Level III Blog Inquiry Checkpoint #4

So far, the realization I have come to regarding my focus student is that there are many factors that affect how his day goes. One day he might be more on task than usual and I feel proud of him and excited that the strategies might be working and other days, it is back to square one. Well, as mentioned in my previous blog, sleep is definitely one of those factors. Every morning I ask him if he got a good night's sleep and on the days where he does not smile and say yes, but rather says no or shakes his head, I notice the difference. I make it a point to tell him how important it is to go to bed early and get rest for school.

After looking at his 9 weeks scores, I noticed that he received the lowest grade in Math. Now, when I administered the subject survey to him, Math was not his favorite subject but it also was not his least favorite. He ranked it 3 out of 5. He did much better in Science and Social Studies which were ranked lower than Math, 2 and 1, respectively. I observe the student throughtout the day but have taken consideration into observing more intensely in math and science. In math, he barely ever does his work. I have to constantly tell him to pay attention and do his work in order for him to do anything at all. This is on a bad day, on a good day he might do a little. There has not been a day where I see him do all of his work wtithout constantly being told.

On the other hand, in Reading and Writing it is a little different. Yes, he gets off task, but he does more work than in math. He ranked Reading as his second most favorite subject and writing as his first. I had a theory before that his medication wears off toward the end of the day and that might be why at the end of the day he just about gives up on doing work. However, I never thought about how long the medication might take to kick in in the morning. Math is the first class of the day and then comes science. Perhaps the medication does not take its effects until the middle of or after math. These are just some more of the many factors that are possibly affecting him.

One of the strategies I found in my research to help students with ADHD was partner work. From observations of the whole class being split up into partners and watching him work with partners it has not always been successful. In the case of my group lessson, it was successful. Perhaps it was because it was smaller group or also because he liked working with the student I chose as his partner. He only got off task a couple times during the lesson and seemed engaged with the activities.

These activities were part of the second strategy I implemented which was doing hands-on activities. Both of the lessons were connected and had the same objective which was: "Students will understand how they can use key words and phrases to make inferences about many pieces of a text such as the characters, the setting, and events." In the first lesson, my activity was with a question cube. The students, with a partner, tossed a question cube and then had to discuss the answers to the questions. The activity of the second lesson was a tableau. This really helped the students use the text to think about the characters' feelings. Both activities enagaged my focus student, as well as the other students in the group. I could tell he was engaged because he was off task less than usual and he completed his exit tickets for both lessons which can be seen below.

His nine weeks report card

Exit Ticket #1

Exit Ticket #2