball because you get really cool trophies.
• What’s your first name?
• I just don’t like reading.
• Mr. Jerry, when’s recess?
• I’m talented at climbing.
• How old are you?
• “W” is for “whale” or “what’s happenin’”
• My pants are falling down.
• What’s the name of your elf?
• I love to write art. I’m a great artist.
• You can’t have all that paper [to his classmates]. You’re wasting trees.
• I didn’t wear a coat today because when I got up, the sky was white.
• Guess what? My dad bites his nails. I bite my nails, too.

Childish Behavior

Working for nearly 35 years as an editor provided valuable experience in dealing with childish behavior. But how could I have known then that the sometimes Sisyphean effort required to push against professional writers’ whining, excuses, immaturity, recalcitrance, and incoherence would come back into play and serve me well a generation later teaching kindergarten?

I remember one writer, tripped up and caught first by a fact-checker and then by a copy editor, who nevertheless wanted his essay published, uncorrected, as he had written it. Figuratively stamping his foot and holding his breath, he insisted that the piece was fine just as it was and the statement one he wanted to make.

When reason and courtesy could not prevail against such intransigence I coldly laid out three options for the writer and his copy:

1. You rewrite it

2. I rewrite it
3. I kill it

He chose option No. 1.

Kindergartners, similarly self-absorbed, at times fail to see, and thus choose, options that are clearly in their best interests. The counterstrategy against their obduracy is not nearly so cold-blooded. Today, for example, I told one five-year-old boy to get down before he fell from the high teacher's stool he was perched on.

He reassured me of his prowess. "I'm talented at climbing," he blithely said by way of ignoring the directive. When I told him he was going to get me in trouble with the principal, he complied. Was that empathy for a co-conspirator, or a first sign of maturity?

Vocabulary Lesson

I learned a new word this week from a third-grader, although it’s doubtful whether history’s greatest lexicographer, James Murray, whose life work was editing the Oxford English Dictionary, could vouch for its etymology.

After reading a short story, Molly’s Pilgrim, in which a young girl in a new school is made uncomfortably aware of the physical, cultural, and linguistic differences between her and her classmates, I gave the children three reading comprehension questions. The first, “Why did Molly want to leave her new school?” elicited this from Alli: “Because she was discluded.”

“Discluded?” I asked, wanting to make sure I had deciphered her handwriting correctly.

Yes. Alli confirmed it.

“I didn’t know discluded was a word,” I told her.

It is, Alli insisted with an imperiousness that unmistakably said that she was now the teacher and I the student.

I wonder if that’s how Boswell and Johnson got started.