Monday: Spelling Words With the Long "A" Sound

I learned today that we have a very talented writer in our class. 

Today we worked on spelling words, in the past I have allowed the students to choose their own spelling words. When the trainees choose their own spelling words about two-thirds of the class choose appropriate spelling words and the other one-third choose words they already know. Because of some of the trainees' choices to give themselves easy work I have gone back to assigning spelling words. Currently the our spelling lesson in the class is tiered and divided into two groups. One group focuses on sight words and phonemic patterns and the second group focuses on words which can be figured from context. 

In the first group the trainees studied the first six months of the year: January, February, March, April, May, June; and they studied words with the long "a" sound in them. As a final assignment I asked the students to use 6 words which have the long "a" sound in them and write a poem. One student wrote a particularly good poem and he has given me permission to share it with you all...

Ke'Dren and I went to buy a picture frame.

Then we ate pizza,they were all the same

but later on that day we saw Waka Flocka Flame

then we listen to his music, we think "Wow, that was lame"

-B.H.

I added the punctuation, but the sentences are all a B.H. original and I am beyond impressed by his usage of the long "-ame" sound! This trainee loves to listen to rap and R&B and it is clear that he draws his creativity by following the same rhythm in his poem.

August 17 through 20

Monday

Monday's spotlight is being shined on the Challenger: Adult Reading Series. I am a huge fan of this series because the materials is broken up into 7 levels, the stories are appropriate for adults, and the work is varied. The stories include fictional and non-fictional reading material. The reading material provided is geared towards English Language Learners and you would notice from reading that each section focuses on a specific reading skill like words with the long "a" sound, words that end with the letter "y," etc. The students actually get a kick out of the patterns in the reading and they tend to laugh at the fact that so many sentences in the story almost sound like they are rhyming. Lastly the questions are like I said varied and ask the readers to think in many different ways in one single activity. Some examples of the variation include answering questions about what is said in the text, placing events in order, unscrambling sentences, and then it asks the readers to consider what they would do in a similar situation.

Tuesday

I have to give a huge shout out to Easter Seal's Asst. Director of Community Employment Services for setting up a fantastic opportunity to go to Peg Perego. Peg Perego  is a company which specializes in children's car seats, strollers, and battery operated toy vehicles. Myself and the C.L.A. teacher were so incredibly pleased with the experience the class had. Our outing consisted of a tour of the warehouse and factory. Our guides were very devoted to making sure we saw everything relevant to the material studied in the C.L.A. portion of the class. Most of the class expressed an interest working for Peg Perego, especially one student who said he couldn't think of a single job he would NOT want to do at the factory.

Wednesday

Wednesday was my favorite day of the week this week! We covered so many topics yesterday that it's hard for me to pick which lesson was my favorite.

One lesson which really went well with the class was a lesson about handling emergencies at work. This lesson came from a curriculum I found online called "Talking Safety." The curriculum is geared towards teenagers who are getting their first jobs, but with some tweaking I have been able to make it appropriate to this class full of adults. In this particular lesson there were two major activities: the first activity was a board game which quizzed the trainees about how to react to situations as well as common safety procedures. The second activity in the lesson provided 9 real stories about different emergencies at work and it asked the trainees to identify what the workers did well in the story and what they did not do well. I broke the activity up into two groups randomly, the first group completed both activities, the second group only completed the board game. Both groups were fully engaged with what they were doing and I was very impressed by each person's knowledge emergency planning and when any questions arose we talked about it as a group.

The second activity we conducted as a class yesterday was how to properly greet strangers. The activity involved a surprisingly large amount of lecturing, however it had several mini breaks which required a lot of interaction with the group. During the activity we demonstrated how to properly greet strangers as well as the wrong ways to greet people. The class really enjoyed acting out the proper manners and they laughed at my examples of "bad behavior." Each person in the class was able to identify at least one of my 8 bad examples of how to greet someone.

Thursday

Today we completed a T.A.B.E. tested! A T.A.B.E test is a regular test administered in adult education to help measure each person's progress in the class. The results are very helpful for helping teachers understand what material students know very well, what material they sort of know, and what students don't appear to know very well.

This test was the class's second time being tested as a whole class. I'm very excited to see each person's results!

After the class spent the whole morning testing we ate lunch and had just enough time in the afternoon to begin a lesson about how to communicate with co-workers. The lesson about communication covered: proper greetings, asking questions, how to politely ask co-workers to be quiet, responding to uncomfortable questions, and how to say "good-bye" at the end of the day. The class only got to asking for help because our conversation went off track to a discussion about proper cell phone use at work, but this wasn't a bad tangent to go off on. As a whole the entire class will need to continue to work on asking questions properly because while each person is aware of proper behavior, they struggle to act it out. I look forward to working on these skills more because I feel very confident that by mastering these skills the trainees will become much more likely to retain a job.

Thursday: "It's All About Me"

A while back I found a curriculum created by Angela Mahone M. Ed. called I Can Work! that covers 5 areas when preparing students with disabilities to work: Career readiness, clerical, retail, food service, and grocery. Originally I was a little hesitant to attempt this curriculum because I wasn't sure how I felt about limiting our training to 4 areas of work. As I read into the curriculum more I began to change my mind though. A few things that changed my mind was the fact that as I thought about it, those four types of jobs were typical entry level jobs that any one, whether you were a person who was considered to be "average" or developmentally delayed, would start in. I can think as I write of a few high school students that I taught who started in one of these 4 areas. Back to the subject though I really saw I value in how much thought was put into considering the details which this particular audience could benefit from, as well as the hands on activities which made studying each job more authentic. 

This week was the first week that I began the curriculum in the classroom, yesterday our subject was preparing for work and today's section covering the trainees' likes and dislikes was titled "It's All About Me." This lesson was something I had tried previously using a checklist I copied from a career readiness curriculum created for adult learners who were immigrants from other countries and were adjusting to the U.S.'s employment world. This checklist I used today better clicked with the students than the previous one I used because it provided pictures and examples to help the students form ideas AND best of all it took the time to ask the trainees about not only their interests but factors which made them feel comfortable and uncomfortable. The trainees really responded to some of the questions which asked them where they felt comfortable, what were some activities they would not like to do for work, and what were some materials were not interested in working with. The last question the questionnaire asked addressed senses and asked the clients to name any sensory inputs which they would not be comfortable working around including: textures, touching, loud noises, crowds, and bright lights.

I learned a lot about my class today from this one lesson and the trainees enjoyed sharing about themselves as a class. What I liked about this lesson which I had never established before was the trainees' comfort levels, what they felt comfortable working with and where they felt comfortable. I think knowing this information will help me to guide them towards jobs which they can feel comfortable in and stay in for long periods of time.

Wednesday: Sequencing & Pizza

Wednesday

As I write this I am suffering from a huge pizza craving and I already know that for tonight's dinner I'm making a beeline to the oven pizza I have stored in my freezer.

Wednesday we went over sequencing and I found no better way to make the lesson into a hands on activity than to practice sequencing by making paper pizzas. Sequencing means to arrange in a particular order. In the class's case I created task cards which broke down the process of making a pizza in a particular order. The students were given the cards in a mixed up order and asked to arrange them in the proper order. The entire class was able to perform this task without any help at all, and on my end I am very encouraged by these results. My hope in the future is that the trainees will be able to use task cards in their future jobs to help them remember their duties and how to carry out a task. What I stressed as we followed our task cards for making pizzas was that they start with crust, then meat, and then vegetables.

After placing the task cards in the proper order I distributed paper with pictures of pizza toppings which needed to be cut out and asked them to practice their hand eye skills by cutting out their own toppings. Only one student in the class had trouble completing the task, and he'll need more practice working with his hands. After cutting the toppings out the students were asked to separate the toppings: pepperoni, green peppers, olives, and mushrooms. Technically our green topping was actually broccoli but I called it green peppers. We briefly went over why it was important in the food industry to keep raw ingredients separate and through-out the activity I continues to stress that they separated their ingredients.

Once all ingredients were separated I passed out four "orders" the were asked to build. The order form presented four different ways to create a pizza slice and varied slightly each time. Sometimes the order would ask for 4 pepperoni pieces, 3 green peppers 2 olives, and 2 mushrooms. All trainees were able to complete the order form, about 2 needed help getting their first 2 orders started. The cards they used had their own sequence the trainees followed as they always went in this particular order: pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers, and olives. See below for what the order cards looked like.



As soon as everyone had finished the order cards I asked them to practice their customers service skills by taking a partner's orders and then building the product to that customer's wants. One trainee took the activity too far as he adopted an accent as he placed his order and then insisted his partner take his order while attempting to understand his accent. All trainees did a good job following the dialogue we had created though and speaking respectfully to the "customer." Below is a copy of the order from they used.



Overall the activity was great, the only thing I regret is now I absolutely MUST go home and eat pizza for dinner or I'm pretty I won't be able to sleep at night. My favorite part about the whole activity was watching one trainee's imagination run wild as he worked to not only follow the order he was given but also manage to construct a face on the pizza. I'm attaching 2 of his creations below. You'll note that in the first picture, if you squint to read the order card, you will see that the pizza was made according to the requirements...

Tuesday: Dear Abby...

I have to admit, once I have finished reading the comics and scanning the classified ads for puppies I can't afford to buy yet, my last item I'll read in the newspaper is the Dear Abby section. Technically, I'm not sure Fort Wayne's Dear X is actually named Abby...

For anyone reading who does not know what the Dear X section is, it's a section in the newspaper where someone writes into a well-educated person and asks them for advice and words of encouragement for problems they are currently dealing with in their lives. Abby, or whatever their name is, writes back to the person and gives them a short answer to their question which usually ends with an encouraging message like, "Don't give up!" or something else along those lines.

Today in class I chose to focus on encouraging words as a soft skill. To execute this lesson I created 7 short letters which asked for advice about work which all of the trainees in the class struggle with. The topics I chose to focus on were:

• Feeling overwhelmed at a new job.
• Accepting a promotion.
• Being tired at work.
• Feeling emotional at work due to personal issues.
• Feeling unimportant at work.
• Making mistakes on the job.
• Dealing with performance reviews.

I tiered the lesson on two levels and then broke the work up between two levels in groups. The first lesson I created presented the problem to the reader, then it provided a section for the readers to write their answer to the reader. In this group we took turns reading and then discussing how to answer the person, once we decided on the answer we wrote the answer out. The second level also presented the problem but it gave the readers 3 possible answers: one answers was the correct answer to give, the second was an answer someone may give but it was not encouraging, and the third option was to write their own answer. In that group each member took turns reading again, and then the group discussed which answer was possibly the correct one.

The trainees all offered good answers to the questions, and several times they would hear the problem presented and then say, "I've had this problem before!" Interestingly the students who struggled with some of the problems mentioned could offer good answers to the questions. The struggle in this class is dealing with the problems when you are experiencing them personally. I know I personally can give fantastic relationship advice, but there have been a few times with ex-boyfriend where it was a lot harder to swallow my own advice. The activity was great though because when the trainees got stuck we as a group were able to talk through the possible answers and decide which answers were best.

Monday & Tuesday: Mission to Mars & Making Predictions

This week has been exhausting for me personally! I'm in the middle of writing substitute teacher lesson plans, lesson plans for the week after next, wedding party plans, and moving all at once!

My crazy personal life aside though, the class is doing great. Hilights this week included...

Monday: Mars Aerial Mission 

I found an interesting lesson online from a teacher's website which had an entire section devoted to job skills. The lesson that stood out the most to me was a lesson covering communication. The lesson required 2 students to work together as a team to build a complex paper airplane which was supposed to be an imaginary rocket to Mars. In the lesson the students were given one of two jobs, communication/directions and construction. Now, if you know anything about my current passion with Legos then you are probably thinking this lesson sounds very familiar, but there are some slight differences between this lesson and how I used Lego puzzles in the class. First: this particular lesson came with a specific script which the students had to read and follow; second: students traded roles half-way through the exercise. The objective was that students would learn to give slow and clear directions by using a very concise script, and likewise students would practice their listening skills by following along with their instructor.

To begin the lesson the class and I first outline two things: what it means to communicate and what are the best ways to explain something to another person. The class did a very good job of coming up with good ways to give directions including considerations like using good manners, physically showing a person what you want them to do, using a friendly tone, and going step by step. I was most impressed by the suggestion  to use good and friendly manners, this is something I think a lot of people can forget to do if they become frustrated when attempting to explain something.

After we outlined why communication was important it was time to move on to the paper plane construction part of it all which bombed. The paper plan turned out to be too difficult to construct for this class and only one group completed the plane completely on their own. This was not a failed mission though because none of the 4 groups ever gave up, and all groups asked for help when they felt stuck. To me, perseverance and asking for help are two extremely important qualities to have in the employment world and I try very hard as a teacher to encourage those behaviors in the classroom.

Tuesday: Making Predictions Using Context

Tuesday, after our outing to the Tecumseh Branch Library, the class devoted the afternoon to an exercise which asked the students to make predictions about what would happen next in each situation based on the context. Making predictions is a valuable skill because it helps students look ahead to the consequences and rewards of their actions. Being able to predict what will happen next also helps students to understand the world around them.

To teach this unit I found worksheets online which included pictures of someone or something performing a certain act, next to the picture was a space to draw what the students thought would happen next as well as blank lines to write out their answers. The pictures varied, one picture included a man holding a coffee cup tripping over an unseen object, another was of a small boy walking and carrying a fishing pole, and my last example I'll share was of an elephant wearing a dress and fishing. The pictures were a hit with the class and I did my best to encourage them to consider all possibilities by pointing out each detain in the picture; for example the man tripping was holding a coffee cup, several papers, and he was wearing glasses. Using the picture of the man tripping and the details students were able to guess that he would fall forward, the man's glasses might break, the coffee cup would break, the coffee would spill on the ground, papers would fall on the group, the coffee would get on the papers, the man might break a bone, and the man's boss will be angry that he ruined the papers. All of that from one little picture.

After students finished making predictions based off of pictures I gave them a harder challenge by presenting them with short stories that asked the reader to predict what would happen next. One short story I used had 2 characters, the characters were 2 young boys who were boy scouts. According to the story the boy scouts were walking home one day when they found a wallet, they realized they should turn the wallet in to the police but they each also couldn't help but think of something specific they would like to buy with the money they found. The story cut off after mentioning the boys' selfish desires and asked the readers to guess what would happen next. Some students were able to form a prediction on their own, while others needed help breaking the text down. To break the text down I pointed out the reputation of the boy scouts as a well known organization which works to promote personal, professional, and survival skills in young boys and young adults. I then pointed out that small children sometimes have trouble making altruistic decisions. In the end there was not right or wrong answer as long as the students were able to explain why they chose the answer they did.

Wednesday & Thursday: Fine Motor Activity and Spelling

I did some reading lately about how to help people who struggle with their handwriting. The reading suggested providing opportunities to practice hand-eye coordination with activities as common as cutting out patterns with scissors. I took this suggestion and used it to help the class create a useful spelling tool: paper Scrabble tiles.

As I've said in a few posts before the class is working hard to improve their spelling skills so that in the future they will feel more confident in jobs which require reading and writing. The current Arc staff member in the classroom introduced the idea of manipulatives to me around 2 weeks ago and after seeing the success it had with two students, I was ready to introduce the technique to the entire class. To help create manipulatives I used a free print out I found online of scrabble letters, the class was asked to cut the squares out along the lines to the best of their ability, and then glue the squares to construction paper to make the squares even stronger. 

Cutting along straight lines presented a challenge for some students who initially were leery of the project until I assured them I only wanted their best effort instead of perfection. I inspected each student's Scrabble tiles in order to give myself an idea of each student's skill regarding hand-eye coordination. Four out of the seven people were able to cut along the straight lines with little error, one student chose not to participate, and 2 others' tiles indicated they will need more practice. 

The Scrabble tiles themselves have proved to be very valuable and I used them in one lesson on Wednesday and another today. The lesson I used yesterday was my version of "Go Fish" which asked the students to draw tiles at random and attempt to create their spelling words as they drew. I liked the activity because it asked the students to "build" their spelling words through a systematic process, and it provided a good chance to "play" in a group. Today's activity was less recreation and required students to practice spelling out their words using the tiles. 

The Scrabble tiles work because it helps to take the letters out of the trainees heads, place the letters in from of them to see with their eyes, and then touch and manipulate the letters as needed. One student relied heavily on the manipulatives to pass his spelling test. The strategy used by the one student was to listen to the word, spell it, and if he doubted himself he would arrange the letters in front of him so that he could sound the word out. This particular student really benefited from the letters because he struggles with writing, so having the tiles printed helped eliminate a hurdle.