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Special
Education Needs |
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CASE STUDIES
Jamie
I particularly
like Lexia for phonological
training where literacy problems require it…..
When Jamie was assessed last year at the end of fifth class I think all of
us who had taught him felt some guilt. Not so much for his lack of
attainment; we all knew about that and could, to some degree, put it down to
poor attendance and inattentiveness when he was present. What got me and, I
think, my colleagues were the indications of very low self-esteem. He is a
very talented athlete and I had always tried to build on that but the
psychologists' report made it plain that he still saw himself as a failure
at school and a disappointment to his teachers and family. We all realised
that Jamie had been one of those children who dealt with his learning
difficulties by keeping his head down and avoiding notice where more
troublesome peers got more attention and whatever help was going. |
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I decided to focus first on reading and, although the indications had been
that he would never manage a phonological approach to reading, I believe
that Lexia has brought considerable improvement. Much more significantly,
however, I discovered that he had an interest in electricity and I set him
up with a free
program
which I had downloaded from the 'net which he could use to set up virtual
circuit boards with switches, bulbs, motors, buzzers etc. Pretty soon the
child who had spent his school life silently avoiding any contact with
classroom activity was asking permission to bring friends into the resource
classroom to show what he was doing. On the day of the Christmas holidays we
had a small party in the room for all the "resource kids" and they were
given a range of games and toys to play with. Jamie only wanted to go to the
computer with a friend to continue a project he had been working on. |
At the end of that
day, I happened to be in his classroom when he was leaving. He went out then
stuck his head back in and shouted "Happy Christmas, everybody!" There would
have been nothing remarkable about this from another child but the class teacher
and I just looked at each other. We both knew that there was no way that last
year's Jamie would have done the like in a century of Christmases. Jamie's
progress in academic areas continues to be slow but definite. I am convinced
that the change in his self image has everything to do with his progress in
other areas.
Acknowledgements & Copyright
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