A couple of years ago, I
had a student who couldn’t read or speak coherently and had behavior issues.
She was diagnosed with an emotional and behavior disorder and before she was
put into the classroom that would have provided her with the least restrictive
environment, she was with me for a few weeks. Her name was Eryka and she was a
feisty one. She would swear and the students, and at me, but you could tell she
felt self-conscious because it was apparent she was used to being made fun of.
That is not how I run my classroom, so she was surprised when she found the
children in our classroom wanted to help her learn to read.
She was on beginning reader books and found an interest
in the Biscuit series. Each day she would fight me when I asked her to
read, but then slowly, she would throw the book in front of me and say, “read.”
The fact that she went about it inappropriately was beside the point, as I just
wanted her to want to read. After we read the book, I decided to make Eryka
some Dolch site word cards and we would practice them 3 times a day. The class and
I were upset when she had to leave to move to her new school and new classroom,
but we knew we, as a team, had made a difference in her life.
This course deepened my perspective of that memory by
completing the field experience. When I observed children interacting in the
library, and saw how their faces lit up at the displays of literature, I
decided that next school year I am going to do a classroom makeover to
incorporate well-known and popular children’s books into my classroom’s
appearance.
I would still like to pursue the impact of language
development on young children and different strategies that can be taken to
help ensure that children are being taught the most effective strategies to
help ensure their current and future successes.
