Description of students

Description of my students

2.Describe how and why you have selected this challenge of student learning. Locate your inquiry in the context of patterns of student learning in Manaiakalani overall.

The target group of students I am focusing on, are at all different levels. They have different challenges that I am going to look at. I will use the developmental writing scale to see how my students progress.

Meet my target students  

• Student 1 - Is six years old and has Down Syndrome. He has also been diagnosed with moderate ASD, Global developmental delay, conductive hearing loss, hearing aid in both ears, Hypermetropia-wears glasses and dysphasia. Student1 is in a Year one class and has significant language delays.  He is mostly non verbal, in a one on one sessions he may share an experience about his weekend. He is not motivated to write due to his delayed language and  poor fine motor skills. He is just beginning to learn how to use a device. 

• Student 2 - Is eight years old. He also has Down Syndrome and moderate ASD. He has hearing loss in one ear, he has one hearing aid and wear glasses. He is in a Year 4 class and has significant language delays. He will sometimes attempt to write a recount about his weekend. He requires lots of prompting and motivation to get started with his writing. A reward system and a range of targeted resources is needed in order for him to complete a writing task. His lacks of motivation is due to his poor fine motor control and his language delays.

• Student 3 - Is eight years old and he has Autism, English is second language and he has Global developmental delays. He is in a Year four class. He has significant language delays and is not motivated to write. With support and targeted resources he will attempt a simple sentence about an experience he had. He still misses out the little words and always starts his sentence with 'His name'. He is confident on a device, but due to language delays, he needs constant reassurance before he can record a word.

• Student 4 - Is 11 years old and has Down Syndrome, Global developmental delay, conductive hearing loss,  and dysphasia. She has significant language delays and is in a Year six class. She needs lots of  motivated to write and she will only write if she had an experience. Due to her poor motor control and language delays, she finds writing difficult. She is only starting to learn how to write on a device.

• Student 5- Is in a year eight class and has intellectual disability. She has extremely low adaptive functioning, serious Receptive and Expressive Language disorder and probable Neurological Disorder. Due to poor motor control and language delays, she finds writing difficult and is not motivated to write. She is aware of the fact the she is working at a much lower level than her peers. Even though she is very confident on a device, she requires a range of prompts and supports in order to construct a simple sentence.

My students struggle to focus for extended periods of time. They are not very motivated to write and require lots of motivation to get started and stay on task. My hunch is that if I focus on extending their 'on-task' behavior with strategies to manage themselves then they will improve their writing. Over the course of the term I will share the strategies I am using to increase their on task behavior. 

Using the developmental writing scale (see previous post for scale), this is the current level that my students are working at. (Beginning of year)
Student 1	Level 1 - drawing
Student 4	Level 5- One  intelligible word
Student 5	Level 6- Two or three intelligible words
Student 2	Level 7- Three or more intelligible words
Student 3	Level 7- Three or more intelligible words