Chapter Assignments
Please have following chapters read and comments blogged by the listed due dates.
Chapters 1 & 2 - by February 3, 2012
Chapter 3 - by February 10, 2012
Chapter 4 - by February 17, 2012
Chapter 5 - by February 24, 2012
Chapter 6 - by March 2, 2012
Chapter 7 - by March 9, 2012
Chapters 8 & 9 - by March 16, 2012
Chapter 10 - by March 23, 2012
Chapter 11 - by March 30, 2012
Happy Reading!
Writing problems have been mentioned in all three chapters. We all know how difficult it is for our students to write! The Doctor's intervention is to have him write in stages. He makes it sound so simple. We have been doing this for years and we know for those struggling students they are not crazy about writng it over! One and done is their motto!
ReplyDeleteI did like the spelling idea about providing alternative spellings for misspelled words, allowing the student to pick the best one.
I would also agree with you that the idea of finding the correct word in the list of possible solutions would be a great intervention for helping students spell words correctly.
ReplyDeleteI would also feel like in our meetings, we do a ton of his way of communicating. On page 51, Dr. Levine says that he "first would destigmatize the problem by explaining that all kids have strengths and weaknesses and that sooner or later everybody's weaknesses are apt to trip them up from time to time." It is very important for our students to know that everybody has strengths and weaknesses and that we do best when we know what these are. But students also need to know that it is okay to have these. When we have our meetings, it is crucial for us to remember our students' strengths. I think that if the students are old enough, it may be appropriate to communicate these things to the students as well, they might need to hear some of the things that we say. How old does everyone think is appropriate for a student to hear about their strengths and areas of need? How young is too young?
I think kids need to be told ten times more often about their strengths then about their weaknesses. The author talked a lot about how school is hard in this chapter, and that most real world work situations do not require nearly as much effort as students need to put forth while in school. I think because we expect so much of kids while they are in school, we need to be very generous with our praises. When I think about how often I compliment my son and how often I talk about what he needs to work on, I realize that most of the time I am talking about his strengths. Very rarely do we discuss his weaknesses because he gets so visibly down on himself. I think that by discussing strengths more often with kids we give them the power and self confidence to handle working on the areas they need to work on.
DeleteIn my opinion, no child is too young to hear about his or her strengths. When I think about our kids, I wonder how many of them get to hear how wonderful they are on a daily or even weekly basis. I bet that most of them rarely hear about their strengths. I think we need to be very careful about how we go about discussing areas for growth with our students because in order to confidently work towards improvement in these areas they need to really believe that they are good at something. I know I'm going to be giving out compliments like cra zy tomorrow and I hope everyday from now on. I know sometimes I am too hard on the kids.
DeleteI agree with you Cindie; it is like pulling teeth trying to get students, especially struggling writers, to go back and make changes or to write in stages. I wish he would offer the magic answer to helping kids with writing.
ReplyDeleteWe have heard about kids with difficulty in writing, but both of these kids were great readers. I hope we read some cases about students who are struggling with reading.
ReplyDeleteI do too!
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