Help me give my students noise-canceling headphones to improve their focus and allow them to demonstrate skills that they truly have (WITHOUT DISTRACTIONS) during independent work!
My students are wonderful. They make me smile and laugh every day. I am thankful that I work in a community where respect, kindness, and support are the foundations of everyone's character. We have a family at SVES and I have the pleasure of providing Special Education support to 30 students in TK through 4th grade.
My students' personalities shine when they are provided with the appropriate supports to succeed!
The specific children that I work with have a variety of needs including ADHD, Autism, Specific Learning Disabilities, and Intellectual Disabilities. These kids are the heart of my work and are the reasons that I strive to provide the best supports I can for them.
My Project
I work with students ages 5-10 who have varying disabilities that impact their learning. Students who have ADHD benefit from working in environments with limited distractions. The children that I work with have many skills and can demonstrate them in a perfect setting, one that's quiet, clean, and designed for success. A tricky component of having multiple students with attentional concerns in my resource room at once is that even though they generally work best when it's quiet, they are the same students that struggle keeping their bodies calm and still.
The wobble cushions that were provided by generous donations have made worlds of difference in my wiggly munchkins' schoolwork, but these headphones will allow them to soar even higher when they can focus solely on their academics rather than what's going on around them.
When we are working in small groups, I teach a lesson where I model for them what they will be doing during our time together. After, we complete guided practice where the students 'try on' our new skill with close supervision to ensure success. When I feel as though they're ready to try some on their own, the students move to independent work. It's at this time that my students can lose focus by interacting with one another. Though I find the amount of camaraderie quite adorable, it is not beneficial for their learning, especially during small group pull-out instruction. I currently have two pairs of headphones in my classroom and they are working miracles to keep my students engaged in their own work rather than each other's business. That being said, if each student were to have their own headphones while in my resource room, I am predicting that there would be an even larger rise in success during their independent work.
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