Chapter 15

Turn to p. 559 in Ormrod’s text. Now, imagine that you are meeting with Ingrid’s grandmother today to explain her scores on the recent standardized achievement test pictured at the bottom of p. 559. What will you tell her about Ingrid’s performance? her strengths? her weaknesses?

If grandmother asks you what she could be doing at home to help strengthen Ingrid’s skills, what will you suggest?

I would want to be sure to point out how well Ingrid is doing in her reading comprehension and science course material. She really is excelling with above average scores with these two subject areas. I would then move toward pointing out how Ingrid does need to work a little harder in her spelling and with her math computation, but I would be sure to point out that she is doing pretty well in her ability to understand the concepts in her math course material. Ingrid also is showing some great skills in her social studies courses and is once again excelling to an above average range. I just feel that even though you are talking to the grandparent's, parents, guardian or the student you never want to apply a steady stream of focus on one end of the spectrum and you really never want to start out with all the focus on a negative directed content. I think by starting off with the excellent work she has been able to do that I can then have a good relationship started with the individual (parent/grandparent etc) so they will start off with good positive thoughts which can open the atmosphere in order to go into greater detail about what subjects we really do want to work on. I also do feel like we need to use the sandwich effect. Start with the good and a little bit of tart filling and then finish it back off with some additional good things. I never like to force negative items but reenforce positive items. Therefore I would move from the areas that need work and move back to another good area that she can perform very well in. This shows that even though she needs work in some areas she has all of these great skills that she can be proud of and with a little bit of extra focus on the rougher areas then she will be able to feel as comfortable with those subjects as well as the others she has already mastered.

I actually love the idea of “Mind Mapping”. Mind Mapping was a concept that I was introduced to by St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf through one of their wonderful online webinars (which I highly suggest for any individuals that would like to focus their classes on students with any type of disability, whether deaf and hard of hearing or another disability category as I feel this topics can be altered for other students). With Mind Mapping you would sit down with the student one to two times a year (what ever works best with your classroom goals) and point out areas that the student can preform well in as well as the areas that they need to work on. You present the material in a drawing with the students picture with directions coming off to “things I am good at” and then “things I need work on”. You talk to the student about how they feel on these topics that you have included on both ends of the spectrum and you also ask for their input on to what they feel like they are good on and what they could use more work on as well. I really think that having this Mind Mapping with a parent/grandparent/guardian could also help all of those involved in the students learning process see what areas need additional focus and what areas they can feel good about themselves.

Now with planning certain tasks for what they can do together at home I would first like to find out what type of time they currently spend on helping her with her homework. There is a very good chance that maybe the person that is helping her at home either doesn't have time or does not feel capable of being able to help her with the areas she is having trouble with the material. Maybe no one at home is a good speller. If this is the case then I would point out that if they have access to the internet at home then they could use an online spelling game such as http://www.kidsspell.com/ or similar in order to allow her additional support. If they do not have access to the internet then I could send home spelling sheets and game cards so that whoever is helping her can see how the letters are arranged in the word and check her spelling. With the math computations I would suggest the same format. There are wonderful free online games that can be found at http://www.softschools.com/math/games/ and any time learning can be made fun I really think students are going to put a lot more effort into the work of studying and practicing.