Question 1:
As someone without her own classroom yet, can you suggest any strategies/practices that you have found successful when dealing with poverty stricken students that I could use as a “jumping off” point? Especially when it comes to the cycle of repetitive negative behavior?
Question 2:
In today’s severely test-driven educational structure, what strategies/procedures would you suggest for teachers to build the basic skill knowledge necessary for the students to fully understand the content?
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Kelli, I especially enjoy your second question. The building of skills is so important in education in the younger grades if students are going to be successful as they progress academically. Teaching fourth grade I really start to see that the students who struggle in math are those who are missing some of the simple number sense skills such as skip counting and mental math. Unfortunately when those students come to fourth grade showing a weakness their peers are only continuing to strengthen their skills which further separates the lower students from the average/high students. I found the portion in the book that discussed a school in Texas that grouped students for language arts and math by their readiness or skill level regardless of their grade level to be quite interesting. I think it would be a difficult concept to implement into a building, but I think the payoff would be huge.
ReplyDeleteCassie,
ReplyDeleteI have some limited personal experience with this. The school in which I am frequently subbing does this with select students in math. One of those students just happens to be my cousin's little boy (2nd grade) and he spends an hour in Gifted Math with 3rd grade students out of my mom's classroom for math every day. I know people out there say that pulling kids out for specific instruction only creates barriers between those students and their peers, but I haven't really seen a lot of that, and I believe it truly IS what's in the best interest of the children. I wish more kids would get academic attention like that!
Kelli