Homework

Yes she dressed herself - note the tie - perfect for going to 'work'. Here are the blocks that I am loving - I give Han the letters and she unjumbles them to spell the sight words she will need for the reading activity. It is working a treat at the moment.
Using the blocks to help complete a reader accurately.
Check out her drawing and her colouring in - I think it's very good!
Gluing the words from one of her readers into a logical sentence.
Lots of teddies for a great effort!
Hannah had some homework sent home by her spec ed teacher. Being the first week back I hadn't really done much reading work with her so on Sunday we sat down and did about 45 minutes of literacy and writing activities. I was so pleased with how she did. She read her level 2 reader well. I got her to spell out key words with the blocks first as that seems to really help. Sometimes if she is looking at the printed word and not sure all I do is point to the blocks and she gets it right. She drew a lovely house based upon the level 1 reader I had been doing with her - all in pencil and then she insisted on colouring it in. Her colouring was fantastic (I though) - she kept in the lines for most of the picture and then had a reasonable go at writing her name on it.

I love the ipad and at the moment there is an app called Teach Me Grade 1 which I particularly like for her because it has some numeracy and literacy. Each activity has a ? at the top so she can ask for help if needed for example if the activity is to write 1 she doesn't need help but for 5 she can touch the ? and a faint 5 appears for her to trace. Anyways while I love the technology it was also good to see her concentrate and work without any technology just pens and papers blocks and motivators. The motivators are counting teddies and each small task completed gets a bear.... I'll attach a pic above.

So I am still unhappy with her class teacher. I just don't think she has the interest or the passion I would like to see and that is needed to really make inclusive ed work. I can't do anything about that but keep meeting with the principal and voicing my concerns... but I am so glad that Hannah is still progressing very well given the circumstances.

Reading

Today Hannah went back to school. She was happy to go and obviously looking forward to seeing her friends. I hope she has a good term.

I have been doing some reading with her over the break. Her spec ed teacher said in our last meeting that level 3 of the PM readers are the ones she is using with Hannah - they are more challenging for her. I have some level 1 ones that I was using over the holidays. I have videoed her reading - will try and upload one later.

Hannah loves books - always has. Her reading though seems idiosyncratic to me - The level 1 readers are very repetitive - eg Every page in the book we have just done has "Look at the ..." and the child uses the picture to decide on the last word. When I started with Hannah I had to prompt her every single time for the word look. It was starting to drive me crazy. I tried a couple of things to try and help her recognise the word more automatically and in a variety of contexts. The most successful was the blocks from Make a Word. I haven't got her to write it out yet but that is probably what I will try next time the opportunity arises. She has almost conquered that one so I have begun the new book which has "Look at the ... said the pencil" in it. This time I began using the blocks for support.

There is a sight word app on her ipad that I like - she is going quite well with it although 10 is her prime, 15 on a good day and by 20 she is over it - I try to work with her until she gets 10 right first go. Her error rate is usually between 5%-33% depending on how hard the settings are. At the moment I have it on preschool and Kindy words with a min choice from 3 and a max choice from 4 words. It has been interesting to then test her vocab with the flash cards from the Make a Word set - I simply ask "What word?"

Sometimes she is clearly looking at the holistic shape of the word - so bag often gets confused for dog.At other times I think she sees the last letter and then guesses at the word. Too often if in doubt she says 'down' so I have also started to go over that one using the blocks although I think I might just avoid it for a while until she is stronger on the ones in her books. I have also been impressed with her letter recognition skills and her knowledge of phonics although she needs help to 'put the sounds together' in a 3 letter word she can do it fairly easily. She finds cued artic and signed english helpful so in the video (when I find out how to upload it) you can see her sign 'the'. We are also using these to help prompt her sentence structure and length of utterance in speech...

I worry that there are so many gaps in her ability to 'read' yet I know her understanding and comprehension are quite good. It must be very frustrating for the little girl - it sure is for me!

In the video you can see her referring to the blocks and using signed english as well. The last page is bird but she often just looks at the 'b..' and says 'bat'. She was worried her father was going to go out without her so is a little preoccupied in this clip - but you get the idea....

The Follow Up

Well we had our meeting - so long ago now I'll have to think back.... We walked out feeling good. The principal is a great listener. He also supported his teacher - both positions that I am satisfied with. We got to say why we were concerned/unhappy and I think got it across that our main concern was with the class teacher without sounding vindictive about her. He agreed that she was struggling but reiterated his belief in her best intentions. He is pinning a lot on the new furnishings that are arriving over the break - he is really tackling the whole school environment having put up a whole heap of pictures through the building.

We discussed a bit further Hannah's so called 'behavioural issues' and I think that point came across ok.
Sorry - obviously the break has been good cos the rest of it has gone - we were there for about 30 minutes and he allowed us to voice our concerns. I asked about moving classes - and he stated very clearly that he had already thought about that - but then gave me the reasons on why that wasn't his preferred option at this stage.

So back to school next week - brand new setting - plus the teacher has been to visit another local school with a student with DS in the mainstream...we'll have to wait and see if any epiphanies have happened over the break...
Hannah obviously really likes this teacher - she has been chatting about having her own house - where she wants to live with her Grandpa, her two best friends from school - and you guessed it - her class teacher. I hope that that teacher realises how privileged she is to have Hannah's devotion. Hannah's ST is back on thank goodness (she agrees with me about the teacher - in fact she commented that in discussions with the spec ed teacher it looked like they were exploring the idea of her working at the school for a whole day regularly (to help with other kids) however she said - 'it isn't a bad idea but I don't want to have to work with people like..' yep you guessed it - Hannah's teacher. The teacher just isn't a great listener and she isn't really available or approachable although she makes all the right noises. I am thinking of asking for the teacher who is nervous about having Hannah (and not afraid to admit it) for next year - I think that might work better...