The Process
Mike is a first
grader who performs way below grade level and in first grade can barely read.
He came from another Metro school which is also low performing and his records
indicating no constant struggle with academic content. He struggles all day in
school. His attitude and learned helplessness stems from his struggling abilities
to read. On top of that his home environment is less than ideal. This causes
him to have emotional outbursts often, and social problems with the other
children. He is aggressive and loud with other students often through the day.
His frustration and anger clearly comes from his lack of abilities in the
classroom.
My teacher has
been trying to start S-Team on him since the beginning of the year. With the
lack of data from his old school, and him just moving here her hands are tied. Her
lack of data on this student doesn’t allow for him to be recommended for
special education yet. She doesn’t have enough data yet, and with the school
just implementing RTI the process is just getting harder and harder for Mike.
He will now have to go through all three tiers of instruction before being
recommended for special education and within this time he will be falling
further and further behind in his education.
On top of this
Mike’s behavior will just be getting worse. He already has said to me multiple
times, I can’t read I’ll never be able to do this. This cry for help as an
educator breaks my heart. I work with him one on one as much as I can. In the
beginning weeks when I was teaching less it was easier. I would pull him aside and work on
specific skills he needed, but now as I teach whole group I can’t give Mike
this attention. This struggle is something my teacher and I have spoken about
many times. When you give him any type of work, anything at all he claims he
can’t do it. This attitude comes from his constant failures.
As a teacher how
do you help these students? I know as a special education teacher what to do. I
know what to give him one on one to meet his exact needs, but when you have a
class of 22 other students how do you give a child like Mike everything he
needs, when you know what he really needs is special education? How do you deal
with the fact that the process is not allowing your student to get the services
they need? All the differentiation in the world will still not be enough for
Mike. He needs that intense intervention to help him reach grade level standards.
I know this is
not a problem only my teacher, or this school even is feeling. Last semester we
had the same exact problem with a student who was EL. Since he was EL they were
hesitant to identify him as special education, when all the signs were clearly
there. I see these students in every placement and hear stories like this in so
many classrooms. What can you do as the general education teacher when you feel
like whatever you do will never be enough?
It is so frustrating as a future teacher to hear students say things like "I can't read and never will be able to," or "I can't read, how am I supposed to do this?" When I was over at Inglewood, I had two students who were labeled as struggling readers. However, I did not understand how struggling they were until the teacher explained to me that she makes the other students read to them! Talk about promoting learned helplessness. Anyway, I worked with them one-on-one with another practicum student and we heard them say some of these negative things about themselves. One student in particular had a very negative outlook on his reading abilities and how "smart" he was. There were times when he would use these phrases and thoughts tin attempt to opt out of a math word problem or a reading exercise.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, there was another little boy with us who continuously tried and tried and never gave up. I was so proud of him and made sure he knew that we saw how hard he was working. But it really made me think... what happens when this little boy who continuously tries decides to give up? The other little boy has obviously already reached that spot in his career as a student, but what about the student who truly tries? I think as future educators, we need to express to students that learning is a consistent uphill battle. Just when you finally get something down and understand it, there is going to be something else that comes around that challenges you. Being challenged is part of becoming educated. Although it may not seem like everybody else is struggling as much as they are, there are other areas of their education that are challenging them.
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ReplyDeleteUGH!!!!! This is so frustrating to me. This new system of RTI with identifying students has so many kinks to work out. I am seeing the same thing with one of my students who is at least two grade levels below where he should be in reading. He needs to have an S-team done immediately and he needs services. However, because RTI started so late in the year this year, the administration says that they cannot identify him until he's been in Tier 3 receiving intervention and has a certain number of data points. This is so frustrating to me, because by the time there are enough data points to refer him, we will have wasted an entire year without giving him the help he needs.
ReplyDeleteSo the question of what to do. I have started using every possible moment of down time to work just with this student. For example, although I can't work with him one-on-one during whole group, I can use the 10 minutes in the morning when everyone else is still doing morning work to pull him back and do some quick phonics. Or I can use the 15 minutes of pack-up and wait for your bus to be called time to do word study. While we are on water restroom break, I bring sight word cards and I flash them. He loves the extra attention, and even though it's not that much time, I know he's getting the extra repetitions each day. The other students have started to catch on too and now I bring some work (usually our spelling words for the week) for all of them to do during awkward down time, like water/restroom breaks, and make it into a quiet time game. Whoever is quietest will get a word flashed and if they get it right, they get to keep the card. I give my struggler more time, more cards, and individualized words while we do this. Maybe worth trying with Mike, Avery! And just keep telling yourself that you're doing everything you can, and that that's all you can do.