Grammar Obstacle Course Pays Off

Kyle Brock teaches grammar survival-style.

In Room 102 of West Valley High School, Brock avoids lectures on subjects, objects and predicates. Discussing dangling participles? No way.

Instead, he starts class with an easy smile and three sentences laden with grammar problems.

Word by word, the students pick out the problems.

“We just do it daily, daily, daily, to where it `takes’ for the students,” Brocks says. “That’s why they call it daily oral language.”

This is part of a reading course at West Valley High, now in its second year. The course is intended to help bring students who’ve fallen behind in their reading skills closer to their grade level.

“He’s a good teacher. He respects you,” says Jeromy Thomas, a ninth-grader. “When you need help, he’ll give you the right amount of help. But you have to earn your grade.”

Thomas wanted to boost his reading skills to help him do better in high school.

Senior Trevor Kienholz is looking to graduation and beyond. He wants to work on cars and Brock’s class will help him better understand the automotive manuals that he’ll face as a mechanic, he says.

NBrock leans on three legs for his reading class: daily oral language, 20 minutes of reading a day in class, and the magic of a good story. What sets this high school reading class apart from efforts at other schools?

Administrative backing, he says. In other words, money.

“In my personal reading library, I have over 500 titles,” Brock says. “I kept ordering books and ordering books and expecting to be turned down.” He wasn’t.

In a walk-in closet, the titles range from “Animal Farm” to “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman;” from “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” to “Tom Sawyer.”

“I have a thing for the classics,” Brock says.

It shows. Kienholz, the student who dreams of a mechanic’s career picks “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” as his favorite book.

Another set of shelves overflows with Stephen King novels, a series pocket-sized hard-backed romances and a set of “Fear Street” thrillers by R.L. Stine of “Goosebumps” fame.

These aren’t tattered paperbacks. They’re books printed for precisely this kind of school audience.

A romance/thriller titled The Lonely One, is printed by Simon & Schuster’s Supplementary Education Group. Brock wants books with an adult interest level.

“It’s no big secret,” Brock says. “I’m just creating the opportunity for them to read. They’re doing the rest.”

With a little help from the computer.

A software company that provides comprehension tests for any title Brock can find, gives him the ability quickly to test his students’ comprehension of what they’ve read.

To prevent boredom, Brock has his students read the newspaper a couple of days a week.

“I’ve had seniors actually tell me they’ve ordered the newspaper because they miss reading it,” he says.

Brock seems a bit bemused when he’s asked how he worked his way into this particular teaching role.

Years ago, he worked two jobs, as a prison guard and a teacher’s aide. The students were more fun to work with.

“I just enjoy their personalities,” he said.

The morning of the final exam, the students work quietly on their test. It has 30 sentences, full of grammar errors. The test contains no tricks, Brock tells the students. “It’s all stuff we’ve gone over in class,” he says.

Most of the students are done before the class period is over. When a visiting reporter asks Trevor Kienholz if he did well on the exam, a confident smile sneaks onto his face.

“Yeah. I’ll get a good grade.”

Jeromy Thompson predicts the same. “I studied,” he says.

Helping hands of all ages

Twenty-two Broadway Elementary School students last week helped collect and pack 130 kits of toothpaste, shampoo and other toiletry items for the needy.

The fifth- and sixth-graders, members of a group called Broadway Mission Stars, had partners in the project: residents at the Mission Ridge Assisted Living Center. The toiletries kits went to Valley Center. Officials from the Valley Center explained to the students and the seniors how the donations will be used.

This is part of a two-year program connecting Broadway students with residents of Mission Ridge.

“It’s giving back to the community,” said Broadway principal Margaret Patterson. “It’s very nice, especially if the kids have been going for two years, to see them hug and kiss.”