Identify and prioritize areas of the general curriculum and accommodations for individuals with exceptionalities.
I focused on the academic areas of reading and writing in a first grade classroom. There were two students with Autism in one of the first grade classrooms and as soon as they heard the word “writing”, they would immediately shut down. One student would gravitate towards the computer while the other student would start drawing in a notebook. I discussed with the regular and special education teacher about these two students and finding a way to get them to write. When I looked at their previous writing samples, I noticed that their writing was difficult to read and follow. There was no spacing between words, the letters were different sizes and not staying on the line, no punctuation and capitalizing at the beginning of their sentences. I took the assignment they were supposed to be working on and introduced the students to a word processor. Immediately, the two students took interest with the word processors. I showed them how it worked and allowed them to play with them for five minutes. Their writing dramatically improved in reading and writing by giving them this accommodation instead of making them use a pencil to write their assignments. The teachers had tried pencil grips in the past but that was unsuccessful with the two students. The two students were more engaged in the writing assignments with the use of the word processors, which also built up their confidence in writing and reading.
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Integrate social skills with academic curricula for individuals with exceptionalities.
I worked with the special education teacher with a group of four second graders in the areas of social skills and writing. We discussed what makes a good friend, created a web of what a good friend was and then was going to make a recipe for a good friend. This was an expository writing project that integrated social skills of how to be a friend to others. We made a word bank that included words and pictures to go along with the words. This helped the nonreaders in the classroom when picking what traits they wanted in their friendship pie. I also read and showed recipes to the students to give them examples of what a recipe should sound and look like. The students with exceptionalities really got into it because they really didn’t think they were writing but actually making a recipe for others, creating their own, new recipe. The students also acted out the traits that they believed made a good friend. The rest of the students would give a thumbs up or thumbs down if it was a good trait to have as a friend. I believe this was a successful lesson that integrated social skills and writing along with some reading skills. It got students thinking on how they should treat others, how to be a good friend but also worked on sentence structure and how to write an expository writing.
