Meaningful Victory

My meaningful victory this year is focused on one particular student.  I am sure that I am not alone in having that one student who you consider to be your "project," your one student that you are determined to help grow.  Of course, I want all of my students to grow.  But it is this one student who I am extremely concerned about and want to do everything I can to see her improve.


This student is new to our school this year.  She has a significant speech and language disorder and was tested with articulation that is at a level of less than a two year old.  She was tested in her old school for a learning disability, but her scores were not low enough to receive services.  However, they were giving her 185 minutes of speech and language services per week, which included services that were surely not speech and language-related.  Our special education department has done an excellent job of giving me all of the help that I can get, but she does not receive any support during our classroom math, reading, or social studies/science times.  It is very difficult for me to give her the support she needs, when I have 18 other students who also need my help and attention.


I have a two page list of interventions I have already attempted.  She is not motivated and overall, just not a very happy kid. :(  I have a feeling that she has already internalized a "learned helplessness" because of continued frustration and failure.  It breaks my heart every single day to see how frustrated she is with her academics.  Not only this, but her ability to communicate with her peers and other adults is limited because of her struggle with articulation and expression.


My plan to achieve my meaningful victory is really just the next steps that I will take to help this student.  I understand that with all trial is the possibility of error, but I am determined to find that one trick or combination of tricks that increases her motivation and helps her grow!  I am hoping that my knowledge of speech and language disorders will also increase so that I can help students in the future, as well.

Idea Number One: I will introduce a play group into my classroom that will take place on every “Day 3” in our six-day rotation.  In order to  increase her communication, I will have her be the leader of the play group, choosing 3 students at a time off of our class list, so she has the chance to interact with all students in the class.

            Skills to be improved:

·         Leadership skills among peers

·         Friendship skills such as cooperation, sharing, participation, and helping others

·         Communication skills in a small group setting, hopefully to be transferred into a large group setting once a higher level of comfort is obtained

·         Ability to form new friendships

Idea Number Two: I will learn and teach simple sign language words, including help, stop, bathroom, feeling words, and also one to two sight words per week to help understand her oral reading.

           

Skills to be improved:

·         With simple sign language words, it will be easier for this student to communicate her needs to myself and the various other teachers she works with.  Most adults, even after several tries, can not understand what this student needs.   By teaching a different type of communication, my hope is that we will know the general idea of the problem so that she can feel more comfortable at school.

·         While she gets help in reading from several sources, it is very difficult to know whether or not she is reading the correct word.  Not only will this help in communication, it may also help her to pair a symbol with a word to help in long-term memory of first grade sight words.

Idea Number Three:  I am going to further increase differentiation for this student.  It is obvious that she is frustrated with a lot of the work that we do, so I am going to build more on the skills she does know and slowly start to close the gap.  For example, we do a Daily Math sheet that focuses on problems formatted similarly to those on standardized tests.  In place of this, I would like this student to work on simple number sentences.  Also, seat work that other students work on when they come to school, such as spelling sheets or word puzzles, are very difficult for this student. I will make her a folder of sheets that focus on handwriting and simple words.

Skills to be improved:

·         My hope is that these very simplified skills will help this student to grow.  At this point, she is not able to individually complete any of the first grade tasks successfully. 

·         If she starts to be more successful in these other activities, her effort and confidence may increase, as well as her overall feelings about school.

Idea Number Four: In our Daily Five work, I will allow this student to use a Leap Frog Reader for “Read to Self” one day out of the week.  I think she will benefit from listening to reading and being interactive with the books.  I do not want this to take the place of reading, but I think it will be a beneficial supplement. 

            Skills to be improved:

·         Ability to track words

·         Overall book sense

·         The combination of seeing and hearing first grade words may put more words into her vocabulary bank.

While these may seem like obvious interventions or strategies, I have a long list of others that I have already done.  Each student is so unique and you never know what one thing or combination of things will be the most beneficial!


If anyone has any other suggestions, I would be eager to hear them!