Posted: Saturday, February 4, 2006 6:00 pm
In September 2000, the Lincoln Journal Star’s Schools Team began to follow four students — a kindergartner from Lincoln and one from rural Firth and two Lincoln seventh-graders — through their school odyssey. Today’s stories catch us up with Tom Docter, a fifth-grader at Norris Elementary School, and Stephen Reis, a fifth-grader at Hawthorne Elementary in Lincoln. Next Monday, we’ll visit Martha McCleery, a senior a Lincoln High School. Katina Golliday, whom we met at Goodrich Middle School and later at North Star High, has moved to Texas.
BY JODI FUSON | Lincoln Journal Star
Writing descriptive essays, playing football at recess, tackling tougher spelling words and playing in a YMCA basketball league are a few of the things that make up Tom Docter’s life lately.
He’s given up piano (which he played during third and fourth grades) and shooting hoops at lunch (because his friends are playing football now and he wants to be with them).
But Tom, now a fifth-grader at Norris Elementary School, still likes a good math challenge and reading. Since last fall he has read “Dragon Rider” and “The Thief Lord,” “The Wizard of Oz” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
At home, his mom, Julie Docter, is reading the “Chronicles of Narnia” aloud to him.
Tom attends an after-school math group for fourth- and fifth-graders once a week, too.
Julie Docter said fifth grade has been a bit of an adjustment, both academically and socially.
“He’s had to work a little harder. He’s had to be a little more diligent about it.”
Tom gets his work done, but he finds time to talk to friends about basketball and other stuff. In class, he is alert and ready to raise his hand to answer questions — most of the time.
At a recent field trip to the Lied Center to see the Lincoln Symphony, the conductor asked the students to shout “Boom!” to represent a cannon going off when he pointed to their side of the auditorium. Tom wasn’t paying attention and jumped out of his seat when everyone around him shouted.
Tom’s mom and his dad, Merlyn, make sure he studies Monday nights for his Tuesday spelling tests.
“I try to get out of it, but I can’t,” Tom said.
After missing several on a recent pretest, he scored 100 on the test. The words were taken from a seventh-grade vocabulary book for kids who need a challenge, and Tom said he didn’t know what many of them meant.
Tom is also learning about fluency, vocabulary and writing. His language arts packets include a grammar sheet, analogies, a skill of the week (such as cause and effect), a handwriting sheet and a main idea sheet. Students also read books at their individual level and complete packets that go with them.
Brenda Weekly, Tom’s teacher, said he is reading above grade level, possibly eighth grade or higher.
A couple of days a week the class reads stories aloud from their textbooks and discusses them. Last week they read about a Tory girl who hid while rebel neighbors ransacked her house during the Revolutionary War.
When Weekly asked students what precious items they would want to save, Tom joked under his breath, “My teddy bear.” A girl sitting next to him shared it with his classmates, and laughter broke out.
Tom is a lot of fun, his classmates have figured out. And he’s smart, too.
“I think anyone would choose to be in his group if they could, and that says a lot for him,” Weekly said.
Tom loves News Bowl, a weekly current events game. Sports questions are his specialty.
“He thrives on that game,” Weekly said.
“Man it’s fun,” said Tom. “The first three weeks I went undefeated.”
During social studies, Tom kept his classmates guessing which Revolutionary War identity he had assumed for a game called “I Spy.”
“He just kind of directs the class,” Weekly said.
Tom and a handful of others read social studies texts on their own and do projects to demonstrate what they have learned. His most recent was a PowerPoint presentation on the Stamp Act.
“Any time he’s done with his stuff, I try to find time for him to go and do independent projects,” Weekly said.
In math, she gives a pretest for each unit so she can determine who already has mastered some of the skills. Then she gives students, like Tom, more challenging problems to solve in small groups.
“He loves problem solving.”
She is preparing her class for a state writing test next month. For practice, they wrote descriptive essays about their classroom.
Tom hardly missed a sense, describing everything from the vanilla-scented candles on Weekly’s desk to the clicking of pens to the sea monkeys he’s not sure are dead or alive.
“He’s been dying to read his out loud,” Weekly said.
Tom has grown more than 3 inches since the start of fourth grade and announces he’s now 5 feet tall — and ¼-inch.
He’ll head for middle school next year in a new building going up next door to the elementary school.
Tom said he isn’t thinking about middle school much but hopes the building turns out as nice as the new auditorium at the high school.
Reach Jodi Fuson @ 473-7211 or homeroom@journalstar.com.