Socialization and Other Skills for the Students - Essay Example

 The student is 13 years old and has challenges with paying attention, poor reading comprehension skills, and poor socialization skills. As the teacher, I would address the areas of inattention, the problem with reading comprehension , and socialization. According to the scenario, the student spends a lot of time daydreaming instead of paying attention. This puts the student at-risk of losing valuable education time. This behavior prevents the student from receiving a solid education; this also insures that the student may be left behind if this is not addressed. The student also has reading comprehension challenges. The student is in the seventh grade but only reading at a sixth grade level. This can cause a problem for the student as they grow older because they will not be able to read well. As an example, they may not be able to read and understand a driver’s test or information about food in the grocery store. The third at-risk behavior is the fact that the student is friendly but has little social skills. The scenario does not describe exactly how this happens but it can be assumed that although the student is friendly and outgoing, the other students do not pay attention to the student’s efforts. Another possibility is that the child reacts in inappropriate ways when interacting with other children. As an example, the child may become angry when they lose a game or they are not sure how to talk to other children. According to Wiley (2007) social skills are very important for students to develop when they are young because they live in a social world. Social skills must be taught so that students understand how to act in the social worlds they will interact within. If they do not develop social skills they can risk becoming isolated or seen as “strange” which can lead to bullying by other students. Interventions Intervention 1: Attention Span The student is in the classroom and often daydreams. In order to help this student, I would work with the student in a quiet area within the classroom. I would break the assignments down into smaller chunks. I would use a timer for this and set the timer to correspond with the student’s attention span. As an example, if I saw that the student began to daydream after ten minutes, I would set the timer for ten minutes and then allow the class to have a short break at the end of each 10 minutes. I would also use small group activities so that the student could interact with other students during the learning process. The third intervention would be to watch the student and as I saw them going into a daydreaming phase I would let them know I was going to call on them next to answer a question. I would remind the class to focus on what we were doing at that time so I could bring the student’s attention back to the classroom. These intervention would specifically address the daydreaming in that it would give the student something to do for a shorter amount of time. The outcome for the intervention would be that the student was able to sit in the classroom for the entire classroom time, without daydreaming. Progress for this intervention could be monitored by keeping track of the amount of time that the student is able to tolerate. As an example, the starting point would be 10 minutes, the time would be extended to 15 minutes and then finally to the full class time. Once the student could stay in the class without daydreaming and without using the timer, I would know that the intervention was effective. Intervention 2: Reading Comprehension I would want to identify the aspects of reading comprehension where the student is having the most problem. I would use three techniques to help in this area. I would first split the class into small groups of no more than four children. I would have the student sit with readers who were a little ore advanced than the child. I would begin with previewing techniques in the group. As an example, each student would have to answer a question about what we were going to read. I would have groups construct a story map (University of Missouri, 2009) that would help the student understand specific elements of the story. For example, students would describe elements of the story, including the main characters, setting, the problems in the story, the events in the story and the ending. I would break the reading into smaller, more manageable parts. I would also allow students to identify a few books that are interesting to them, and as they read, I would have them describe the story. I would target specifically reading comprehension. I think that reading is a skill that is learned through practice and the more students are able to talk about their reading, the more they understand it. The intended outcome in this intervention would be that the student’s reading score would go up at least one point (i.e. the student would be reading at the third grade level). Intervention 3: Socialization Gargiulo (2011) and Wiley (2007) state that social skills are very important and that there is a four step process that is effective in teaching students. In order to encourage the student to interact with other students, small group activities will have elements of collaborative learning. As an example, the group of four will be split into two students working together. Students will be praised for appropriate social behavior and children will have tasks in the classroom that they do together. Another example is that students will have learning partners and be given specific tasks to do together. This would give students an understanding of working together as well as help them stay on task. Students will be monitored as they interact with one another so that the teacher can see positive social behavior to comment on. As an example, when a student is correctly talking to another student, this will be praised. Socialization is another skill that is learned by doing so having activities in the classroom where students can interact appropriately will help the individual student develop their social skills. As an example, with two children working together, if they work together well, they begin a rapport with one another. They are able to interact well together and this action provides n opportunity for them to work together in other situations. I would also encourage the student to participate in group discussions in the larger class. This would help them learn to interact in social situations and help them in other social situations. As an example, if the class was talking about something that happened on the playground during a circle time activity, I would encourage the student to tell her version of what happened. I would encourage the other children to also ask the student questions about what she saw. The student in the case study would learn how to talk to other children, how to interact appropriately and how to The intended outcome for this intervention would be that the student make at least one friend in the classroom. References Gargiulo, R. M. (2011). Special education in contemporary society, 4e. Western Governors University, E-Book Collection. University of Missouri. (2009). Teaching tips: Reading comprehension strategies. E-Themes. Retrieved from http://ethemes.missouri.edu/themes/1777 Wiley, A. (2007). Importance of teaching social skills to children. Parenting 24/7, 6-12 School Age. Retrieved from http://parenting247.org/article.cfm?ContentID=1241&AgeGroup=3 Read More