My 2nd grade classroom at Eakin has 3 deaf
students. 2 of the students are present throughout the entire day, while one
only comes in during morning meeting and to transition into lunch and related
arts. This student came to Eakin with no language whatsoever, so needs extra
attention and instruction. However, the two other students are completely
integrated into my second grade classroom. There is one interpreter that is
present throughout the morning, and another in the afternoon. Although they receive
this one-on-one special attention and support, the students are involved in the
whole class.
My mentor teacher is absolutely amazing and has a background in
American Sign Language, allowing her to sign the majority of her instruction
while she teaches. Additionally, she has taught the entire class important
words and phrases in American Sign Language. I am extremely impressed and in
awe of this. All of the students sign the pledge of allegiance and school
pledge. As the students go over the important aspects of the calendar each
morning, the students repeat and sign the date, date of the week, month and
year. Also, during word study, the students work on signing the words with
finger spelling. I am extremely excited and happy to be able to experience
this. I feel that this is such a beneficial situation for both the deaf
students and the rest of the class. The deaf students are welcomed and feel comfortable,
as the rest of the class uses their language throughout he day. The rest of the
class is exposed to a new language and culture, and also is able to receive a
physical and tactile representation of words and concepts.
Luckily, I took
American Sign Language briefly for a year in High school. I know how to sign
the alphabet and some important phrases. However, I am determined to learn more
phrases and words in order to communicate with the students and to include
certain words during my lessons so I can differentiate properly for them.
That is so impressive! How awesome of your mentor teacher to integrate ASL into her normal lessons. In second grade, I bet all of the students really do benefit from it, especially from signing how to spell words. It seems like signing letters to spell would be a helpful memory tool, just like using motions as part of teaching vocabulary words. What a great example of how to make differentiation work for the whole class.
ReplyDeleteI am so impressed and enthused by your teacher's dedication to ALL of her students and commitment to making the classroom a real community! Especially after hearing you talk about her strategies for and inclusion of the deaf students into your classroom, I think she is a teacher I would LOVE to observe!
ReplyDeleteWe don’t have any deaf or otherwise low-incidence disabilities in my classroom, but I have been similarly impressed with the classroom community established by my mentor teacher. I can tell that she knows her students incredibly well (she has gotten to know them so well by sitting with them at lunch EVERY day!!). Not only that, but she also utilizes their individual strengths and personalities to add to the whole class learning and classroom culture.
One example of this is her inclusion of our student with mild autism (I’ll call him Dan) into the classroom socially, in addition to academically. Dan has a very hard time connecting with the other students in class, and is almost solely focused on school work and not on the people around him. However, when other students reach out to him, he responds well and gets very excited to have those social “moments.” My mentor teacher uses the “round of applause” gesture throughout the day at various big moments of success. Because Dan responds so positively to this student-to-student communication, almost every time that he answers a question correctly out loud during whole group instruction, the other students give him a “round of applause.” The other students are so sweet to him and reach out to him—evidence of a positive classroom culture of support that was established by the teacher. I even heard one student today who was working with Dan is a small group, give a few claps to Dan when he spelled a really hard word correctly, and say, “Good job, Dan.” I can’t tell you how big Dan’s (and my) smile was after that!
This example and Dana’s example just go to show how meaningful the class culture and relationship between classmates can be in elementary school because of the nature of self-contained classrooms. I love it!