I'm hoping this is the right place to post this. If not, please redirect me.
I am an EA in a high school Emerging Communication class. They are functioning roughly around 5th grade with most of their subjects, and socially they are trying to fit in, but they're just too different, if you will. These guys are not visual--they will not draw out problems, and will instead wait for things to be written on the board. I'm wondering if any of you have suggestions on how to encourage these students to become more independent thinkers, either from your own experiences and classroom interventions, or ideas that percolate from your own mind. Let me give you an example.
Today in our literacy block, we were working on a worksheet where you attempt to find the main idea of the ten sentence story about sharks and their never-ending teeth. Not a single one of them knew how to find the main idea. That wasn't the problem, since three with guidance picked up on it. The fourth student, however, continued to search the teacher's face for the correct answer (and this is a tactic he uses no matter the subject). Even when presented with a fill in the blank sentence, he still could only focus on the fact that "sharks are interested" and "it's teeths". He couldn't seem to come up with an idea for a concluding sentence that wasn't found in the text.
Do any of you have suggestions on how to help these students? Or perhaps point me in the direction of resources I can pass on to my teacher? Many thanks.
12 Mar 2014, 1:34 pm
