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Journal Entry #4

The lesson plan that I saw was very interesting. Because of Covid-19  all the special education kids are in a self-contained classroom, for one hour a day at three or four at a time. So this enables the special education teacher or aids the ability to work one on one with the students. The student that I most closely watched and helped with during the lesson plan did reading, writing, and math while he was there. The reading he was doing was challenging for him. The Special education teacher mostly read to him, but she would have him read his sight words in the story. It was an interesting approach because while she was mostly reading to him, because of his low reading ability this helped him to read the whole story but also kept him engaged during it by making him read the word he knew. She would also stop to ask him questions while she was reading to make sure he understood what was happening in the story and to tell him the meaning of words that he doesn't know. In this way, she made sure to test his comprehension while the two were reading and also helping him to exercise his cognitive processes and thus retaining the story in his head.  She would also stretch it by asking him "why" and "how" questions about the story after they read and then helping him answer his questions for his class on the assignment. She would also have him talk about how he knew the answers by asking him to retell her the part of the story in which that part was discussed. I have to say that watching the lesson I found that even one on one and in a self-contained classroom the rigor checklist was still used. The only difference is that the Special Education students' lessons have to be modified so that it works for that specific student.

During the math section of the lesson, it was was interesting to watch how the student was worked with concerning math. The student started off with quite a bit of help from the teacher. She would write the problems for him and then he would tell her how to do the problem. She was playful with him as they were adding together multiple large numbers together, which he found to be overwhelming. She would pretend to freak out making him giggle about it then she would say. "Oh I don't need to freak out this is scary looking but it's actually easy right?" The student would agree and then he would explain to her how to do the problem. These problems mostly had to do with carrying numbers to the next spot so that was the main thing she worked on. While doing the problems she would be thinking out loud about how she needed to have her rows in order so that the numbers lined up, she would also ask him questions about the problem and ask why he did things the way that he did. Once more making him think about the action and also stretching it as they considered the problem. Then with each problem, she would take away a little support. First, she was writing the problems and the answers and he was just telling her what to do, but by the last few problems he was writing the problems, making sure to keep them neat and the numbers lined up, and doing the problems with only minimal help from the teacher when needed. Though she still reminded him of what to do occasionally, she was mostly watching as he did it himself at the end.

The final thing we did was writing. this was also very interesting because of the way it was done with the student. Instead of making him write the story first, she had him dictate the story to her. While he was dictating she would ask him questions about what was happening in the story and why. After he had dictated it to her she had him do it on the computer, using the voice program to dictate the story on the computer. The stories came out roughly the same but different. At this point she let me jump in and I went through the story and edited it, to put the two stories together so they made a little more sense. Then she went over the story with the student asking him questions along the way and editing it to make sure he got everything in the story he wanted. So one of the reasons I found this particular lesson so interesting was the way she approached the writing. She allowed him to walk around and move as he told the story to her and the computer. When I asked she said that particularly when working with younger students that it helps them if you let them move around and walk because then they are able to focus more when you have them sit back down. The student was there for two hours that day and she felt he was doing really well so she let him get up and pace back and forth and even act out his story a bit while he told it to her. Another thing was the fact that she felt getting him to think and come up with a story was more important than making him write the story.  In fact, she said with a lot of LD students getting them to do the work is usually more important than making sure the work is neat and tidy.

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5th Grade Classroom