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- QUESTION
Read the scenario.
Angela is a second grader who has been in the US for four years. She entered kindergarten as a non-English speaker and has made good progress in her acquisition of English. She is now in the intermediate fluency stage of English Language Development. Her teacher, Mr. Samuels, is concerned about Angela’s inability to complete independent tasks. When Angela is working with Mr. Samuels or the bilingual aide, she has to be brought back to task periodically, but manages to complete her work. Whenever Angela has to complete seatwork or work in learning centers she seems to accomplish very little.Angela seems to be falling behind the other students in the class because she isn’t completing academic tasks that are planned to give her additional practice in the skills that are being taught. Mr. Samuels decides that some additional information is needed in order to plan interventions for Angela. Mr. Samuels schedules some observations of Angela during her independent work periods.
During a two-week period, these observations are made:
10/17/06 Angela is working in the word sorting center with two other students. She begins to sort her words but when she has only two words placed, she begins to watch the other children sorting. Angela makes comments like, “Why you put that there? That says hose it goes with the owl.” (The word was whose.) She seemed to be completely unaware that she was not getting her own sort done but was carefully monitoring everything the others did.
10/20/06 Angela is reading a book in the library center. There are three other students in the area with her. She reads for a few minutes but looks up whenever another child moves, switches positions, or gets out a reading log. When she goes back to reading, she has to reread the page. She rereads the same page three or four times before turning the page. The other students are all completing their books, writing in the reading journals and returning to their seats. Angela is still reading and rereading pages in her book.
10/23/06 Angela is playing a board game with three other students. She keeps losing track of whose turn it is. The other children are getting impatient with her, saying, “Pay attention, Angela. It’s your turn.” and “No, Angela! You just had a turn.” She’s looking around at the students moving near the game table, watching what other children are doing, and often has to be called back to pay attention to the game.
10/27/06 Angela is working on writing a story but keeps looking up to watch what the other students are doing. She often watches the others for 5-6 minutes at a time before going back to her work. She seems to lose her train of thought and has to reread what she’s written before she can move forward.
Mr. Samuels decides to create a quiet study carrel for Angela to use when she’s working independently. He talks to Angela about what he’s been observing and explains that she’s not being punished. Mr. Samuels wants Angela to understand that the study carrel is meant to help her focus so she can complete her work. Angela seems less distracted when she works in the study carrel, but she is still having difficulty with learning centers. Mr. Samuels gives her permission to bring the learning center materials to her study carrel, and this seems to help.
Because Angela is still having difficulty with any task that requires that she work with others, Mr. Samuels consults the ELL Committee and her parents before asking for advice from the student study team. He has documented the observations and interventions he has made and takes those records with him to the SST meeting.
1. What is Angela’s problem that keeps her from completing her assignments?
2. What did Mr. Samuels do to determine the cause of Angela’s problem?
3. List at least two interventions Mr. Samuels has made for Angela up to this point.
4. Which intervention seems to be most effective?
5. List at least one area for which Mr. Samuels still needs to plan interventions.
| Subject | Language Acquisition | Pages | 3 | Style | APA |
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Answer
Assessment and Intervention Documentation in Classroom
Learners in the current twenty first century classroom have diverse needs. Therefore, an educator is obliged to understand all the learners’ needs to come up with an effective plan of intervention to ensure a successful learning outcome. The use of student assessment and documentation is an important strategy that educators can consider to understand the needs of the learners (Seitz, 2008). This paper examines the case of Angela, a non-English speaker in Kindergarten displaying unique learning needs.
Angela’s Problem
In the case study, the educator has relied on the use of observation as an assessment strategy. As a result, documenting the findings from the process of observation makes it possible to establish the learner’s areas of weakness. Through the documented findings from the assessment, it is evident that Angela is easily distracted which further makes her lose focus while in class, and hence making it difficult for her to complete her assignments. Evidently, Angela is always distracted by the movement of other children in her surrounding which disrupts her attention when reading or taking part in a learning activity.
Determining Angela’s Problem
To determine Angela’s problem, Mr. Samuels decided to engage in an assessment process which includes observing the student’s behavior. The teacher’s observations lasted a period of two weeks whereby he was able to document his findings outlining the major factors that caused Angela’s problem.
Interventions
To assist Angela to overcome her challenges and ensure a successful outcome, Mr. Samuel established different interventions. The first one included isolating Angela from the other group members in the class and recommending that she works alone by creating a study carrel. However, the educator focused on ensuring that Angela understands that the study carrel is to improve her learning outcome and not a form of punishment. The major focus of the study carrel was to ensure that the learner focuses on completing her work through less distractions and improved focus. Additionally, Mr. Samuels also encouraged the use of study material within the study carrel with an aim of assisting the learner overcome the difficulty experienced with the learning centers. The use of study material proved effective. However, the creation of the isolated study carrel for Angela is considered as the most effective intervention. Notably, according to the documenting findings by the educator, the major challenge experienced by Angela was distraction which resulted to her loss of focus. Therefore, creating an environment where the learner does not experience the distracting factors increases her learning outcome success.
Area that Require Further Intervention
Despite having created a study carrel for Angela, it is evident that the learner still exhibits difficulties in working in groups. Notably, in the case study, it is stated that Angela still finds it hard to complete tasks that requires her to work alongside her peers in class. Therefore, it is evident that further interventions have to be implemented by the educator to assist the student overcome this challenge for a successful learning outcome. Planning interventions is necessary in this area as the curriculum guides the early childhood learners should learn to work alongside others. Consulting with Angela’s parents is an important move to be considered in this case as well as consulting with the ELL committee since it creates an opportunity where the educator can learn about new interventions which he can consider for the learner’s case.
References
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Seitz, H. (2008). The Power of Documentation in the Early Childhood Classroom. National Association for the Education of Young Children. 88-93. Retrieved from https://www.naeyc.org/sites/default/files/globally-shared/downloads/PDFs/resources/pubs/seitz.pdf
Appendix
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