Rachel Vestri Ms. Dudley EDUC 417 11/13/13 Observation of student F F is a sweet and helpful little boy.

He loves to draw and enjoys interacting with his peers. When F is at school he always seems to be hard at work and seeks to please his teacher. F is currently six years old and has recently moved to the United States from Norway. This is Fs first time in the USA and he speaks absolutely no English. Because of this, F is often very confused and lost at school. He is shy and gets frustrated with he can not understand how to complete an activity or communicate effectively with his teacher and peers. According to Fs father, he completed kindergarten in Norway and was slightly below average in his overall academic performance. For this reason, the school has suggested that F repeat Kindergarten in the US to both aid his academic and language learning. Fs father is working at home with him on learning basic phrases in English that will aid in F being able to express basic needs at school. In addition, F is receiving daily intervention with the schools English Language Learners specialist. Although improvements are being seen, F is continually struggling understanding assignments and functioning appropriately in his general education classroom, even on a basic level. He speaks absolutely no English and struggles expressing his basic needs. After observing F within his Kindergarten classroom, it is evident that his struggle related to language is greatly impacting and impeding his ability to make academic progress, complete tasks, follow directions, and carry out basic daily routines. F spends most of his

school day coloring and struggles to follow directions or complete any academic related activities. Consequently, F spends most of his day appearing bored and frustrated with his work. This often leads to him making disruptive noises, crying, or goofing off with his peers. When F is engaged in an activity that he appears to understand, he works quietly and diligently. This seems to link his disruptive behavior to his boredom experienced due to his lack of comprehension. He is a bright young boy, who needs help acclimating to his new classroom and learning strategies to help him interact within his classroom in an appropriate manner, so that he can begin to progress academically, as well as linguistically.

Recommendations and Adaptations Based upon observations of this student, F would benefit from receiving support that helps him to express his basic needs and better understand classroom assignments and procedures. This includes helping F gain an understanding of the class routine and schedule, learning to express basic wants and needs throughout the school day, and providing him with purposeful learning activities that are both easy to comprehend and academically stimulating. Hopefully by improving Fs ability to understand expectations, express his needs, and engage in learning activities, F will begin functioning more appropriately within the classroom setting and showing less frustration and disruptive behaviors related to his inability to communicate in English. To begin addressing Fs needs, the teacher may want implement the following strategies:

Whole Group Activities:

Student Partner: Often times students who are learning English can benefit from having a partner during group activities. This student partner can help model what the student is supposed to be doing throughout the activity and can also help keep the student focused and engaged. By providing F with a partner for group activities, it may increase his understanding of how he should behave and what he should do through observing and working alongside a partner. This partner should be a student who exemplifies on task behavior and who would be patient in helping model activities for F. Seating Arrangements: To help student F be more engaged in lessons and to allow the teacher to more closely monitor his comprehension during lessons, it may benefit him to be seated closer to the front of the classroom nearer the teacher. This will allow the teacher to keep an eye on how he is performing and access him quickly and easily if he needs additional assistance. Teacher Modeling: Through modeling, the teacher can help F understand activities, assignments, and expectations without the need for verbal communication. Due to Fs lack of comprehension due to the language barrier, his learning is being significantly affected. Through carful teacher modeling, F may be able to increase his understanding of content and tasks and thus be able to increase his participation in learning activities. Getting to Know F: It is always important to have students feel comfortable and accepted amongst their classmates. For F, his language barrier make sit difficult for him to communicate with his peers and share about his interests and life. In order to help him and his peers get acquainted, the teacher may considering asking his parents to send some pictures and short descriptions that F would like to share with his classmates. The teacher can have F come show his classmates his pictures and can read the descriptions for F so that the rest of the class can get to know F, even without speaking his language.

Individual Deskwork: Visual Instructions: Based upon observations of F and knowledge of strategies that benefit English language learners, using visual pictures and queues to deliver instructions in regards to assignments and tasks may increase his comprehension of the teachers expectations. In working with F, he seems to respond well to visual picture symbols. In order to help him better understand instructions for assignments during seated deskwork, it may be beneficial to implement the use of picture symbol instructions.

These could be a set of simple board maker pictures posted on his desk that show what task the student should be completing and roughly how this should be done. These pictures should be simple and easy to follow. An example of this would be, if the teacher is expecting the student to draw a picture of an animal, the teacher might show F a picture of his desk, crayons, and an animal. This will hopefully help F to understand that the teacher wants him to sit at his desk, and use his crayons to draw an animal. Google Translate: A simple and easy way to increase communication with F is to use Google translate to post simple labels around the classroom in Fs native language. By using the Norwegian word and English word in tandem when talking about an item or a place within the classroom, F will hopefully increase his English vocabulary, while also beginning to function and understand more basic classroom tasks. Google translate can also be a great tool for the teacher to use when trying to convey an idea or simple instructions to F.

Transitions: Picture Schedule: After observing F during his first few weeks in the classroom, it is evident that transitions seem to be one of the most apparently stressful and confusing times for F. To help F understand upcoming tasks and better prepare for transitions, it may be helpful for the teacher to create a picture schedule that shows F what activities he can expect throughout the day. This schedule can help the teacher communicate with F in regards to an upcoming transition and help alleviate some of his confusion and anxiety during these times. Wants/Needs chart: One of the biggest struggles F experiences throughout the school day is expressing his basic wants and needs. To help with this, the teacher may want to create a basic want/need chart that uses picture symbols to represent basic phrases, activities, and needs that the student may need to use or express throughout the day. These pictures should clearly depict the want or need and should be accessible to the student at all times. If, for example, the student needs to use the restroom, he simply needs to point to the picture of the bathroom on his Wants/Needs chart and show the teacher. This will help increase communication early on and allow F to express his basic wants and needs before he has learned enough English to communicate these on his own. To reinforce English learning, the teacher can respond to the student indicating his need by verbalizing the need (ex. Bathroom. You need to go to the bathroom).

Familiarity with the School: Have the general education teacher or EL teacher take the time to give F a tour of the school during the early weeks of his arrival at school. Take time to stop at each room or place he may visit throughout the day, say the name in English, and then point to it on the picture schedule to indicate its English name. Model how to ask to go somewhere or what to do if the teacher tells students to go to , then practice following these directions or going through the daily schedule of switching rooms throughout the school. Do this multiple times throughout the week to solidify familiarity with the layout of the school.

Math: Math Manipulative: One benefit of math content is that unlike reading, its application is relatively the same across languages. For this reason, F should be able to complete math activities and assignments if his comprehension of instructions can be increased. Through the use of manipulatives the teacher can explicitly associate spoken and written numbers with specific amounts. This can help F. learn English math related vocabulary, while also helping him continue to progress in math related learning through the use of manipulatives that allow him to show his thinking, rather than verbalize it. Modeled mathematics: By modeling math problems and strategies using manipulatives and written number symbols that F may already be familiar with, the teacher can provide him with purposeful opportunities for him to learn math and participate alongside his peers more appropriately. Using manipulatives and modeling during lessons and individual intervention time, the teacher can hopefully increase Fs comprehension of her expectations and math related concepts.

Language Arts: Although F may not be capable of engaging in reading quite yet, due to his language barrier, the teacher may be able to help him learn and read basic phrases and words during reading practice. The teacher could purposefully design this intervention to focus on words and phrases that are frequently used in the classroom and that would increase Fs understanding of basic classroom tasks. This strategy would not only improve Fs ability to function within the classroom, but would help him to begin hearing and learning to read English written language. At the same time as this is going on, it is important for the teacher to be working with F on learning the basic phonics through intervention. This will provide him with a foundation for reading and help him learn English. Science/Social Studies:

Hands-On Experiments: Involving a student in an active learning opportunity is not only fun, but also a great way to promote engagement and further understanding of concepts. For F, having the opportunity to experience hands-on science and social studies may help him to understand the content at a deeper level and be able to participate in the activity at a higher level. Video Instructions: Using videos to show F what to do for an assignment or experiment may help him to understand expectations without the need for verbal communication. Through using either teacher created videos or resources already available, which depict instructions or task steps through pictures and modeling, F may be able to begin learning science content and completing activities more appropriately.