life after the first observation

My first observation was no where near as horrible as I had imagined.  Actually, it was a valuable learning experience.  It was good to know what I am doing wrong and to get concrete ideas about how to make the lesson better.  Yesterday I practiced the skills my instructor taught me and discovered how much richer in content the lesson became.  Once again, however, I feel like a fumbling new teacher.  My student is being patient, kind and understanding as I struggle to learn how to deliver a lesson with complete fidelity.  She and I decided to keep her on the same sub step even though she is probably ready to move on.  I just need a couple more days to learn how to deliver a lesson and she, in the meantime, is benefiting from a couple more days to increase fluency.  Since substep 1.6 (the next substep) works with base words and the suffix s, I believe the fluency will stand her in good stead.  I wasn't too far off on the reading block (parts 1-5).  Where I fell apart was primarily in part 8.  Now I have a solid script for that part.  The other part that I really need to work on is teaching sight words.  Still, every technique I teach my student, she uses both in our lessons and in the general education classroom.  I really do believe that this reading system will be greatly beneficial to some of our struggling readers.  In spite of all the additional work, I am excited to be part of this learning opportunity.