Summary: Context For Learning

Part 1: Context for Learning/Introduction

Thurgood Marshall is a public elementary School located in Lynwood, California. This elementary school has an approximate enrollment of 720 students in grades PreK-5th. Marshall’s student body consists of 98% Hispanic and 2% African American. One hundred seventy-one students are considered English language learners (ELL). Since 86% or more of the student body at Marshall qualifies for free lunch, the whole school receives free lunch because of Title I. At this elementary school there is only one Principal, one instructional lead, and one resource specialist, twenty-seven classroom teachers, two office staff, three fulltime custodians, six campus monitors, one library media assistance, and a shared testing

I wanted to obtain the standardized test results, but it was difficult to obtain from my practicum teacher because she didn’t have access to them and when I finally went to ask in the office they told me they couldn’t provide me with standardized test results because the lady in charge of those results had relocated at another school and they didn’t have access to them. But from what I know is that three of the four students I am working with are female and one of them is a male. All of the four students are Hispanic and they are considered English Language Learners. The boy is reading below grade level, his reading instructional level is the primer level, and his frustration level is 1st grade. One of the other girls from my group of students, her instructional reading level is 2nd grade, and her frustration reading level is 3rd grade. Another girl, who is also reading below grade level has her reading instructional level at 1st grade, and her frustration reading level is grade 1. Lastly, the 4th child who I am working with has her instructional reading level at grade 2, and her frustration reading level is grade

The reason behind this is that children over their summer break don’t tend to apply their knowledge of what they learned over their summer break. So, it’s not the fact that they haven’t been taught the right skills in their previous grade level classroom, the issue here more of a socio-economic and cultural issue. Most of the students at Marshall come from low income families which means that students’ parents spend most of their time working just to be able to provide for their family economically. Therefore, parents are not able to dedicate as much educational time to their children such as practicing reading with them during the summer or taking them to explore educational museums. Other factors to consider are also that some parents just do not place a big value on education for their students because they didn’t obtain one because their parents also never placed a value on their education. While other parents who didn’t have an opportunity to receive an education might have strong views and expectations for their children, but their native language tends to be a barrier preventing them from helping their children to engage in educational activities during the