Educators engage in professional learning.
During my last practicum, on one of the Pro-D days, I watched a webinar with my coaching teacher on selective mutism. There is a student in our class who is selectively mute. The webinar was very helpful and there were some techniques that discussed with the students family on parent teacher conference day. The students family seemed to be on board with the techniques suggested so we started implementing them the following week. While I was there, there was amazing progress with the student. She started whispering words to my coaching teacher and I. She was able to say words quietly to her friend while playing go fish with the coaching teacher in the room. During the soft start in the mornings, the coaching teacher would take the student and one of her good friends who she was able to openly talk in front of. The student’s friends was a great encourager and would try to get the student to talk when playing the game so the teacher could hear. The goal was for the student to slowly feel comfortable around the teacher so she could be another “safe person” she could talk to. The slow steps of playing games, having the established safe person in the room while observing first and then slowly getting closer at the table, was the suggested techniques in the selective mutism video.
One time, I had the student standing behind me and I didn’t realize how long she had been standing there because she did not tap me or use her words to communicate. I noticed she had a drink in her hand and she put it towards me gesturing me to open it. I asked her “would you like me to open it?” and she nodded. Since her plan was to use her words whether it was quietly or whispering, I took this opportunity to ask her if she could whisper to me her question and she did. She had made great progress in just the first week of implementing this new plan.
I also watched a series of videos on a literacy program. I learned about phonics and how to teach students sounds from the beginning. I think this will be helpful for me in any grade as there tend to be some students that are struggling and need that extra support with sounds and reading.
In addition, I had the opportunity to observe my coaching teacher do some bench mark assessments on their reading and comprehension level. It was beneficial to see and the types of questions you can ask the students. There is some level of flexibility for example, my coaching teacher does not time the student as that can be anxiety provoking and she determines their level by cross referencing the amount of words they are able to correct when they make a mistake with their comprehension ability to understand the story and relay it in their own words.
