"Check for Understanding"...I say those words at least a dozen times in a day! Anyone else? The majority of the students I work with receive instruction from the general educator and then I "check for understanding." Usually I pull small groups for re-teaching based on the results of a "quick-check," but this past week I had the opportunity to do something INCREDIBLY exciting - whole group teaching! The two general educators I work with the most have generously agreed to swap classroom roles with me for the Comprehension block. I teach the whole group for Comprehension and they will either "push-in" to support students and/or use the time to pull a small group.
So this week was our first time trying it out & it was EYE-OPENING for me, to say the least!!! And that does not include my attempts to use the Promethean board (Special Educators DO NOT get one of those!) while managing a class of 25 first-graders.
Class 1 - they were SO excited for Ms. D to teach them and treated me like a special guest :) Their Comprehension block is at 9:30 am and they have just come back from a resource class/restroom reak. They are alert, excited, actively engaged...every hand raised high, it's just wonderful!
Class 2 - I see them at 3:00 pm. I don't think I need to say anything else :( Apparently at 3:00 pm, first-graders are not quite as excited to sit still and learn from a "substitute" teacher. My first day, five students fell asleep at the carpet. These students were all still sitting in "stars" and somehow just tipped over asleep. The individual students I've been closely working with were NOT pleased to be sharing me with the rest of the class & they let me know it (several times), WHILE I was teaching the lesson.
Anyway, I performed a quick "check for understanding" on the story elements we were reviewing this week and my students demonstrated a strong need for just the "nitty gritty" vocabulary. So I made a simple set vocabulary cards (there are 12 in all):
The download includes 2 sets of the cards featuring 2 different fonts. I printed them double-sided in case any of my students have difficulty reading the first font. In small groups, I will model reading the story element and then finding the card with the matching component(s). I do not expect my students to be able to do this independently, but they will benefit from the exposure of seeing, hearing, and talking about the vocabulary. Please let me know if you find the cards useful or if you perform "quick checks" in your classroom, too. I'm ALWAYS looking for new ways to make learning meaningful! Thanks!
Great enthusiasm! I love the comments on 3:00 lesson...before I got to it I wondered if they fell asleep. I have taught K and 1st for years. This year I was a co-teacher with a special ed teacher in a second grade class. We used different teaching modules throughout the year to meet needs of kiddos and teach together. Check out the book Coteaching That Works.. I have learned so much from her. It is amazing how much special WD and non special ed students progressed this year.
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