Lori
Sjokheim. On the surface, Lori may seem like any other student, but deep down
she is not without her own unique set of circumstances. Affected by damage to
her brain from an injury when she was younger, Lori has issues that affect her
ability to learn and perform academically, but it does not affect her
emotionally or socially to the same extent. In a broad sense, Lori has trouble
with identifying and remembering letters, words, and symbols that is coupled
with hyperactivity and concentration issues (Hayden, 1981). This poses a unique challenge in trying to
teach Lori in a regular classroom. Lori needs individual attention due to her
inability to read and write. In this essay, I will examine in detail the
challenges Lori would face in a classroom, the accommodations and/or
modifications she could receive to help, the positives and negatives of doing
so, and how I would accommodate Lori into my classroom specifically. I will
then end with foreseeable personal challenges handling a student like Lori would
provide for me.
Lori
Sjokheim may act like any other student, but there is much more to her than
meets the eye. If someone were to see how Lori acts they would figure that Lori
is intelligent with the stereotypical adolescent issue of lack of concentration.
However, Lori’s learning disability alters that drastically. The cause of this
stems from an injury she sustained when she was younger. Child abuse led to a
skull fragment being lodged into her brain causing lesions. Although the
fragment was removed, the lesions still remained and as with any injury
involving brain cell loss, it was doubtful about how much Lori would be able to
regain in cognitive function (Hayden, 1981). Decreased cognitive function at a
young age can be both good and bad depending on the extent of damage.
Sometimes, the brain is able to utilize its plasticity to learn new pathways or
other times there is no development (Ormrod, 2011). Despite this setback,
however, Lori still has a sense of goodness of the world around her and cares about
everyone. Whether or not the excessive energy and trouble with concentration
would be diagnosed as ADHD separately or along with her trouble with letters,
words, and symbols would be up to the experts, but, regardless,
Starting
with Lori’s excessive energy and trouble with concentration, she would be a
handful for a teacher in a regular classroom, especially large classes of 30+
students. In those classes, a teacher is already stretched pretty thin in not
only managing the class, but also trying to give each student the time and
effort they deserve. If the teacher has other students who need extra attention
such as IEP and 504 students, then it adds on even more to the teacher’s plate.
Lori tends to be very involved in the teacher and her peers due to her
embracing of everyone around her (Hayden, 1981). This can further eat up a
teacher’s time dealing with Lori that could be used for other students.
Dismissing Lori without upsetting her can be difficult as well as trying to
make sure Lori doesn’t bother other students in the classroom. Balancing the
emotional and mental health of the entire class is important for students
during their developmental years as to make a positive impact (Snowman &
McCown, 2012).
However,
Lori’s major disability comes in the form of her inability to process and
remember letters, words, and symbols. Progress is very slow and sometimes takes
steps backwards. Lori tries her hardest, but her progress is difficult to
differentiate from memorization and learning. For example, when Lori learns to
read Dick and Jane it was hard to
tell whether or not she was merely repeating the words from memory or if she
was actually able to read the book (Hayden, 1981). This learning disability
places a huge responsibility onto the teacher in a regular classroom. Lori
would need things read out to her and lots of dedicated one-on-one time in
helping her to understand assignments and prompts. This would use too much of a
teacher’s time in the classroom away from teaching and helping other students.
When
dealing with modifications and accommodations, it’s important to think about
the long-term goals of where you want the student to be. Students are growing
and changing drastically during this period of their life and the habits they
pick up now and last a lifetime (Feldman, 2008). I feel as though Lori would
benefit from both accommodations and modifications. Accommodations being
practices to help the student while modifications change the learning
expectations (Understanding the Important Difference…, 2013).
With
this in mind, the accommodations and modifications I think would greatly help
Lori to get both accommodations and modifications. Overall, giving Lori
presentation, response, setting, and timing accommodations and assignment and
curriculum modifications would be helpful. Something such as placing her into a
separate classroom where she has a one-on-one to help her with her classes and
assignments may be more effective than having Lori stay in a regular classroom
even if she had an Instructional Assistant with her to help. I think that with
Lori’s learning disability, she would need too many changes to make succeeding
in a regular classroom too stressful. Accommodations Lori could receive are
testing in small groups and limiting distractions by having her at the front of
classes would be greatly beneficial, as it would help to control her high
levels of energy and her trouble with concentrating. In addition, I could
provide Lori with a set of notes (possibly audio notes and recordings), a
scribe, or extra time. Some
modifications I could provide Lori include fewer problems, alternate
assignments and exams, or different grading standards (Strom, 2014).
As
with any decision about a child’s education, there are always going to be some
positive and negatives based on your viewpoint. In my opinion, a major drawback
would be the differential treatment for Lori. Lori craves the feeling of being
normal and being in a regular classroom like her twin sister, Libby. Lori has a
breakdown when she finds out she will be repeating a grade and that she will no
longer be in the same grade as her twin sister (Hayden, 1981). With the
accommodations and modifications provided, Lori may never quite feel like she
fits in with her peers and could lead to negative self-perceptions. Students
who view themselves as being treated differently and on a lower level than
their peers can end up thinking that they are inferior even many years in the
future (Feldman, 2008). On the flip side, getting the accommodations and
modifications would help improve Lori to the point where she hopefully is able
to reach the same level as her peers.
In the context of my own class,
there are a few specific ideas of how I would accommodate Lori in my class to
help her succeed. One idea is to audio record all of my notes and lessons to
provide Lori access to. This is something that can benefit both Lori and
myself. By recording the audio beforehand, it gives me practice in delivering
the content so that when I teach the class in person I am able to better
present the information. Lori benefits because she still gets the information of
the class without having the read or write any of the notes and lessons. Lori
is able to process information in an auditory manner even if she has trouble
with letters, words, and symbols (Hayden, 1981). Another specific accommodation I could do is
something that I’ve done before with low performing students in the past. I
made what I call “foldables” with my students that had all of the information
students needed. The part the students liked was that we did mostly diagrams,
pictures, and charts rather than words because they preferred the visual
learning. With Lori I could verbally
describe the information with her and then together we could come up with a
foldable that had all the information in a visual manner.
There are so many possibilities of
how I could alter my class and activities to help Lori succeed, but dealing
with students with learning disabilities like Lori’s can put a toll on the
teacher without them even realizing it. Personally, I would feel stressed about
whether or not I was doing the best I could do by Lori. With all my students
the questions that run through my mind are things like “Am I giving him/her
enough attention?”, “Am I getting through to them?”, and “Could
I be doing something different?” With a student such as Lori, these feelings
are amplified because of the amount of attention I would be spending on Lori in
trying to help her. With any of my students with IEPs or 504s for whatever reason,
I am always worried about having them leave my class worse off than where they
started.
My other main personal challenge
when it comes to teaching students like Lori is whether or not my teaching
methods are effective. Each teacher has their own style of teaching and
opinions of what the best way to teach students. I inadvertently tend to stick
with what I feel comfortable with, which may or may not always be the best
match for my students. This is one of my issues that I have been working on
addressing by going outside of my comfort zone when teaching.
Lori herself most likely has similar
anxieties about succeeding in school with all of the obstacles she encounters.
Lori is a bright student who was dealt an unfortunate hand, but with the right
accommodations and modifications as well as the right teachers to help guide
her she can really blossom and grow. Lori was able to somewhat read Dick and Jane at the end of the story to
anyone who would listen despite having previously had a breakdown when she had
to read in front of her class. This growth is something that can occur if her
learning disability is taken into account and not looked past as something she
just needs to get over.
References
Feldman,
R. (2008). Adolescence. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Hayden, T.
(1981). Somebody Else's Kids. New York, New York: Putnam.
Ormrod,
J. (2011). Educational psychology: Developing learners (7th ed.).
Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.
Snowman, J.
& McCown, J. (2012). Psychology
applied to teaching, 13th Ed. New York: Cengage Learning.
Strom, E.
(2014, January 3). Common Modifications and Accommodations. Retrieved August 5,
2015.
Understanding
the Important Difference between "Accommodations" &
"Modifications" - Howard County Autism Society. (2013, July 3).
Retrieved August 5, 2015, from
http://specialed.howard-autism.org/accommodations-vs-modifications/
