Mini Wake-Up Call

It is incredibly easy to underestimate the learning capacity of the children we teach in Jumpstart. I first recognized this during the second implementation of Noisy Nora. The second implementation was after Thanksgiving Break meaning there was a whole week in between the first time I read my children the book and the second time I would be reading it to them. Because of this large gap in between implementations, I walked into the classroom on Tuesday thinking that my kids would not remember the story and that instead of reading for reconstruction, I’d probably have to end up doing more of an ‘enjoyment’ read since there’s no way they would remember the story well. Although children are very smart and retain information well, I was not expecting my kids to fully remember the story well. Boy was I wrong.

I walked into the classroom and went through the basic welcome procedures. We went through name cards and we briefly talked about how they spent their Thanksgiving. We sat down to read Noisy Nora and I began to probe them with the reconstruction questions. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that not only were they answering all of my questions correctly and helping me tell the story but they were actually getting bored with my slow pace. “I already know Nora is in the closet! Turn the page please!” one of my kids said to me before I even got to the third page of the book. I found that hilarious because here I was, trying to ease them into the story because I underestimated their retention skills and they exceeded my expectations. At that point, I upped up the rigor of the reconstruction a little bit and my kids ended up successfully helping me retell the story of Noisy Nora.

I learned a very valuable lesson that day: our kids are very smart. I knew that these kids were intelligent from the beginning but I did not know just how intelligent. I look at these three, four, and five year olds and although I know they are smart, I, as well as others I’m sure, underestimate their skills because of their age. It is very easy to forget how quickly kids learn when they are younger and that speed of learning is what makes Jumpstart so successful. This was a very teachable moment for me and I’m glad that I experienced this mini-wake-up call in the classroom.

~Duaa AbdelHameid

Corps member

Team Kindness