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Students in the self-contained learning disability class often have a hard time being leaders. Asking these students to take a lead in a language based task seemed like a big step to take. In order to set them up for an experience that would allow them to feel like leaders we partnered with a K-5 school in our neighbourhood. In fact, some of the students went to this school. We had a plan to walk over every other week, read a book with 2-3 reading buddies, engage them in an activity and then play outside together. One of my grade 6 students, who has a decoding level of approximately grade 1, was adamant that he was not going to do it. Now what? The students in the classroom have become skilled at using laptops, Chromebooks and iPads to overcome some of their learning difficulties. Even though he could manage understanding text by using the iPad to read the content aloud to him, he refused to participate. Other students picked simple story books to read but this student wasn't going to budge. You see, this student not only has a learning disability, he also has a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. The more I thought about how he has used technology to work with written material the more I thought the students in Grade 2 might also benefit from seeing this too. Here is how it played out: Reading Buddies Week 1 Teacher: "We are going to partner up with students in a Grade 2 class at the other school and read simple stories with them" Student A: "NO" Teacher: "We will work together to pick out a good book that is a good level and practise how to read to other people" Student A: "NO" Teacher (to Student A after others have gone off): "We can look at having the iPad read the text to them. The same thing you do in class all the time." Student A: "NO, I'm not coming to school that day." Teacher (to Student A): "Let's take a look at what is in iBooks" Student A: "NO" Teacher (begin to work through an interactive book called Find Me that had text and images to click on). Student looks over my shoulder from the Lego bin but won't participate. "I can't find the image to click on in this picture. Hmmmm" Student A: "It's there." (clicks on the image and sits down). Teacher: (fumbles to get the student's iPad to read and can't make it work) Student A: "Let me do it". From here the student goes through the rest of the book. During further practise sessions the student will not go through the rehearsal, but will answer my questions about the book. The best I hoped for was that he sat at the table with me for the actually Reading Buddies experience. He agreed that if I couldn't find one of the clickable images he would help me. Week 2: Reading Buddies Student A (yellow shirt) leads 3 students through an iBook We walk over with a wagon full of goodies to the other school and meet our reading buddies. The teacher has paired students up to join one older mentor. Student A is second in line and gets his three buddies. Teacher: "Just sit with them and get the iPad ready and I will be right over" Student: "OK" As I get the other 6 students settled with their buddies, I look over to see Student A not only reading the book, via the iPad app, but interacting with the students. He was asking them similar questions to what we had rehearsed in class. He kept track of who had had a turn already and let everyone have a chance to interact with the book. Teacher: "Are you OK here?" Student A: "I'm fine" Week 3: Reading Buddies revisited On the next visit to our reading buddies Student A had a second book loaded into iBooks that he was able to read with his two reading buddies. They listened to the story and then did some simple retell and comprehension work. Within 3 weeks this student went from a firm "NO" to a solid "I'm fine" to a position of no hesitation at all. Together the student quickly worked through Tuckman's stages of group development: forming, storming, norming and performing (in Bonebright, 2010). The group was formed for the student and then he had to come to grips with this role, figure out the expectations and then performing the task. He was a resistant, reluctant, hesitant leader, but he got there in the end. Children as Reader-Leaders Geeta Dharmarajan is a writer, educator and Executive Director of the non-profit Katha Organization. In her TedTalk, Geeta talks about starting a school in the slums of Delhi with a story-based learning philosophy. As a part of the program the students get their first computer and quickly learn more about how to work with it than their teachers. The students move into an emergent leadership role and show the adults what they could do with computer. Hunt and Crockett (1955) hypothesised that "emergent leaders will occur more often in groups where the official leader does not perform the leadership functions". The students in the Katha school invite the business men and women from the neighborhood into their classroom and teach them about fashion trends, new recipes and what is happening around the world. Geeta points out that while children initially need to learn to read for fun, they also needed to read for meaning. When we read for meaning we can develop as leaders in a given area. The students in the Katha classroom became leaders in various areas through use of the computer. Student A became an unexpected, emergent leader during this process. References
Bonebright, D. A. (2010). 40 years of storming: A historical review of Tuckman's model of small development. Human Resource Development International, 13(1), 111-120. Hunt, J. M., & Crockett, W. H. (1955). Emergent leadership in small, decision-making groups. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51(3), 378-383 Dharmarajan, Geeta (2012). Children as Reader-Leaders: Geeta Dharmarajan at TEDxOxbridge. Retrieved June 01, 2016, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifsbycP4V-o
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AuthorI am a teacher in Halton and have spent 12 years dedicated to learning about and working with students who have special learning needs. I have been teaching since 2005. I have 4 kids (2 + 2 step), I play bagpipes, ride a motorcycle and love being outdoors. Archives
August 2017
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