Module 9

 

Michelle Suggs
Module 9

            For me, standard 7.2 seems to be the most relevant to where I am at this point in my career. This standard states that candidates develop, reflect on, and study their own teaching practices through ongoing and cyclical collaborative and novice coaching experiences with peers and experienced colleagues. I do not have any plans to become a reading specialist/expert by title at this time. I decided to take these classes and get this endorsement hoping that I would glean something that I can use in my current classroom, which is self-contained special education. I do have all non-readers at this this time, but we are working on early literacy skills. I want to live the following “I can” statement: I can use my professional judgment and practical knowledge to determine what reading instruction is needed for all students.
            Chapter 4 in Visible Learning for Literacy discusses students transferring their knowledge of literacy from one situation to another. Even general education students have a difficult time with this, and my special education students have an almost impossible time with this. They have difficulty grasping even basic concepts, and they cannot apply the information about one book or story to anything else. They are often very literal. They do not understand figurative language, sarcasm, or even jokes. Right now, we are learning how you can identify a sight word that you already know in a book that I am reading to the class or that we are listening to on YouTube. I have one student who does not know any sight words, but we started having her match words that are important to her to pictures- often familiar pictures. For example, for the word “teacher,” there is a picture of me. For the word “school,” there is a picture of her current school. However, it is difficult for her to understand that the word “teacher” also applies to pictures of ALL other teachers.
            I do not really have any additional questions. I do know that we had to study a lot of theories and background information in this course, and I am looking forward to doing more work that applies to my classroom for the remainder of the endorsement. I did enjoy the observations, and I was able to learn some things that will work in my classroom. For example, I really enjoyed the reading boxes that I saw in the special education, self-contained pre-k. I have already started collecting items for boxes for my own classroom.

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