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Running Head: MODULE 5 O.D.A.R.

MODULE 5 O.D.A.R. FIELD ASSIGNMENT 2

M. Brown

Module 5 O.D.A.R. Field Based

November 25, 2018

Observe

At a primary school at which I substitute I asked an English teacher if there was a project I could do with an individual or a group. Later in the day she told me there was a 4th grader named Daniel who had joined the school after the start of the year, and also joined a class where the teacher had a leave of absence. I was actually Daniel’s substitute teacher a few days, and I know more about substitute teaching now. I was unaware he was having problems. The teacher told me Daniel was seeing a speech therapist later in the week, but she would let me work with him to test one of the hypotheses they had about him. This was that he was unusually weak in phonics, which is the relation between sounds and letters. She gave me some books and pages of materials to look at. I came back the next day and was introduced to him in an empty classroom. We got a couple of chairs and sat at the corner of a table so that he was next to me but around the corner. Behind us was a row of windows which was nice because some of the classrooms had no windows. The sun was shining in. He seemed shy. He didn’t know me. He didn’t know why this was happening.

Describe

As I understood it, there was a feeling that Daniel had a weakness in understanding basic phonics to some degree or in some situations. They wanted me to spend part of an hour with him to see what I could find out. No time was spent on guiding me. I felt fortunate to have the materials I was given. I decided to proceed in five phases. The first phase was just talking to him, part of which was just to see if I could put him at ease. The second phase was to do some basic phonics with flash cards, matching up letters with pictures of objects that started with those letters. We just matched the cards. The rule was that we would be silent. The third phase was that we did the same matching but talked while we did it about the letters and the item described. The fourth phase was to do another exercise where we started with the picture and took turns writing down the letter that started the object in the picture. I went first, and then he went. In the fifth phase we used an object instead of a picture, and first I went and he went.

I wanted the variation in the activities would demonstrate what things he was good at and what things puzzled him.

Analyze

I had read about multi-sensory instruction in another activity, and it is based on what is called Kinaesthetic Theory proposed by Grace Fernald (International Dyslexia Association, 2018). Because I could only have one hour with Daniel, I thought I would try different approaches to see if they made him more effective or happier to learn. In the second phase he seemed to enjoy it because we weren’t talking, and it was like a game to communicate without words. And he did well with the answers, which was good because I hoped this would be easy for him. In the third phase, the answers were still correct, but his speech was hesitant when he spoke the answer out loud. When we took turns looking at a picture of an object and writing down the beginning letter, he hesitated when it was his turn. I don’t know why, and I know it is not right to speculate. If I had another chance with him, I would try to figure this out with him. I would test his unwillingness to speak answers, or maybe he just lacks confidence. He did appear to have an uptick in enthusiasm in phase five when we used actual objects instead of a picture of an object. We just used things from the room like an eraser. Throughout the exercises he seemed to know the phonic relationship between the first letter in the word that described the object. He understood the symbolic relationship between the letter and the sound and the name of the object. I wrote this up for the teacher. I don’t know if it would be valuable to them.

Reflect

This was a good experience for me, and I hope I get to see Daniel again. I think he would feel the same way. We had a good hour. Once I was able to think about the session I realized that I had no idea what was going on with Daniel. The teaching I tried to do was intended to discover some of the boundaries of his abilities, and although I believed I had seen some things, I would have to test my impressions before I could have any opinions. I do know he liked the multi-sensory approach. I know he had a pretty good grasp of basic phonics. He knew letters and sounds. I don’t know if he knew full words. He was less confident in speaking. Those are the things I would be aware of if I was trying to understand him.

I also thought about him in the context of what we talked about a few weeks ago, about children living in poverty, and children with dyslexia. One of the readings I did for this paper was about treating dyslexic readers with multi-sensory techniques. I do not know any of these things about Daniel, but if he was my student, I would want to know. I also know that his teacher would want to know these things, and the teacher-family relationship would be helpful in understanding him. I know I can’t develop any conclusions from what I saw.

References

Cooper, J. (1964). AN ADAPTATION OF THE FERNALD ‐ KELLER APPROACH TO TEACHING AN INITIAL READING VOCABULARY TO CHILDREN WITH SEVERE READING DISABILITIES. The Slow Learning Child, 131-145.

International Dyslexia Association. (2018). MULTISENSORY STRUCTURED LANGUAGE TEACHING. Retrieved from dyslexiaida.org: https://dyslexiaida.org/multisensory-structured-language-teaching-fact-sheet/

Feedback comments

Grade

10.00 / 30.00

It was an excellent idea to get to know Daniel at the beginning of your lesson and attempt to put him at ease to work with you.

However, your O.D.A.R. leaves me with many more questions than answers. You did not follow the criteria for the assignment, including correct APA format.

There was not sufficient detail to help me understand the "content" you were focused on or to make this a replicable activity. What evidence did you have to state that Daniel "seemed to know the phonic relationship between the first letter in te word that described the object"? (example: Daniel was able to recognize the beginning sound in 10/15 initial consonant words.)

You needed to provide more clear descriptions, such as ... What were the "books and pages of materials" the teacher gave you to look at? What beginning sounds were you targeting? Had the teacher received any testing from the previous school to give you insight into where to begin your "closer look"?

Having overnight to think about what you might do to determine his gaps in phonemic awareness and phonics should have given you time to pull some strategies from your text, readings, or online professional resources.

Should you decide to conduct another phonics / phonemic awareness field based activity to replace this one, I will change this grade to give you any additional points you may earn. My suggestion is to carefully read over the assignment description and criteria prior to resubmitting this field based assignment.