When teaching becomes a challenge

I don’t really have a particularly challenging student in my class but most few students more challenging than the others, each one on his own way. So it’s hard for me to choose one because they are so much different and anyone less interesting than an other.

I won’t speak about behavior but more about learning disorder. There is a little girl in my classe (she is 7 years old)who can’t learn like the others. Since the beginning I saw that there was something  « wrong » with her. She had a very hard time to learn and even the most simple thing in reading and writing could become a very big deal for her. I know that first grade is like a start and there are some children with problems who haven’t been detected yet, above all if they just went to school half day in kindergarten. And since september, I saw this little girl struggling with reading and writing. I have sometimes the impression that she doesn’t see the letters or these letters don’t mean anything for her. She can’t write a sound even if I pronounce it very slowly like « A-M-I » or « L-E ». She can’t. She has a hard time when I take the half  of the class to work on these spelling words for exemple. She sees the others writing without even thinking because they use to write these words (there are always the same, so it's become easy for them). Even so, she isn’t able to do it. I see her looking around, lost, trying to find the answer, to find some help… She isn’t stupid at all, she just seems lost. Strangely lost...

Few week ago, I tried something with her and… that worked! When I do the dictation for the others, I repeat each word just for her, in front of her, with the sign in phonetic. With the sign, she is able the recognize the word and to write it. Moreover, she is becoming more self-confident. I try to help her as much as can and always take the time to explain something to her, using a different way (like the phonetic). I think she might have a learning disorder like dislexia or something like that. I'm just trying to make her feel "normal" and show her that she can do it too.

I think she does need an other support. She already goes to see a specialist at school but I think she really needs to have a real diagnostic, and a specific help.

Comments

[peyton58]

That's a good idea to have thought about using the phonemes so that she can work with something she knows. That must be hard to have a kid like that in your class --everyday--, that struggles to read and write when the others know how to do it, it must be frustrating to her and hard for you, I mean about the solutions you can bring to her to make things easier for her...