Horace Mann first-graders versed in verbs

John Walker
The Duncan Banner

Fri, May 16 2008

— Summertime is known for hot weather and sports.
For elementary school students, summertime also means no school.
For Janis Arrington’s first-grade class at Horace Mann Elementary, before the summer recess can start, the children get to show off to a special guest, such as a parent or guardian, what they’ve learned this past school year.
“May I seat you please?” first-graders with smiles on their faces asked their special guests Thursday.
“I was so pleased and then he kissed me afterwards,” said Tamra Lindsey, whose child is Gavin Lindsey.
“I wish every mother could experience this. That was my favorite part of the entire program.”
Not only did the children speak politely, most of them wore their favorite hats and dressed in their best dress-up clothes.
“It was called ‘Hats on for Learning,’” Arrington said.
“We invited all the students to dress up and wear their finest clothes and hats. Everyone loved dressing up, including the boys.”
To prepare for the program, Arrington hung up pictures, drawings and photos that all had special meanings to the children onto the walls of the gym at Horace Mann Elementary.
“These represent a small part of what your children learned over the school year,” Arrington said. “Math, social studies, art, English, etc.”
During the program, the class held an informal session to demonstrate how much English they’ve learned in the first grade.
The students rattled off definitions and examples of parts of speech and proper word usage one after another.
“A noun is a name of an item, animal or thing,” one child said.
“A verb is an action word like climbing up, wiggle or walk,” another said.
“An adjective describes the noun like what kind, which one or how many, such as little or tall,” a third child said.
“An adverb describes the verb like how, when or where, such as today or yesterday,” a fourth child said.
Her students then went on to identify whether a word was singular or plural, common or proper, predicate or object of the predicate, as well as successfully identified whether a sentence was complete or a fragment and then identified what the complete subject and the complete predicate was.
Afterwards, Arrington asked the adults in the room if they knew anyone who knew this much in the first grade.
Many of the adults present were surprised at the apparent depth of knowledge.
“I thought it was neat how advanced they were,” Lindsey said.
“They learned more than even I could remember.”
Orsika Benedict, who is an English teacher, said that it was nice to see the English language taken seriously.
“I loved it,” said Benedict, whose child is Julia Demster.
The language program that Arrington uses to teach her students English is the Shurley English program.
“I’ve talked with teachers in high school and they say that the kids who understand the most have often been taught with the Shurley English program,” Arrington said.
“Since January, we’ve been using this program and it is unique in that it is very structured and it uses fun music to teach principles of grammar and parts of speech. We still remember nursery rhymes. This is the exact same idea.”
Before Arrington could use this program, however, it had to be purchased, which was successfully completed after she applied for grant money.
“All the area schools are hurting for funding of textbooks,” she said.
“I am extremely grateful to the Duncan Public Schools Foundation for their generous gifts and grant money that allowed the purchase of supplemental materials.”
While Arrington is grateful for the grant money that allowed the purchase of the Shurley English program and other items, she is also grateful for the efforts of parents in being involved in their children’s education.
“We had wonderful parent involvement,” Arrington said.
“This is the first year I held town hall-type meetings with the parents. Each meeting, we had anywhere from 15 to 21 parents.”
The town meetings allowed Arrington to get to know the families better as well as hear and give feedback about the children and where they were struggling and succeeding.
“The parents were the best teammates I could have,” she said.
“Each family has special talents and I was able to use them throughout the year to help the children. The parents have provided much for our program in both time and money.”
Parents feel the same about Arrington.
“She’s a good teacher and has been a real blessing,” said Leslie Fitzpatrick, whose child is Jacob Fitzpatrick.
“All the kids respect her. She’s very organized and involved with each of the kids and their families.”

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