July 9, 2008

Another new student! At first, I thought it was strange how kids keep trickling in even after summer school was halfway over; Ms. von Furt seems really used to it. As I think about it now, it actually shouldn't surprise me that much--DCPS isn't exactly known to be the tightest ship in the country, so I guess some summer shuffling is to be expected. I also imagine it's good for the parents to have their kids somewhere safe for the majority of the day, whether or not they're in an academic environment.

Anyway, this new student is a girl, thus breaking up the men-only club we had going on for the first week. Her name is Mimi, and when she came in this morning, Giovanni turns to the other DC teaching fellow, opens his eyes wide and clamps his hand over his mouth, as if saying "Uh oh, she's gonna be trouble!" After hearing about that, I had to laugh. Is a classroom romance in order this summer?

I've tried to take more time with Kevin while we're working on math in the morning, trying to gauge his abilities. The other teachers and I agree (while still lacking any kind of IEP information) that he is probably MR as well. Ms. von Furt said, "I would even hazard a guess and say that he has some problems with short-term memory." I wasn't quite sure what she meant until I spent an extended amount of time with him, during which we went over the numbers 1 through 9. I tried getting him to use his fingers to count--he stopped counting at five and began again on the other hand. I tried asking him to draw his favorite candy--lollipops--and he would still be unable to draw the number I asked for. As far as number recognition, the work has been difficult for both of us. Using the PT's model, I drew the dotted numbers and asked Kevin to trace them. I go over what each one was called and how many it represented. For a few minutes, he seemed to get it. But later on, when I asked him in a different way to indicate the correct number, or to draw the number, he would just pause and look up at me. I'm not quite sure what to do...we'll see what comes up tomorrow.