Hi all, I hope someone can help. I don’t know if I am barking up the wrong tree here, but here goes.
I am in a self-contained, 6th grade classroom. One of my female students has an obvious speech impediment and sees the speech therapist 2X a week. The thing is, her wriitng (including math) resembles a kindergartener. Her letters look like invented spelling and I can’t read any of her work. I got so frustrated, not knowing if she grasped concepts or not, that I now have her working on my computer and inputting things. I am at a complete loss of how to help her. Any ideas?
Re: Baffled about a student...
I think maybe she needs reevaluated possibly.. There is also a time for re-evaluation if a student is not performing to par or improvement, even after an IEP. Maybe other teachers who have had this student or a student like her before can offer suggestions, as well as other professions in language development, speech, spelling, etc.
Re: Baffled about a student...
But clearly you are not at a complete loss! You have already helped this student by directing her to the computer. Perhaps an Alphasmart could be gotten for this girl to further help her.
You could also have her checked over by an occupational therapist who might be able to offer her writing and letter formation some help.
Good luck.
Re: Baffled about a student...
If she has trouble spelling, the AlphaSmart may not be much help - especially if she has trouble visually discriminating between words (celebrate/celebration).
A computer with cowriter on it may be the first step. It a word prediction software with auditory spelling and can really move the student along. My daughter started out using it at the end of 2nd grade.
Re: Baffled about a student...
I agree that this student may need re-evaluation…. sometimes kids with speech impediments (especially after a few years of assistance) may have a hearing problem…. or cognitive interuptions.. when going from one skill to another…
Also, get her a scribe…. maybe you can find a scribe for her testing situations so that you can understand what she comprehends… also you could have her read her response to you… this may also help you diagnose what is stalling her encoding limitations…. Pick one encoding skill at a time to work on… for instance…. give her a word list that goes with the task… it may help her put enough correctly spelled words into her text to hellp you evaluate her learning.
I suggest you get more information about her level of functioning (academic, cognitive, adaptive), her strengths and weaknesses, learning style, and her IEP goals. Read her latest evaluations, report cards, IEP- and talk to former teachers. For instance, is her writing so poor because of severe dyslexia/ dysgraphia (a learning disability), poor graphomotor control, or a general developmental delay? I’m curious as to whether she is able to do the work on a computer. If so, then that is an important accomodation for her. Remember, instrunction must be at her level of functioning and proceed at her pace of learning. She might be functioning at a kindergarten level and that needs to be the level of instruction (you would also then focus on life skills and practical application of academic skills). She might be higher in some areas and lower in others- and then the curriculum needs to match that variability. In terms of assessing her understanding of concepts…. the IQ testing will give you information about this capability. If she has difficulties in receptive language (also ask her speech therapist about this) she also would have difficulty understanding verbal presentation of materials and there would always need to be visuals and hands- on activities to support learning concepts. In terms of assessing her knowledge, it sounds like writing assignments may not provide an accurate assessment. If she has expressive language deficits, than she may not be able to express her understanding verbally either. If she can read, than you can use multiple choice type of assessments…I’ve seen teachers also become quite creative in making assessments that utilize pictures and visual information. Sounds like you need to do some investigating and brainstorming. Good luck.