Don't tell me what I know, let me show you

While I was reading "Ready, Set, Science!" this past week, I found myself writing a little note in the margin to remember to BLOG about an experience with one of my students.  The idea of setting our expectations high and not imposing limits on our students' capabilities seems to be a recurring and incredibly important theme.  On one of my last days in one of the classrooms where I was a Teacher Candidate, I had the opportunity to just sit and read with one of the students with whom I worked closely on both math and reading skills.  This was the first time that I'd sat down with her one-on-one.  I took a quick look at the text she had chosen and felt a little pang of concern that she had picked something well beyond her reading level.  However, if this book had piqued her interest, I was perfectly willing to read it with her.  We sat down and decided that we would take turns reading.  She would read until she wanted me to take over, then I would read until a new page started.  The book was wonderful.  It had great descriptions and illustrations and a wonderful story.  We were both very engaged.  I found myself quickly "helping" the student each time she paused on a word.  A few pages in, another student asked if she could come read with us.  My reading partner said it was fine with her.  Soon, she had two people jumping in to "help" with words that seemed difficult.  A page or two later, the student who had joined us asked me a question.  While I was thinking through my answer and quietly responding to her, my reading partner continued reading.  I didn't jump in quite as quickly since I was conversing with the other student.  She was struggling with a word and I found myself thinking back to a recent reading where I learned that students sometimes guess at words based on their beginning sound and the shape of the rest of the letters.  She seemed to be doing just that.  I also noticed that she was saying her "guesses" aloud to check for meaning.  She went back to the beginning of the sentence and read it again a few times, trying out a couple word choices.  I am so glad that I had been distracted, because she came up with the correct word on her own.  I had seen many looks on this student's face before, but never this one.  She felt successful.  I'm sure she was feeling smart!  This is exactly what I wanted her to feel.  I had just seen her confidence grow in an experience with one word.  Had I been reading along with her, I might not have allowed her the time to figure it out on her own.  I would have assumed that she simply didn't know the word and should tell her what it was.  What a loss that would have been.  We immediately changed our strategy and only offered to help with words when asked.  She was very happy to struggle with some of them and asked for help on others.  By "helping" her, I'm rather certain I was getting in the way of her learning.  I do not wish to see students struggle and become frustrated to the point that they lose confidence and give up. But, I am so grateful that I had this experience and hope it will serve as a reminder to me that students often know more, are capable of much more than I expect.  I will try to remember that they need the chance to show me what they know.