can I just clone myself?

One of the biggest stresses in teaching kindergarten has been how difficult it is to provide individualized attention. To teach writing, my cooperating teacher and I have split up the class. Those who are ready to move are working with her, while I am focusing on the students who need to continue to work on the fundamentals. (Spaces between words, writing in a straight line, hearing and writing all the sounds in a word, writing neatly enough to read).

Even within a group of about 13, these students are at a variety of levels, and need a variety of different strategies. Several students really want to learn to write, but are very behind on their letter-sound understanding, and so cannot write without an adult to help them sound out every word and find the matching letters. Other students can write and spell, but are very lazy and/or messy. Some can write, but require a great deal of coaching and encouragement in order to feel confident enough to put letters down on paper. With some of these students, if I help for a moment and then move on, they stop working and wait for my help again, or without support, they revert back to their old habits.

I feel like there are quite a few in this group who are falling through the cracks, and will not go to first grade with the expected level of skills. However, kindergarteners are almost unable to work independently, and so it is extremely difficult to provide individualized attention and help bring the students who are falling behind up to level. It's extremely frustrating to see students who want to learn, but who need extra help that I just do not have the time to provide.