I was introduced to him when he was in the first grade. His teacher called me and asked if I could walk over to her classroom and remove a scholar who was being very disruptive. When I walked into the classroom and made eye contact with this scholar he knew I wasn't there to talk in my therapeutic voice so he immediately went into his evading mode. With the help of the teacher and a couple of empty desks I managed to trap the evader in a corner of the classroom. As I approached this scholar he growled at me. I eventually was able to remove him from the first grade classroom and moved him to my classroom and placed him in our timeout room. That didn't sit well as he started kicking and hitting the walls, door and window in the time out room. Concerned that he would hurt himself I knew I had to do something to get him to de-escalate. On the floor, immediately outside the time out room, was five small, maybe one and a half inches long, plastic cars in five different colors. I picked up the five cars, showed them to him through the window of the timeout room, pointed out the five different colors, and then put the cars behind my back. I then placed four of the cars on the window ledge of the timeout room and said to him, "what color is in my hand?" The scholar studied the cars for a short time and then told me the correct color. I repeated the process a couple more times, the scholar guessed correctly each time, and the de-escalation process was complete and I returned the scholar to his classroom.
Fast forwarding and this scholar is now in the fourth grade and he still occupies my classroom. He's made a ton of progress with controlling his anger and, for the most part, has been one of the least disruptive scholars in the classroom. With the improved behavior he started going to general education classrooms. In the third grade it was for reading. In the fourth grade it was for math. Although there were a few bumps in the road, he was being successful. Unfortunately, about three weeks ago his behavior started to change.
This trip to the general education classroom for math started just as my lunch break finished. There were times when the scholar would head up to the general education classroom by himself and I'd just meet him there. On this particular day I was late returning to Knewer's classroom and the scholar had already left for math so I picked up my notebook and pencil and headed to the general education classroom. As I was walking down the hallway I saw the scholar walking toward me. "Where are you going," I asked him. "There is some kind of test and I don't have to take it," he replied. My caution flag went up but I turned around and walked back to the classroom with the scholar. I wasn't in my seat in the Knewer's classroom for two minutes when I stood up and walked out of the classroom. I was heading to the general education classroom to confirm this test situation. When I walked into the classroom the teacher immediately said, "where is the scholar?" I walked over to her and told her what the scholar said to me. She looked at me and said, "there is a test and he needs to take it." I headed back to my classroom, wrote on a post it note about the scholar lying and handed it to Knewer. She read the note, put it on her desk, and nothing happened or was said. Not overly pleased with what just happened I made eye contact with the scholar and just glared at him. For the record, I'm was also particularly upset with Knewer for doing nothing.
It's time for general education math again. When I arrived in Knewer's classroom the scholar was gone. Again, I picked up my notebook and pencil and headed to the general education classroom. When I arrived the scholar was not there. Thinking I missed the scholar and that he might be back in the classroom with Knewer, I returned to my classroom. The scholar was not there so I asked Knewer about the scholar. She informed me that he went to the general education classroom. I walk out of Knewer's classroom and headed back to the general education classroom. When I arrived the teacher again asked about the scholar. I told her that I had no idea where he was and I just took my seat in the classroom. A couple minutes later the scholar walked into the general education classroom. The teacher immediately asked him where he had been. "I needed to use the restroom," he responded. "Did you ask your teacher for permission to use the restroom," she asked the scholar. "Yes." The general education teacher walked directly to the telephone in her classroom, called Knewer, and asked her if she gave this scholar permission to use the restroom. Knewer's response was, "no."
Two lies over a two week period and I'm now sitting in the hallway outside the general education classroom with the scholar mentioned above (Grr!) as he needs to take the reading test on that worthless technological device that I talked about last week. The general education teacher just restarted the software package, because it froze up again, and Grr! is using the mouse to scroll down the screen to see how much he had to read. As he scrolled down I could see his facial expression change and I'm getting upset. Because I'm upset I decided to end the testing process before I lose my composure plus I knew that Grr! wasn't even going to make an attempt at reading the passage.
When I arrived back in Knewer's classroom I told her what had just happened with Grr!. I then walked to my desk, where I have a view from the back of the classroom, and sat down. I, along with several other teachers, have worked with Grr! for over three year and a half years trying different strategies to improve his reading skills and after what just happened my frustration with Grr! was rising rapidly. Three and a half years of trying and on this day, when Grr! scrolled down that reading test he reacted exactly as he has done for years, "do I have to read all of this?" As I sat at my desk in the back off the classroom I was fuming. Knowing that I was so upset with Grr! I stood up walked out of the classroom to find a quiet place to de-escalate before I did or said something stupid.
Ok, I'm about to go on an adventure. One that is completely different than anything that I've done in this school. The LittleBigB approached me one day and asked me to stop by her office when I had time. Later that same day I knocked on her office door and walked in. The conversation was relatively brief given the task I was handed. Paraphrasing, "I need your help with reading intervention for some of our third grade scholars," is what the LittleBigB said to me. I agreed to help and the conversation continued. LittleBigB began (paraphrasing) "these scholars are well behind in their reading and we need to give them a lot more attention prior to the mandatory IRead3 testing. You will be working with another adult (non-teaching adult) to accomplish this task. One of you will work on word formation and the other will work on reading. How you decide on who does what will be up to the two of you." For the record the other non-teaching adult immediately said, "I'll take the word formation part" so I got the reading part.
The LittleBigB wrapped up our meeting with this, "you will be working with ten third grade scholars, five in one group and five in the other group. Each group with work for fifteen minutes with one adult and then rotate to the other adult. You will work with these scholars in reading intervention five days a week at a prescribed time. In order to help you with your assignment I have two items you can review prior to starting your reading intervention groups. The first is a video on YouTube entitled, Guided Reading In A 3rd Grade Classroom (this is a seven minute and fifteen second video). The second tool to help you get started is a book entitled, The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo (three hundred and seventy-seven pages long)" and with that the LittleBigB ended the meeting.
Two adults, neither has a teacher degree nor a teaching license, have been tasked with raising the reading level of one group of scholars from an E, F, and G level to a P level and the other group of scholars from an H level to a P level. Doesn't sound to difficult right. Wrong! The E, F, and G level scholars are reading at the lowest reading level for their grade. The H level scholars are reading at a level that is one higher than the E, F, and G scholars. For further clarification on these scholars reading levels, they are reading at a first grade level or maybe a second grade level and they are in the third grade.
A little bit more on my reading intervention group and I'm going to call it a day. The non-teaching adult that has the letter formation task has a piece of cake job. This adult will be given a pre-established grouping of letters and will instruct the scholars to use the letters to make words. I, on the other hand, need to select the books to read, get the scholars to read, and then try and figure out how I can measure how well the scholars are reading and understand what they are reading. Afterall, the objective for this adult that does not have a teaching degree or a teaching license is to do as much as possible to get these scholars at a reading level to be able to pass IRead3 in the spring time. It's going to be interesting but fortunately for me I have an ace up my sleeve.
Thanks for following along. See you again fairly soon. I hope.
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