Student Support: Jinx Braxton

Student Profile:

“How’d you get the name Jinx?!?” is the first question asked by many people who meet Jinx Braxton for the first time.  Jinx tells her friends that she was born on July 13 which fell on a Friday.  When her older brother came to the hospital and saw his baby sister for the very first time he called her “Jinx” and the name stuck.  “I like having an unusual nickname,” says Jinx, “because it’s a neat way to get to know people.  They’re always asking me about my name and anyway, my real name is Irene, same as my Mom’s, so it’s nice to have a different name that’s special to me.”

Jinx is a very outgoing 11 year old who spends part of her school day in a resource room for children who are gifted and talented.  All through her life learning new things has come easily for Jinx and when she started kindergarten her teachers spoke to her parents about what seemed to be a great number of Jinx’s special talents.  Her parents, Bob and Irene, who operate a hair salon, were surprised to hear about their daughter in these terms.  Jinx’s mother knew that her daughter was full of surprises and that she crawled, walked and talked months earlier than did her older brother when he was small.  And Jinx’s dad remembers that by the time she was two, Jinx was reading a number of road signs as she sat in her car seat riding to the day care center.

After the school personnel administered a number of psychological tests, Jinx was placed in a program for gifted and talented children.  Her parents are very proud of her and the work that she does, especially in mathematics and in art, but they have learned that it is important that Jinx have the time and the opportunity to be a child first.  Jinx’s friend, Brenda, is an important part of her life and the Braxton’s are careful to allow Jinx the time and the freedom to have friends her own age and to develop interests that are appropriate for an eleven year old.  But even though her parents are aware of the “genius syndrome” and work to keep Jinx from being perceived in that way by her peers, there are times when Jinx must work through the potential social difficulties that being a very bright person can present. 

Jinx tells her friends that learning is more than getting right answers or all “A”s, and that there are things that are hard for her, too, and that she must work at learning just as they must.  Jinx points out to Brenda and Renaldo and to her parents, too, that she is a multi-faceted person with likes, dislikes, hopes, fears, talents, and problems similar to those that all children have and that being bright is just one part of being Jinx.

http://ezzo.pbworks.com/w/page/24277584/Rethinking%20Diversity

Support:

During a discussion-based lesson, it will be very important to allow Jinx’s strengths and opinions to come out while also making sure she does not dominate the conversation.  Since her thinking is more advanced than many of her classmates, she might be able to make connections that the other students do not initially come up with.  Because of this, the teacher may want to utilize Jinx as a discussion-starter if her peers are struggling to take the conversation in the right direction.  However, the teacher should also take steps to avoid letting Jinx be the only student to have a say in the conversation.  From what I’ve seen in both my own schooling and my placements, children have a tendency to let who they consider to be the “smart” students do most of the talking.  Implementing some type rule for who speaks and how many times would be a good way for the teacher to make sure that everyone’s voice is heard during the discussion.

For any post-assessments following the discussion, differentiating Jinx’s assignments might be beneficial to her learning.  This could be done by giving her a slightly different prompt, asking her to write a greater amount, or giving her a more extensive chart and/or table to complete.  Additionally, the teacher should not automatically make any assumptions that Jinx will be able to complete her assignments without support and should be sure to check on her progress while circulating the room.

Student Support: Diane Delaney

"Diane Delaney is eleven years old and is in the fifth grade at Woodburn Elementary School. Diane is currently being treated for acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), the most common childhood cancer. Diane began her chemotherapy treatments immediately after diagnosis and had her external catheter put in shortly thereafter. About a month after her first treatment, Diane’s cancer went into remission because of the chemotherapy she received. She is now able to return to school. However, she will continue to have treatments for about two years to make sure that the leukemia doesn’t come back. Sometimes, these treatments will mean that she will have to miss school because of side effects. Diane has been receiving and will continue to receive additional instruction from a tutor to help her keep up with the other students in her class. She is quick to explain, though, “I don’t want to be treated any differently just ‘cause I have leukemia.”" http://ezzo.pbworks.com/w/page/24278324/Diane%20Delaney

Student Support: Thankfully Diane is in remission which actually makes things a little less complicated.  However, I had a family member who went through this cancer and I have seen what the side effects of chemo are. Diane will probably continue to miss school and may be late regulary.  She also may become sick during school and may need to sit or even go home.  One of the most important things that I would like to remember for my lesson is that Diane does not want to be treated differently.  If she was present for my lesson I would make sure she had a chance to speak right from the beginning.  This would give me a chance to see if she had the background knowledge to understand what my lesson and what the book was all about.  If I got the feeling that she did not have much background then I would go into more detail about the story I am going to read and what the idea of the lesson is.  However, I would not make it seem like I am only doing this for Diane, just that I want to give the class enough information to grasp my lesson.

If Diane missed my lesson I would try and talk with her tutor and see if there was a way she could read the book with Diane and have a short discussion with her and try and complete the worksheet together.  However, if this wasn't possible I would try and get some one-on-one time with Diane.  During this time I would discuss the ideas behind my lesson and still try to get her to tell me what she knows about it and if she has any stories she can recall.  I would then ask her to take the book home and read it with a parent or older brother and complete the worksheet as homework.  I would give her ample amount of time to do this (about a week) because I know her home life is probably a bit hetic.

Student Support

Student Profile: Tufuku Zuberi

Tufuku is a second grader at Woodburn Elementary. He has one older brother and one younger brother. They all live with their mother who has a full time job and supports the whole family. Tufuku’s family recently became citizens of the United States. Their home land used to be in Africa.

Tufuku’s family moved to America about two years ago, and he has made great strides in his English language learning. He is at grade level in his reading and writing skills, but he sometimes still struggles with his speaking. There are moments when he is hard to understand because he speaks very quietly and retains an accent. He has been working with a speech language pathologist to help him learn how to form the different sounds that are in the English language.

Tufuku’s and his family worked very hard to study for the citizenship test.  They were very honored to receive citizenship and sent the class pictures from the ceremony. Tufuku is very excited to be an American citizen and shows great pride in his family and his new country.  He watches the other boys in class carefully and tries to copy their language and mannerisms.  

Support:
In regards to the support this student may need if present during my discussion-based literacy lesson, I believe the most prevalent support is in regards to linguistic. As mentioned in the student profile, Tufuku's speech is sometimes hard to understand and he has been working with a speech pathologist to help learn how to form the sounds present within the language. In general, as a teacher, I should be very careful to enunciate and clearly pronounce my own speech as to make it easier for Tufuku to improve in his own speech. In regards to supporting Tufuku's speech development during the discussion, I believe it is important to provide the student with opportunities to speak. If the student is uncomfortable speaking in front of the class, a culture of acceptance must be established prior to the lesson. In order to alleviate embarrassment or fear of failure, as a teacher, I will not "overly-correct" but rather simply use a form of "recast" in which his comments are repeated, thus allowing the student to hear the speech with the correct sounds without making it seem as if he is being corrected. 

As for social support, because it was mentioned in the student profile that Tufuku watches other students in the class closely as to mimic their behavior and language, I feel this is a great base to build from. Small group work with other students is crucial to help Tufuku's language development, thus, perhaps I should thus adjust my literature discussion to break off into small groups at times before coming back together as a full group, as to grant Tufuku with opportunities to interact with his peers in a less threatening environment as well as allow him to help develop his comfort with the culture of his peers. 

What Do You Think? Case Study

            I think that it is very possible for Mrs. Potter to tweak her teaching style and methods to better suit these students without disrupting the learning of the other children in her class or having to put in a ton of extra work.  If she is willing to take some time out of her schedule to do a few minor assessments and/or observations of these three cases, she will likely be able to get a good sense of where their strengths and weaknesses are and differentiate certain assignments based on her discoveries. 

            In the case of Lupita, I believe that Mrs. Potter needs to rethink her initial assumption that she “lacks academic skill”.  Not only is she finishing her assignments early, Lupita is also displaying the cognitive ability to solve puzzles quickly and attempting to share her knowledge with her peers.  It is very possible that she is actually a very bright student whose ability is being hindered by a language barrier.  One way Mrs. Potter could make her classroom more friendly for Lupita and any future English language learners would be through the use of visuals.  As discussed and pictured in the article “Quick and Easy Adaptations and Accommodations for Early Childhood Students”, creating easily accessible visual representations of schedules, assignments, and expectations is a great way to improve communication between teachers and students.  Author Leisa Breitfelder explains that the use of visuals can be an efficient way to improve transitions, behavior, and overall quality of work.

            Mrs. Potter needs to consider making some adjustments in Jonathan’s typical daily activities in order to give him more reading support.  Additional time spent reading with him one on one or in a small group setting will be a good way for his skills to improve.  If she usually includes silent reading in her schedule, she could use this time to work individually with him and focus in on the specific problems he is having.  Additionally, she could devote certain literacy centers to reading improvement or time spent reading with her.  It also sounds like Jonathan is afraid or embarrassed to ask for help.  Because of this, Mrs. Potter should be sure to circulate the room while the students are working on assignments, taking special care to stop by his desk multiple times.  Another thing she could change would be to create some sort of special signal for Jonathan to use if he needs help with his work.  This could be something like a laminated card placed on his desk with one side displaying green if he is doing well and the other side showing red if he needs assistance.

            From the sounds of it, Eddie may be suffering from some type of attention disorder (possibly ADHD).  His desire to always be up and moving around is interfering with his learning but is probably something that Eddie doesn’t have much control over.  Because of this, Mrs. Potter should include plenty of opportunities for movement throughout the school day.  As I previously mentioned for Jonathan, the use of centers might be beneficial in this case as well- not just for language arts, but for all subjects.  As mentioned in Literacy for the 21^st Century by Gail Tompkins, centers offer students a wide variety of activities that can be engaging and interactive while also advancing knowledge.  Eddie and the other students should be given the opportunity to choose, either daily or weekly, which centers they would like to participate in.  If Eddie is given the chance to pick what activities he is doing throughout the day, he will most likely choose the ones that interest him most, which will (hopefully) lead to a greater desire to complete the tasks and pay attention to what is going on.

Emily's Venn Diagram

Chelsey's Venn Diagram

Spelling Stages

In analyzing the writing samples I have gathered from some of my kindergartners, the results vary tremendously. One of the students is certainly classified within Stage 1, Emergent Spelling, as she is learning how to make letters and understands the direction of writing on a page, but also tends to incorporate several scribbles into her writing. Because of this, I wonder if she has clearly distinguished the difference between writing and drawing as her entire page is filled with pictures, letters, and scribbles. There is not yet any demonstration of letter-sound matches.

Another student may also be classified within Stage 1, Emergent Spelling, as she has clearly made a distinction between writing and drawing, neatly keeping her drawing within the specified space and her writing within the specified lines. She has learned to write letters and follows the direction of writing on a page. She is also learning to make sound letter matches, such as “bk” for book perhaps almost to the point of classifying her as nearing the beginning of stage 2, Letter Name-Alphabetic Spelling. Further supporting the idea of her being classified as the beginning of stage 2 is the fact that her entire writing sample is written in capital letters.

Perhaps also in between stage 1 and two is my next student, who has mastered all of the concepts like student 2, but has incorporated some words that include vowels. I’m unsure if this is classified as stage 2 however, as they are sight words such as “mom” and “dad.”

The next two students are both easily classified within stage 2. Both students have mastered the alphabetic principle as well as consonant sounds. One of the students is still learning to work with vowels and diphthongs, as represented in her interpretation of the word outside as “owtsid” and friends as “freds.” However, the last student, at least in the writing sample I have gathered, seems to be mastering more complex vowel combinations such as “went” and “jumping.”

Students in this class will benefit from a range of “sorting activities”, in which some students in more emergent stages of spelling may sort pictures based on the beginning letter sound of the word, while others in a later stage may work on identifying the vowels within a word in a similar way. This could be implemented by focusing on select letter sounds at a time, rather than having a wide set of “options” as the alphabet provides. Perhaps there are five sounds represented at one time, and with vowels maybe only one or two. Students could possibly cut pictures out and glue them under a column labeled with the corresponding letter/sound. 

See below my embedded Venn Diagram comparing two New Literacy topics!

Digital Native

I'm sure a lot of the students in our class will say they are digital natives.  Most of us have grown up with technology, computers being one of the biggest sources of technology that we use.  I too would consider myself a digital native but I also would say I am a bit of a digital addict as well.  I have not only grown up using technology and have become fairly knowledgeable about using new technology but I am also very dependent on it as well.  I am constantly using my computer and the Internet for school purposes but also for social purposes (facebook, pinterest, skype).  Not to mention my reliance on my iPhone.  I can not even begin to imagine life without these things.  However, while my reliance on technology may seem like an awful addition I think technology can serve a lot of useful purposes.  It keeps people connected and allows for things like homework and grading to be readily available and easy to work with.  It is also very useful in the classroom (smartboards, ipads, laptops).  Overall I would say that our world is constantly evolving and technology holds a firm place in our lives and I think sometime in the very near future we will all be digital natives.

As for the way Tompkin's talks about emergent literacy for children on pages 118 and 119, I definitely can see some similarities between digital literacy and literacy for children.  During both emergent stages, knowledge and understanding of how words work is being gained and children are learning the skills needed to work effectively for both.  Another similarity is that teachers have the ability and knowledge to teach the children the skills necessary for both types of emergent literacy.  However, one big difference that I see is that digital literacy is easier for students to pick up on.  There are more ways to learn using the various technologies that are available to us and students seem to pick up on them more than the traditional reading and writing forms.  I think this is because technology  is meant to make things easier for us and it engages us more as well so the young emergent children are able to master digital skills faster and without much struggle.  For example, in my placement I have noticed that most of the students who are still working on their letters have a much easier time working on the smart board or on a laptop.  Using these technologies they enjoy themselves while learning instead of doing the traditional worksheet type activities.