Session 3

Renelle Lawrence on Dec 4th 2009

For my third session I was assigned to work with my original classroom. This class was definitely a lot more rowdier than the other class I worked with. Most of my time there was just helping the teacher control the kids and have them settle down. One of the kids who I was informed has ADHD, I was assigned to work with writing his name with. He seemed to be capable of doing it however he found it difficult to be able to write in between the lines. So I tried to get him to copy exactly how I wrote his name. He succeeded in being able to trace over my version of his name but when it came to coping it on his own, he went back to writing it as he was used to. He was so stuck on writing the letters as he was used to that he couldn’t adapt to changing his style. I don’t think I accomplished much but I did help him understand when to use capital letters and lowercase ones. Surprisingly, while I was working with him, he never once acted up but as soon as I finished with him he began to dance around the classroom.

I also worked with another student. She had trouble with her alphabet in general. She did not know how to spell her name at all. I tried to do the same thing I did with the other student by letting her trace over my version of my name but that didn’t help much. She completely could not write the letter on her own. The letters that came out did not look remotely close to letters. All I could think to do was to tell her that she was doing a good job and that she should continue to try and practice at home.

During free time, I joined a group of the kids to play an educational game. It was a puzzle of the alphabet. I tried to help them recognize what letters came after each other. It amazed me how they knew the alphabet song by heart but still didn’t know what letters came after each other. So every time they were stuck I told them to slowly sing the song and then they’d find the answer. However, that was not the only problem. Although they may be able to say the letter they weren’t able to recognize what that letter was. Fortunately the puzzle pieces had animals on them so would ask them “what animal does d start with” and they would scream “dog!”. Then i would tell them to find the puzzle piece with dog and the letter d on it. It was a long process but after a while they completed the puzzle successfully.

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One Response to “Session 3”

  1. Lena Tuck, Honors Advisoron 16 Dec 2009 at 3:17 pm

    Renelle,

    Continue to put your best efforts forward when working with students, but don’t be too hard on yourself. I’m sure the literacy instructor and/or teacher at the school would agree that you did accomplish much, even if it were only getting the student to understand the proper use of capitlized and lowercase letters. Students with ADHD can be a challenge, some days better than others.

    Overall, have you had an opportunity to share what you’ve observed with the literacy coach? Perhaps s/he may have some helpfuld techniquies to use with students.

    And as for the group alphabet exercise, I have to admit that sometimes I have to recite the alphabet song myself in order to recall the proper order! 🙂

    Keep up the great work!