CHILD STUDY
Joe is an 8 year old student. He was born on Leap Day, 1996. This student is happy, well adjusted and seems to like school. He has been a student at John F Kennedy for the past 2 years. He has lived in the community his whole life. He lives with both of his parents and 2 younger sisters. His Mom is a stay at home mom while his father is a teacher at a local elementary school.
Joe came to class already labeled as gifted and talented. This was shown through his Stanford test scores from second grade. He was tested this year with the DIBEL test. He scored in the advanced category at 681. In Math, he was pre-tested in the Addison Wesley text book where he pre tested to start in chapter 5.
I spoke with his teacher from the last 2 years. She informed me that he did not like to be singled out as "smart". She also indicated that he is not the type of student to do any more than is exactly required of him (if the assignment says complete at least 7.... he will only do 7). He likes school and is a positive child to have in the classroom.
Speaking with his Mom, she told me that he loves school and reading. She feels somewhat frustrated that his reading level is so high because the books that are at his level educationally do always go along with the things he should be reading emotionally.
The district has employed a teacher to work as a coach with the teachers for students who are labeled as gifted and talented. She gave me some ideas of how to stretch Joe's learning within the regular classroom. Challenging him to do a few more, stretch his activities to include more higher learning questions and answers.
LESSON PLAN changes:
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In the beginning of the year, Joe consistently got a perfect score every week on his spelling pretest. The cooperating teacher and I came up with a plan to create a second list to relate to the original one set out by Harcourt Reading Series. This second list would contain words that were in the same spelling pattern but more challenging. This list was given to all students who got less then 3 wrong (out of 15) on the pretest. Joe was on this list every week. |
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The district uses the Everyday Math as it's main math curriculum. This class that I student taught in was a part of the district's magnet school program, the OPEN classroom. As a part of the Open Classroom, the students also work independently in the Addison Wesley Math program. Joe, as with other students, was able to pretest each chapter in the third grade book. When a student reaches a score of 90% or better, they are not required to complete work in that chapter. The students then pretest the next chapter. Joe was able to pretest out of most of the first 10 chapters in the book so far. The chapters that he did have to complete work in had only a few pages he needed to complete. |
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To help Joe in the area of reading and language arts, I developed some lessons to him specifically. My cooperating teacher gave me the Iliad by Nick McCarty to do this with. This assignment was then given to Joe and 2 other students who are also above level in reading. As of Thanksgiving, the students were very excited about this activity. |
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Examples of Joe's work |
REFLECTION:
I chose this student because I feel that often times as teachers we spend a lot more time with the students who are needing more help than those who are excelling. I thought that being more aware of a higher learner will be something that will help me in my own classroom. This student came in with high expectations from his parents, former teacher and the cooperating teacher. I did not want to let him down.
I did not find that he minded being "labeled" as "smart" as his previous teacher indicated. He often called himself brainiac in a good humored way. He raised his hand often, giving a positive contribution to class discussions every day.
I learned a lot from working with this student. I think the most important lesson from him was that just because he is book smart, people need to remember he is still only 8 years old. Some days his behavior was so silly, not necessarily inappropriate, just silly. It was something a teacher who not think twice about from someone else, but when coming from Joe, you had to stop your self and remember that he is that same age.
I feel the activities I helped adjust to meet his needs were good. He seemed to respond positively to the changes and challenges. He is very excited about the work in the Iliad book. He felt more responsible and acknowledged especially when they were able to go to the computer lab on their own to complete the vocabulary sections.
The Open Classroom is a great place for this student to be a part of. He is easily able to work at his own pace in a lot of ways due to the nature of the program itself.
I feel excited for this student and somewhat sad that I won't be able to see his growth the rest of the year, and the years to come. I am glad I was able to help him this semester.
