Week+4

Final Report Posted 11-9-08 Describe an approach for working with at-risk children

I, Aurora Arnett, verify that the members of our group listed below worked with me to complete this assignment. Kathryn Cook Megan Lines Amy Morris Scott Kaye Aurora Arnett

Some approaches should be providing intense reading intervention, as well as tutoring, low student-to- teacher ratios, and family and community involvement program (which provides them with meaningful at home activities that they can apply when assisting their child). The teacher will provide the student with text at the students’ instructional grade level in order to reduce the amount of frustration, also build a strong foundation of phonetics, blending sounds and long or short vowels. A tutor can assist the student with one to one instruction and focus on a specific area the student has difficulty with. Having a small class size, the teacher is able to recognize which student is performing below grade level and provide assistance for the student by using interventions, such as peer tutoring, or using remedial websites or software, and more hands on activities. Family and community involvement can help the schools teach and nurture the children. Parent involvement can include parents reading with children, limiting their television viewing, helping with homework, monitoring leisure activities, communicating and listening, praising and rewarding success, getting involved in school activities, participating on teams that help make curricular decisions and parent-teacher communication. Community involvement might consist of groups such as a church, after school programs, local banks and businesses, and City Year, just to name a few. These community organizations can provide services such as tutoring and mentoring students, strengthening child raising skills, food, clothing, school and medical supplies, and programs to help build positive self-esteem (sports, dance, music, science Olympiad, etc...). As a group we all collaborated on these approaches. One approach cannot fit all at risk students. Every child is unique and as an educator it is imperative that we are aware of the different interventions that are provided to help our at risk students.

Week 4 Work in Progress

Assignment: Describe an approach for working with at-risk children.

I feel like I was out of the picture (darned head cold!) in the initial stages of last week's paper, so I wanted to put in some ideas before it's too late. It seems like it's already Thursday before I usually get a chance to put any thought into these. -Amy I am going to speak with my principal tomorrow to see who our at-risk students, generally, are and will post that tomorrow(still waiting)- Scott Amy I tried to add a little to what you have started. It will come together. Katie I am still thinking about what needs to be added for this.... and Amy, I am lucky to get to this stuff before Saturday!! You guys are always far ahead of me. Thanks for understanding how hectic things can get! ! -- Megan

First of all: At-risk... do we want to talk about children at-risk for dropping out? If so, we can use the three criterion discussed in chapter 3, which are: low-income student attending school with other low-income children, at least one grade level below in reading by grade 3, and has been retained. This makes me think that we should target students who meet two of these, since the third one could still happen in the child's future, depending on his or her grade level. When I spoke with my school's SLD teacher, she felt those students were very at-risk since inclusion has been mandated. Studies have shown that students who are most likely to drop-out are students who qualify for the free lunch program and students who qualify for special services. Most students who qualify for special services are, also, qualified for the free/reduced lunch program. Children who have grown-up in homes with very low income retain beleifs expressed in the home which reflect negatively on education, most likely due to the negative experience with education that their parents had. A key intervention would be to somehow break that cycle of a negative outlook on education, most likely brought on by a lack of early educational practices of reading to the child and other skill building activities which give children a fair chance in the increasingly demanding curriculum that schools need to implement to enable their students to preform well on standardized tests. Early childhood educational strategies are a key element to being a successful student. Unfortunately, by the time they get into classrooms that time has gone by. Here are some (very sketchy) ideas for our approach: __Retention:__ Retain students only if we can show significant evidence that doing so will ensure strong gains in the child's future, and will not negatively affect them socially. Teachers should be coached to recognized deficits early in the school year in order to reduce the number of retentions. Once a deficit is reported; teachers should attempt to combine working with parents to work on those skills that have been identified to be lacking and to work with those students, by tutoring them on those skills.  Retention should be limited to the primary school and only if maturity and young age is a serious concern. A student should never be retained when low aptitude is evident. These students should be receiving interventions and modified assignments. Parents should be involved in all decisions and educational planning. Teachers should be given opportunity to learn more about various interventions. If the student isn't learning the way we are teaching them, we need to find out how to teach so they can learn. Teachers should be exposed to a variety of teaching styles through in-servics and continuing education to allow for the variety of learning styles present in their classrooms.

__Below grade-level readers__: Identify deficits early and provide intense reading intervention at the primary level, including tutoring, small class-sizes, and a parent-involvement program which provides them with meaningful at-home activities (double-whammy here, since this would also serve to improve the school to parent connection). Pre-school and Kindergarten teachers should include activities which help build age-appropriate reading skills and activities should be sent home with students who display lower reading level for their age group. Communication between teachers as the student moves up grades will be important in order to continue to attempt to help those low level readers to continue to improve. Tutoring services should be available to parents. Classroom instruction should use texts at the student's instructional level to prevent further frustrations. During school peer tutoring could also be an option for older students. Carefully selected parent volunteers could be trained to work with students one on one or in small groups on a weekly or daily basis to build skills through teacher selected activities. After school study tables and pull-out testing intervention have, also, been found to be effective strategies __Low-income population:__ Continue to provide free breakfast and lunch at school, connect low-income students with community resources that provide mentoring, food, clothing, medical supplies, and confidence-building activities such as team sports, dance, music, science olympiad, etc.. Each classroom needs to establish a strong sense of community to provide a sense of security and a safe environment that is non-threatening. Technology should be integrated into these classrooms to provide these at-risk students opportunities that they may not be exposed to in their home environments. It is also been well-documented that the use of technology is motivating and a method of keeping students focused and motivated in the classroom. Encourage parents to talk with teachers - teachers might be able to help find the above mentioned community resources.

Obviously, we will need to elaborate on these, so please pitch in. If I am totally off-base with how you interpret the assignment, feel free to scrap this. I just wanted to provide a potential springboard.