March 9, 2016

8:00am-12:00pm
2nd Grade
Visit Three
Context: I was in the same setting as my two previous visits, and the same students were
present today as yesterday.
Today had the same schedule as yesterday, with morning work, restroom break, reading
and science combined and some math in preparation for a math project the students were going
to complete after lunch. SWARM time again occurred from 9:00-9:40, and then lunch time was
at 11:20. I left at 12:00, before the students began math.
Today Mrs. C asked me to lead one of the stations for reading, and gave me a story to
read with the students as each group came to my station. I also had questions that went along
with the story, which was a folk tale. In each group there were varying levels of reading abilities
and comprehensions. I had to discern which students would be comfortable reading out loud or
which ones would prefer to listen and follow along in their book. For the smallest group, which
had the three students with the most reading disabilities, I read to story to them and then we
worked together to answer questions about it. Since they had been to the listening station before
they came to me, they had already heard the story and were better able to answer my questions
about it because they had now heard it twice. This was an interesting experience because it gave
me a clear view of which students needed a little extra attention, and why these ones had IEPs.
One interesting moment I observed was getting one little boy, J, to settle down and read
with me. He always wears a rubber-band bracelet and is very hyper. When he was being super
distracting and rude to the other students in the group and not listening as they read, I told him to
take his bracelet off and fiddle with it. He immediately calmed down and listened to the rest of
the story without a problem. He just needed something in his hands to keep him busy so he could
listen. It made me think about how we discuss each child needing different approaches to
teaching in our SPED class, and made me get creative to keep his attention.