This is my first year as a teacher and I entered in as lateral entry. I have 30 kids in grades K-8 and one assistant. I am having trouble handling this case load. I am finding it difficult to know what materials to use to teach these kids. I have 5 students from the 7th/8th grade in which I am their language arts teacher. Do I only teach them their IEP goals and objectives or their grade level material just toned down? I also have two in which I am their math teacher. I am feeling overwhelmed at this point, but I just left a career of 10 years to be a special ed. teacher (my dream). Can anyone help this newbie!
Re: K-8 LD beginning teacher needing advice
[quote=”Sherry”]This is my first year as a teacher and I entered in as lateral entry. I have 30 kids in grades K-8 and one assistant. I am having trouble handling this case load. I am finding it difficult to know what materials to use to teach these kids. I have 5 students from the 7th/8th grade in which I am their language arts teacher. Do I only teach them their IEP goals and objectives or their grade level material just toned down?
That depends on the philosophy of your school or - what you can get away with. My schoo’s practice is to teach them the grade level material ‘toned down’ in Language Arts. But it’s hard to ‘tone down’ Language Arts. Do they read the same books as the others? How can they?
On the occasions that it’s my world to run, I do what I think best for them - whatever that is. I don’t want them failing - who does the grading on your kids? If they’re going to be graded by the other teacher, then I do anything I can to support them in that class and plan my teaching around that.
If it’s total pull out, then do what you think works best. Slow it down, tone it down, use a different curriculum if you want just directed toward the IEP goals.
Good luck.
Sherry,
If it is your dream to be a special ed. teacher, that is absolutely wonderful. But I’ll have to say, it takes a lot of training to effectively teach these kids. So if you are saying that you have no special ed. training, you are in an almost impossible situation.
For a crash basic training course, read all the articles under reading and math on this site under LD In depth. Most of us have found that even college training was not enough to teach reading and we have been trained in methods such as Phono-Graphix, Lindamood Bell, Orton Gillingham, etc. Find out where you can get one of these trainings as soon as possible. They can be expensive, but you really have no choice if you want to remediate reading disorders.
30 kids is a high caseload, and that would present difficulties for even an experienced teacher.
Some books to read: “A Mind at a Time” by Mel Levine, “Overcoming Dyslexia” by Sally Shaywitz, and “Straight Talk About Reading” by Susan Hall and Louisa Moats.
All I can tell you is that I taught for many years without understanding I did not have the knowledge of best remediation techniques. It saddens me to think of the injustice done to children when with all our good intentions, we do not know how to really remediate their problems.
Janis