The thing about my job that I love the best is the interaction with my students.
This year I have a whole seven students in my class. They range from five to eight years of age. So I am teaching three grades. But while I know the curriculum and the educational outcomes expected to be reached by all of my little scholars, I actually have the privilege to teach seven individuals and I have the luxury that I can focus my programme to their specific needs. This is both hard work, coming up with separate programmes, but very gratifying.
As a person with ASD with colleagues who don't really have a concept of what that means, I know what it is to be an, at times, isolated individual. I particularly feel a sense of camaraderie with those kids who just seem, for whatever reason, square pegs in round holes.
The student with the greatest academic challenges - I suspect with undiagnosed Dyslexia, is one of those. To get this little boy who is on the cusp of learned helplessness to feel like school is for him, that he is clever and he will read, is my goal for this year. But just observing him closely I can see how well he can remember what he hears and sees if it is in the context of what he gets to do. He learns through doing.
Instead of focusing on deciphering text we are making words together. His words, about what he is doing and what he is interested in. I have started teaching him all the sound patterns through stories. I have given the letters personalities and stories to help him and my other students remember.
For example Harry 'H' is a really calm and friendly letter. When he is around some of his friends he can calm them down and make them say different sounds. Harry can quieten Sally 'S' who is always singing so loudly. When they get together they say 'sh'.
Today my class has been doing a shared writing task. A story about Ignatius Ivan 'I' ,(vowels get double barrelled names), who is very itchy. The kids get 'e' and 'i' sounds mixed up. So if I start scratching they remember which it is. I draw cartoons of the letters and we talk about them as if they are people.
The kids decided that Ignatius was itchy because he was bitten by insects. I did have to explain that a spider is in fact an arachnid to one enthusiastic author. They decided it was fleas. To finish our tale the students thought the best solution was to flea wash his dog.
I really only started this programme this term so it will be interesting to see if the adventures of all the letters in the alphabet and the relationships they form on the way, can help teach a child who has difficulties, to read.
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