by Amelia Corner, Quaker Voluntary Service Fellow
Tassie Rivera joined our staff during the 2022-2023 school year as one of our Classroom Literacy Assistants. This year she will be moving into the role of Lead Classroom Assistant and helping to advocate for her colleagues and join the leadership team in planning professional development opportunities. We are so grateful to have her on our team!
What does a typical day look like for you in the classroom? What does Reading support look like in the classroom?
I work at Julia de Burgos Elementary School as a literacy assistant in Ms. Bowes’ kindergarten class! Every morning we come in, we do morning breakfast, and we have our bathroom routine. Then we have our community meeting where we share music to help the kids loosen up during the day, or we’ll review letters or letter sounds, and then we’ll go into reading.
Reading support typically looks like sounding out certain letters and then putting words together, having students begin writing, and using educational tools like iReady, which is a reading curriculum that students need to do, where some students will break off in groups to do iReady. Some groups will work on a reading package. We’ll have worksheets ready for them, just like rhyming words with each other, or letter recognition, free writing, and/or free drawing.
And then we’ll have another group, maybe one-on-one, who needs more support on a worksheet. I also have another group in the library area, where I sit down and read with them.
After lunch and recess, we will do some calming activities to get ready for our afternoon reading time, where either I will read a book or my lead teacher will read a book; we’ll share that story.
What does collaborating with the lead teacher look like? What do you like about working with Kindergarten?
Oh, it’s awesome! In the morning, Ms. Bowes and I will come up with what we are doing that day and how best I can help support; a lot of the time she lets me lead reading activities, which I really enjoy. Mostly, however, I pull a couple of kids at a time who need the extra support while the rest of the class is going over something else.
I like the surprises that arise every day and being able to really get to know the students and see them grow. Every one of them has a distinct personality, and it’s really special to see them change throughout the year, especially when it feels like you are not making much of a difference, but then out of nowhere the students start excelling. When you see the work really blossom, you are like, Wow, okay, I did that.
What do you enjoy doing outside of your work?
I enjoy being at home with my children, reading books, and doing puzzles. I also love cooking, but I am trying to be outside and explore the city more. Especially all the parks that are around here, like Fairmount Park, which I love visiting on sunny days.
What are your hopes for the future?
For the future, I would really like to write a children’s book specifically for kindergarteners! I haven’t gotten to fully start on it yet, but every time I get an idea for it, I jot it down! My big idea for the book is for it to be about homework!
A lot of my kindergarteners don’t have the ability to do homework because they’re small and it’s hard to do on their own if they don’t have parental support. So I want to create a book about homework and how they can take small initial actions to do homework, so they can come back to school and feel accomplished about finishing those small tasks.
In addition to writing a book, I want to further my education and continue working in schools!
What do you like about working with Historic Fair Hill? Have any experiences stuck out for you?
I am so grateful that Historic Fair Hill took that step to create partnerships in schools and specifically start a program to help grades K-3 with literacy assistants! I feel like the school district has failed in supporting those lower-level teachers. Having us in there, especially igniting the storytelling time, has made a big impact! The teacher I work with especially has said how much of a help I am in the classroom, and I am so grateful I get to be that support for her through Historic Fair Hill.
One experience with a kid that has stuck out this year was a kid from the autistic support class who transitioned to our class. When he started, he did not have a lot of social or motor skills. However, over the course of this year, he has grown so much! Before, he could barely hold a pencil, and now he is holding a pencil with ease and is able to actually write!
He has now excelled to a first-almost-second-grade reading level, which was way further than we expected him to get! We are just so proud of him, and seeing that growth is what makes this job so special.
