Hello, I’m hoping I can find some help here! This is my first year teaching and I have a 11 lovely darlings from 2nd - 6th grade (all LD, one is Hearing and Language Imp). My problem is teaching all of these students according to their IEP goals. Yes, I have all these students with me for the bulk of the day. I am having a hard time grouping the students for reading and math. I am often working with one group when all of the other students want my attention. I have tried a number of different things but I was hoping that someone could give me some suggestions on how to keep them busy but also productive!!!! Thanks!
Re: Help, new teacher
Tiffany’s advice was right on the money. As an LD teacher, I have the same struggle. I try to group my students whose abilities are within 2-3 grade levels.
Of course, mine are older. If yours are very young, 2-3 grade levels is a tremendous difference. Also, you can put some on the computer to enhance the skills they already have, thus better preparing them for the new lessons they have coming up that day or the next.
Let’s say I have 8 students in a class. Somewhere in that 8, there are bound to be some whose grade levels are somewhat close. I will group that bunch, and try to do the same with the rest, grouping them as closely as possible to their levels. I have to limit it to three groups, because the students are going to need at least 15 minutes of small group instructional time for the concepts to be effective. The others are working on reinforcement of what I just taught or reinforcement of previously learned skills or even activities related to reading that can only enhance the reading process.
For instance, I may teach a group of 3-4 students a lesson on synonyms. While I am doing this, I may have 3 other students doing a word processing lesson on the computer while 3-4 others are working on doing a picture that represents their favorite part of a recently read story or perhaps using pattern blocks to re-create patterns for some type of small incentive.
I hope this is of some help. Feel free to e-mail me if it is helpful and you would like more suggestions.
Dear “New Teacher”,
This is a common thing among LD teachers. I find myself in the same boat. As a teacher I find this very frustrating because within those grade levels you feel as if thier is room for grouping as well. So you have 11 babies and probably 8 different reading levels. The best thing to do is when you are working with other students let your higher students shine. Pair younger students up with older students for reading share time. Also books on tape. Even books that you read yourself. Don’t guilt yourself out. Try to maximize para time (if you have it), find community volunteers, and understand that you are one person and can not do 10 different things at one time. If you are working on specific letter sounds or combinations have them work in groups to find or come up with as many words as they can with those combinations. For example (vowel diphthongs ee, ea) They can read a book together and find words with those sounds. :)