Somebody Else's Kid

           Torey Hayden’s “Somebody Else’s Kids” focuses on the classroom of a teacher with four special needs students, each with a unique background story. One of the students, Lori Sjokheim is a seven year old girl whose learning disability involves her reading and writing skills. Lori is an adopted twin, who suffered abuse from her biological family. A concussion, resulting in a bone fragment piercing an area of her brain creating lesions, is responsible for her slow development in reading and writing. One important thing to note about Lori is her deep affection and care for people. She is very aware and conscious of her slow progress in learning to read and write. She displays great frustration with her inability to learn at the pace of her peers (Hayden, 1982).

            There are many implementations of accommodations and modifications I would make in my classroom if Lori Sjokheim was a student of mine. Torey Hayden already made two types of accommodations for Lori as a student in her classroom. First, she cut out large pieces of the letters of the alphabet to physically walk along to help Lori create a connection of the letters with spatial reasoning. To coincide with this, she also used a tactile technique with the letters by utilizing sandpaper to feel the shape of the letter, thereby applying a form of letter recognition. Finally, Torey provided peer tutoring for Lori by having one of the other students, Tomaso, read and write for her when she had a homework assignment (Hayden, 1982).

            There are many other types of accommodations and modifications that can be provided for Lori in a high school science class. In a class where scientific vocabulary and texts can be difficult to comprehend and interpret, I would definitely make some changes to my lessons in order to provide a better learning opportunity for Lori. When the students are assigned a scientific article/text to read, I would provide Lori with a set of vocabulary lists/terms to review prior to the start of reading. This will allow her to review the material prior to the reading so she does not get too caught up in the article in reviewing words rather than gaining scientific knowledge from the text.  I would also provide Lori and students with similar conditions to Lori’s a light synopsis or summary of the text before the class reads the actual text. Other techniques I can utilize to ease Lori’s learning experience in the classroom would be to allow her to have a reading buddy or an audio version of the text, where having someone speak the text to her would be better for her. All of these accommodations would be necessary in a science classroom for any student with a reading disability (Snowman, 2015).

            When it comes to writing abilities, Lori also struggles in this department as well. Have a teacher’s aide who is able to read and scribe for Lori will be extremely beneficial to her, whether it would be for in class assignments/worksheet or for assessments. When it comes to writing assignments there would be many modifications I would need to implement for Lori. Creating a rubric for her assignments and allowing more room for spelling and grammatical errors would be essential for Lori to be successful in the class. Also, making the length requirement on writing assignment less for Lori would also bode well for her in my class (Snowman, 2015).

            There are potential drawbacks in having Lori Sjokheim in my high school science class. Being in a mixed environment, I would imagine some of Lori’s classmates would take notice in how her assignments are much easier and more lenient than their own. They would obviously also notice her having a teacher’s aide reading and scribing for her as well. I think some students would be bitter or resent this. They may not find it fair and take it out on me as the teacher or even worse, grow to be bitter and ill-willed towards Lori. So there may be some behavioral issues associated with this. Another drawback I would have to consider is the amount of attention I provide to her. A majority of my attention would have to be directed towards helping her, and this could potentially take away from the attention I give to my other students. Timing would also be difficult, in creating additional powerpoints, readings, “cheat sheets” and other forms/papers for Lori. It would take a great amount of time in order to do all of this, while I could be devoting a lot of that time to improve lesson plans, etc (Snowman, 2015).

            Lori, herself, could possibly face some problems and issues in being in my class. Being bullied and picked on by other students is a situation that Lori would likely face because of her special needs. Of course, I would need to combat this if it was occurring directly in my classroom. Lori might also get frustrated when having reading assignments. She has shown signs of frustration in Torey’s class when she is aware of her failures and not being able to read and write on pace with the other students her age. This behavior could also occur in my class, through which I would need to be prepared to handle it and appease her (Snowman, 2015).

            Despite these potential drawbacks and issues Lori may face, I would be privileged to be able to teach a student like her in my class. I would welcome her into my class with open arms and face these challenges with her head on.

 

References:

Hayden, Torey. (1982). “Somebody Else’s Kids.” Avon Books. New York, New York.

Snowman, Jack. (2015). “Psychology Applied to Education.” Cengage Learning. 14th ed.