Substitute teaching at the elementary level isn’t all that difficult as far as subject matter goes. While there have been occasions in the past where, once or twice, I didn’t feel “educated” enough in English grammar to actually teach the subject, those situations tended to be at the upper grade levels. Teacher edition text books with the answers included and teacher provided answer keys for any worksheets to be handed out make my job fairly easy to handle.
Any functioning adult should be able to master 1st grade worksheets without any problem or aid from an answer key. English grammar at a 1st grade level shouldn’t be a problem…even for ME!
So imagine my surprise and frustration when confronted with the following worksheet involving words with vowel “U”:
(click the image to enlarge)
The instructions are simple enough.
1. Say each picture name.
2. Listen to the sound of each letter
3. Print the word for the picture name.
All the words have either the short or long form of the vowel “U” and this being 1st grade work, all the words are less than five letters in length.
Quick, time yourself and see how well you do in identifying the word that goes with all the pictures.
Note: All current and veteran 1st grade teachers are disqualified from participating. THEY, of course, have the answer key!
(The one circled in red is a real killer. For the longest time the only thing I could imagine was that finger removing a “booger” from the baby’s nose. But that’s an entirely different vowel…)
9 comments:
That's horrible! The note at the bottom says "using the long u in spelling words" and only five of them are long u words (tune, tube, cube, mule and dune - which is what I'm calling the hilly piles of dirt).
Touching baby on the nose = rub? Though with the fingers pointed like that and the baby's arms up in the air, maybe it's a stick up!
But the bear? WTF?
I'm baffled.
No wonder they get to 8th grade and they can't spell!
I think the unicorn prompting for long u is very misleading, but probably beyond notice of first graders.
I guess the baby is "cute".
And the bear is actually a koala, which makes her a "marsupial"?? Hmm, maybe too long but those first graders are pretty sharp these days.
My UCLA spouse says the bear must be a bruin.
Maybe the animal is a CUB?
I agree that the bear is a cub. All I could think of with the baby was "push". Although why one would push in a baby's nose is beyond me ;)
I'm not usually surprised to come across things I don't know while subbing... but I am frequently surprised at the early age these kids are expected to know things that a college-edumacated person like myself doesn't know.
I would guess touch - for the baby. I am having problems getting this to post. So if it comes up twice, sorry.
There are two long U words on each line, and two short u words.
tune hug bus cute
fuse tube cub bug
cube sub dune tub
rule cut mule rug
Probably the kids see the word/picture combinations a lot, and aren't as thrown by them as we adults are.
Having two of each on each line helps the kids predict and stay on track, too. (At least the smarter ones!)
DUNE???? You've got to be kidding me
The baby is cute? Really, that's it?
This is hysterical. I'd love to know what company made this and call the rep for a little chat.
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