My name is Lydia and I’m learning to speak in class more. I’m learning how to speak in complete sentences and how to raise my hand without being shy. Being in a small group helps me with that.
My name is Jacqueline. Something I want to learn this year is how to write what I read, like to summarize it. What Boosts helped me with is that if I don’t understand what I’m reading, I learn how to go back and try to figure it out with evidence. I like the debate we’re doing right now about if school should have junk food or if they shouldn’t.
My name is Miralda. One thing that I’m learning is how to speak and raise my hand. In the first year here, I just kept on saying “I don’t know” because I’m not sure what to say and how to talk to the teacher. Now in Boost I practice saying “I’m not sure, but….” and then I say more. Also I’m learning to correct my words like because sometimes I don’t know how to spell difficult words, so Ms. Lisa helps with that.
My name is Jocelyn. Something that has been helpful in Boost class is getting fluent in reading and writing and my punctuations, like where they belong in a sentence. I still want to improve a lot in my writing. I think UPA is very good at giving extra attention to the students. Like we do Boost and not most other schools do that. They focus on what they think we can improve and not a lot of other schools do that. Also the thing that I like is that we have mentor time during our ‘crew’ period. The teachers ask us questions like ‘what do you want to improve on?’ Like ‘what is your goal for this marking period?’ They help us get better.
My name is Michael and I’m in sixth grade. UPA is a great school, it makes me feel safe. I don’t like being unsafe because it makes me worry. Sometimes if you’re feeling weird or something like that you can go to Ms. Glendy’s office and tell someone what’s happening.
I like this class [Boost], it’s an add-on. My reading level needs to get higher, that’s why I’m here and I come early to help set up. I’m learning words that I don’t know and it helps me use the materials that I have. If others schools see that student’s reading levels are low then they should probably do [Boost] because it really helps us.
ELLMA Spotlights 