There are only nine students in my class. I realize many, many teachers would find that number enviable. To make matters even better, I have a full-time co-teacher. As you’ve probably already figured out, that leaves us with about a 1-4 teacher-student ratio. Not bad. That number is misleading, though. Within this group of nine students is a very wide range of abilities. This complicates things, but I’m in no means complaining. In direct contrast, actually, I thrive on this huge discrepancy in skills.
Having said that, we have a student in our class who, despite his age of eight, functions at about the level of a six year-old. He has difficulty following one to two-step directions. Often times you must call his name 3-5 times before he recognizes you’re trying to get his attention. He use the bathroom as an avoidance task during classwork time. He loves superheros to the point of believing he will grow up to be Venom. He’s a very loveable, kind, sweet boy, yet he’s struggling to keep up with the rest of the class behaviorally and meet our classroom expectations.
On top of his immaturity, his parents are overly protective with mom being a self-described “worrier.” Both Mom and Dad are highly involved and care deeply about their son. They’ve attended BTS, PTC, e-mail us daily, as well as stopping us on the playground during dismissal. At first, their concerns appeared to be valid. They were confused with how our interactive homework binders worked as well as the classroom expectations. My co-teacher and I, along with our Reading Specialist and Principal explained these to Mom and Dad, hoping we had put them at ease and clarified any miscommunications. Unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to be the case.
From the beginning, Mom and Dad have made it evident that their greatest concern with their son was his reading development. Diagnosed as having Dyslexia, this student struggles with many of the reading skills associated with Dyslexia— writing and reading letters backwards is his most obvious difficulty. At our school, we use the Orton-Gillingham approach to reading. This approach has been proven to be the premier approach to teaching children diagnosed with Dyslexia to read. It’s a multi-sensory approach to reading that, “utilizes phonetics and emphasizes visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles. Instruction begins by focusing on the structure of language and gradually moves towards reading. The program provides students with immediate feedback and a predictable sequence that integrates reading, writing, and spelling.” It’s systematic and sequential. It should benefit this student immensely if I implement it correctly
I wasn’t trained explicitly in the Orton-Gillingham approach to reading development, but was trained in the pedagogy of reading and all of the aspects of reading development that are utilized in the Orton-Gillingham approach. The reading group I teach is the lowest in the school. I have four students, including this little boy, who are all beginning with the basics. Despite having never utilized the Orton-Gillingham approach exclusively, I am becoming more and more confident in my reading instruction as each week passes. Unfortunately, Mom and Dad don’t agree. They’ve communicated with us the fact that they believe the reading instruction their son is receiving isn’t adequate and that the homework assignments given are too confusing and difficult. I’ve taken their criticism in stride and have made as many of the modifications and adaptations they’ve requested. I’m starting to feel frustrated, though. I can’t figure out if I’m really not implementing the program effectively or if they’re just searching for problems.
I run my 60 minute reading groups as follows:
- Review previous nights homework.
- Elkonin Boxes… decoding (blending and segmenting words based on the sound we’re working on that week)
- Fluency drill. Students each read a different phonics decodable book for the week. The book typically is based around the sound we’re working on that week. Students are given 4 fluency assessments to see if their fluency increases throughout the week.
- Sight words game/activity using the Dolch list.
- Comprehension activity/game. This includes teaching the students a comprehension strategy. Currently we’re working on visualization and “putting a movie in your head when you read.”
- Preview homework for that night.
I incorporate as many multi-sensory aspects into the hour as I can. It appears to be going well, but Mom and Dad just aren’t happy. They’re particularly frustrated by my interactive reading binder that goes home nightly. The binder is organized with laminated, labeled (words and pictures), colored cardstock. There’s a section for Reading HW, Spelling HW, Elkonin Boxes, Fluency drills, comprehension strategies, spelling tests, and reading rules. All the parents have to do is turn to the Reading and Spelling HW sections nightly and reading the assignment sheet that lists the assignments for the week. I’m attaching the Reading HW agenda page for 10-26 for your viewing. Each day of the week is highlighted a specific color, with the assignments for each day behind the agenda page in order and labeled/colored. All directions are basic enough for the students to understand.
I’m in HUGE need of advice as to how I can better pacify these parents and meet their needs. The Reading Specialist will be observing me on Monday to give me some feedback. My co-teacher has looked over my interactive binder and finds it to be completely acceptable, understandable, and organized. I’m at a loss as to how I can better tweak this system. Any and all thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
