Science is tutorial based, but often broken up into groups of four for lab and experimentation work. Math lab includes a number of different activities that change out regularly.
Following math, the students meet for Art class, which varies daily in activities, social and spatial development.
Lunch and a brief recess follows.
First class after lunch focuses on learning tools combined with independent reading; teacher uses only worksheets as student activity after reading; question worksheet designed to uncover comprehension and vocabulary development
Next class is social studies, work in pairs, teacher uses a number of different strategies and course outlines for variety.
Final period of the day focuses on English, or ESL for international students.
Reviewing a typical day for Ahmad, however, shows some serious disconnects in terms of his continual improvement in literacy. Analysis of his day shows:
Lack of consistent strategies to allow Ahmad the chance to catch up with vocabulary development; instead, there are so many new strategies and tasks that he falls further behind because he is unable to achieve the requisite level 6 vocabulary.
Each class is working in isolation; in the absence of an official IEP the school should at least find a way to establish some modicum of logical support between core subjects that culminates in the literacy course at the end of the day.
For ESL learners, it is important to provide a rubric of regular growth; Ahmad is being challenged with too many disparate messages to adequately comprehend them in a given day.
Assessments -- Ahmad's Student Reading Interest Survey shows that he is engaged, has multiple interests, and is able to search for, and process information at grade level. His preference for Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid, shows that he is able to understand wry humor, the concepts of personification, point-of-view, place, and magical realism. While there are several moral lessons in the book, it does require that one interpret humor and cynicism in a way that requires some understanding of idiom, dialog, and more advanced sentence structure. There are also numerous subplots and manipulations that contribute to the overall story, as well as the humorous content. Ahmad likes, and collects, additional volumes showing that he enjoys storyline development, adolescent trials and tribulations, and has enough empathy to understand some of the social intricacies that are more Middle than Elementary school (Kinney, 2004).
Name____Ahmad____6 grade____Date
Student Reading Interest Survey
In School Interests:
What is the title of your favorite book that you have read?
Diary of Wimpy Kid.
Do you have a favorite book title that someone has read to you?
Lawn Boy
What kinds of books do you like to read on your own?
Story in cartoon book, picture and information
Do you have favorite books, magazines, or comic books at home?
Yes, Unbelievable Facts
Do you ever read the newspaper at home? If so, what parts of the newspaper do you read?
No
What is your favorite school subject (other than lunch)?
Language Arts
Have you ever done a special research project? What was the topic?
Yes, about salt lake, UT.
Out of School Interests:
1. What do you do for fun on weekends or after school?
Play football
2. Do you have a hobby? If so, what?
Swimming
3. What is your favorite TV show?
Discovery channel
4. Do you have favorite video or computer games?
Yes, iPod touch.
5. If you surf the Internet, what do you generally look for as you surf?
I surf for how to make airplanes.
6. Have you ever collected something like coins, stamps, and so on? If you have, what?
Yes, all Diary of Wimpy Kid books
Writing Assessment- General observations show confirm that Ahmad is imaginative. He attempts fairly strong organization, but fails to write a standard; 5 paragraph theme, model (introduction to the problem, points 1-3, compare/contrast, pov). Ahmad does not yet understand paragraph structure, but attempts to work in more advanced vocabulary than possible. Structurally, he has not yet mastered adverbs and adjective; or the agreement between such and noun/pronoun.
Further evidence of the conundrum Ahmad faces is easily shown by using Fry's Readability Assessment. This basically takes the average number of syllables in a 100-word passage, and charts where the student lines up by grade level. In Ahmad's case, his reading outshines his comprehension (assessment given after Fry), but about 40%. For example, he is reading at about 5th GL (red diamond), but when given a 10 question comprehension assessment (vocabulary, textual memory, story retelling, etc.) his level drops to approximately 2 grade levels (purple circle). Typically, the literature says we do not see this type of gap unless there is a cognitive learning disability (which there is not), or with some ESL learners who have gaps in their mastery...
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