Saturday, March 29, 2008

Some artic and language questions from Alyse

Alright, since I'm new to this whole blogging thing--you guys are going to have to be patient with me. Lara, I like the label idea--you're always so organized! (I just don't know how to add labels). So, my apologies in advance. This week is spring break here in Indiana, which is great, but all I can do is stress over how many weeks of school are left (how lame is that?

Does anyone else have issues with overly sensitive kids?? I have two kindergarten boys (in the same group) who cry at every single session. It kills me. (I didn't think I was THAT mean) :) One nasalizes ALL of his fricatives (which is very difficult--you should try it) and the other uses ingressive fricatives (s,z,th--also a very difficult thing to do consistently). Neither has made much (if any) progress, which gets them very upset, and it's gotten to the point where they will just refuse to do anything. I may just try to see them one-on-one to reduce the pressure. I don't know.

Another question though, I have a brother and sister (1st and 2nd grades) who have serious language deficits. The 1st grader's teacher has been asking me for suggestions, which I'm trying to provide. Next week we have an RTI/GEI meeting for her and I'm supposed to come up with some solutions for the whole "team." I can't think of any brilliant ideas to share--and it doesn't help that all of my stuff from grad school is still in UT. (very sad) So, if any of you brilliant girls has ANY ideas--I'm open. The teacher is great, she'd be willing to do anything. (It's just sad not to know what else to tell her)

1 comment:

Mbeth said...

hum, i have kindergartener who like to cry too. i've got my opinion on what home life is like for this little princess so I (and the teacher) make it very clear, crying will get her no where, if anything ignored and bored. It still happens every now and then but she gets over it real quick, so i'd get the teacher in on it (find out about class rewards, ie, gold stars). For the ingressive you can find fun things to blow (ie, feathers) since the sounds has to come out to make it move (never tried this, just an idea). As for the language kids it depends what kind of language you are looking at. one of my kids i told the teacher to pull them aside maybe after an writing assignment for example, have them retell their story verbally, ask them questions etc. language kids a lot of time don't pipe up in class (or if they do it is inappropriate) so one-on-one, they are required to respond and can be cued for appropriateness without as much embarrassment. This can also be done if they have problems with instructions or memory for extra reinforcement. That all i've got. i hope it is somewhat helpful. Mostly i would recommend just going with your gut, there have been many times that a teacher asks about something and i pull something on the fly and later, Im like, hey, that was a pretty good idea and sometimes it even works! So just trust yourself. you know more than you think.