Interviewing Parents

Talking to parents in general is difficult enough, but when it comes to talking to parents with a child that has a disability it becomes extremly difficult.  I had to interveiw a parent of a child with a disability and was very nervous at first.  I became more and more comfortable talking to the parent when I found that the parent was comfortable talking to me.  I learned that it is ok to talk parents about their children as long as you are respectful and supportive of their situation.  I feel like I have learned alot from this parent about her child and her child's disability.  It was a new experiance that I found to be rewarding and goal oriented.  I feel more comfortable now discussing difficult situations with parents, because in the long run I know that it is for the benifit of the child.

Year End Assessment

As we come to a close to the end of our year we as teachers need to be able to focus on assessment for the students in our classrooms.  In my classroom we take each child and assess them through testing individually to determine where they are at in their cognitive development.  I know that this is a state way to test the children, but to fully assess the students I don't believe that it works for every child.  Though we assess the children throughout the year I believe that it is inaccurate to evaluate the students based on one test.  We have very high and low functioning students in our class that deserve to be assessed fairly with regards to their cognitive development.  I feel that when the students are asked to step into the hallway by themselves to be tested it puts a high amount of stress on the children that in turn may have them not perform at the level that they are capable of performing at.  My question in turn is how do we assess students in a way that is comfortable to them and still meets state standards?  Is it possible or is it an unrealistic dream to have children perform at their highest level stress free?

Inclusive Classrooms

As we continue our readings and find out new information each day about the students in our classroom I feel as if we are becoming more familiar with inclusive classrooms.  Schools all around the country are trying to focus on mainstreaming all children, which provides the best learning enviroment for them.  Mainstreaming all children sounds like a good idea, but if the classroom is not inclusive then it may be diffidcult to benifit the child.  An inclusive classroom should involve the whole child which invovles their wants and needs.  The classroom should be made physically appropriate for the child with the disability so that they feel comfortable in their own learning enviroment.  An inclusive classroom should also be stimulating to each child's cognitive development enhancing their learning throughout the whole classroom.  Each student in the classroom should be able to participate in every lesson plan or activity that is presented to the whole class.  This provides every child with the ability to learn to their fullest poteintial.

Parental Advocacy

As we continue through our learning process of parents of children with disabilities it is becoming more apparent to me everyday that parents need to be advocates for their children.  Parents need to take a stand for their children and ensure that their child has the best learning experience possible.  though this make be difficult for many parents because they are not informed the way that they should be.  This is where it is our jobs as teachers to make sure that all of our parents and knowledgeable and informed in a variety of ways.  Teachers need to ensure that parents know:

1.  A free and appropriate education for children with disabilities
2. Notices when their child will be evaluated, a change in their child's educational program.
3. The ability to have their child evaluated for special assistance if needed.
4. Participation in the development and duration of IEP's
5. Educated in least restrictive environment.
6. Ability to request due process hearing to resolve differences with the school.
7. Special education assistant programs.

All of these items and more are essential for teachers to provide to parents.  The more help that a teacher can provide a family the better their learning experience will be in the school.  The parents will feel secure and comfortable being advocates for their children.

Assessing the Hearing Impaired

As we go further into the quarter I struggle to find ways to assess a child in the classroom that is hearing impaired.  He is fully functional and can slightly hear when you speak into a microphone.  When he works with the other students in the classroom in small groups he gets distracted very easily.  I know that he can do a variety of the tasks that we do in the classroom, but because of being hearing impaired I feel that he is distracted and does not participate in certain tasks.  Just this past week I implemented a science activity that invovled the children planting seeds that will grow into wild flowers.  He became very excited about this and began to speak a very few muffled words.  He is also a bilingual student, in which English is his second language.  So he has many obsticals in his way of having mastery of skills in the classroom.  I found that he became very excited about the soil, seeds, and water that he was going to be able to explore with.  He sat and tried to listen to my words and my instructions during the lesson.  He followed all of the other children and the steps that they were doing in order to plant their flowers.  When I began to assess the children I was stuck at a point in which I thought was he following instructions from the teacher or just copying the other students.  Either way I allowed him to do things in the group second or third so that he could view from the other students how that part of the planting process worked.  This allowed the other students the oppurtunity to scaffold for him and help him through the planting process.

As I began to think about assessing him I realized that he was able to particpate fully in the activity and complete the planting process step by step.  Though some scaffolding was needed he was still able to stay focused and work with his peers to finish planting his flower.  This showed me that he was able to do more things than I imagined him to do.  I realized that choosing activities that are in high interest to the children will help them stay involved and productive throughout the activity.

Guided Reading

As we go further on in our classes and our Kindergarten practicum I have noticed several different reading methods.  Though many methods are productive in the classroom I find one method to be extremely pratcial and developmentally appropriate for the children.  There is one method that I have found to be very successful in my classroom with my students and that is guided reading.  There are three points to guided reading:
1.) Reading to children
2.) Reading with children
3.) Reading by children
Each point is highley acheivable for children and gives them the ability to work on literacy skills with peers, parents, teachers, or alone.  I found a useful qoute made by a teacher that really shed light on the reality of teaching she said "it isn’t only the reading but the responses and interactions that go with it that provide the true context for literacy development.” (Parker)  Guided reading is a style of reading that can very well be used with any child's developmental level and escpecially children who may have special needs cognitivley.  The children are reading stories, reflecting, retelling, naming characters, talking about plot situations, and practicing writing.  Along with word recognition, pronounciation, and the ability to formulate new words or familiar words from exsisting text.  To support guided reading however the teacher must support the idea of it and in the classroom enviroment.  A good classroom enviroment for guided reading should consist of large blocks of time to pursue reading and writing in depth, the opportunity to choose the particular activities they would pursue; and ownership of their learning.

Testing a Child with a Learning Disability

As I go through my practicum I noticed that the school that I am in is going through testing right now.  Even in Kindergarten the children are being tested on their ability to read words and how fast that they can read them.  There is a child in our classroom that my teacher suspects has a learning delay.  My mentor teacher has talked to her parent and informed him that her reading level is low and she loses focus very quickley when doing projects.  His response was well I will just tell the doctor to up her dose of medication.  He was not concerned about getting a second opinion about his child or further look into his child to see if she has more learning disability's then suspected.  My mentor teacher knows that this child can not pass the reading test and will be placed in the lowest level on the Kindergarten spectrum.  I asked her how she will test her and she said the same way that I test all of the other children.  She said that she can not change the test or extend the amount of time for her because she does not have a diagnosed reason and her father said to test her just like everyone else.

This is where I struggle to see how a child can survive in school without support from their families.  This child will continue to fall behind her peers, because her father chooses not to follow up with her learning needs.  As a teacher I know that we can request for an IEP for the child, but I sometimes wonder if that will be enough.  How can an IEP be enough if the parents choose not to be invovled in their child's learning and what if a parent refuses an IEP for their child?  Where do we go from there?