There is a moment that every teacher reaches when working with struggling learners. It's that moment when you stop and say, "What else can I do? I've done everything I know to do and yet nothing seems to be helping." As a teacher, it is one of the most helpless feelings. Watching a student struggle and become frustrated or even want to give up is a horrible experience, but it is the reality of what happens when a student continuously "doesn't get it." They eventually do not want to try anymore.
I found myself in this place, once again, with some very sweet, precious, and most importantly hard working students. They were working their little brains to the point of exhaustion every day trying to read. Again and again we would go over our letters and sounds, reading strategies, and sight words. Again and again they would struggle to identify the sight words we had just discussed. We were building our spelling words and breaking them apart every day and yet...nothing seemed to be working. Frustration was setting in for both the students and myself. Something had to be done!
I began to pour over the research about struggling learners and why it can be so hard for them. I was desperately looking for new teaching techniques that might break through whatever it was that was hindering their progress. That's when I came across Child1st Publications. They suggested using a multi-sensory approach with sight words. I had just recently started using this method of teaching with my spelling words and had seen a huge success with my students. I immediately ordered their SnapWords® cards.
These cards offer a visual picture on the front. On the back there are directions with specific language to teach the students along with a motion. The great thing about these cards is that they offer a visual picture within the word. It is not just a picture next to the word it is actually embedded within the word which is basically how you would picture the word in your brain if you were a visual learner.
The fact is, that most of our struggling learners are right-brained thinkers. They think in pictures and so it is easier for them to take in, store, and retrieve information that is visual or associated with movement. I myself am this type of learner and it is extremely frustrating for someone to read something to me. You are truly wasting your time as well as mine. It enters my brain like a jumble of sounds and noises and after a while starts to make my nerves feel jumpy. However, if you show me a picture, teach me a song, or let me see the words visually on paper I can input the information into my brain in a much more organized way. Most struggling learners are right brained thinkers and need to see the WHOLE picture and then examine and break it down into the parts. However, the majority of education teaches strategies that are based around the part-to-whole process. We have to start realizing that for a lot of our struggling learners not only do they not learn this way, but for some they actually can not learn this way.
How do we help our struggling learners? How do we answer the question 'What else can I do?' It starts by looking outside of what we have been trained to do. It extends past the curriculum, instruction methods, and interventions we have been given as a whole to use with our students and involves looking outside the box into the right brained thinking world. It is an impressive world filled with creativity that we can only hope to harness from these amazing little people. They have so much to offer us and it is our job to find a way to help them effectively learn how to communicate across the hemispheres of their wonderfully intelligent brains.
It has been several months since I started using the multi-sensory approach in my classroom and I have seen so much growth in my students who struggle. The excitement I have seen in their eyes as well as the sheer amazement they have had at their ability to recall, instantly, the sight words that were impossible before is priceless! The most important thing they are learning, through this process, is that you can NEVER give up! So when you reach the point where you feel like you have done everything and nothing is working please...don't give up on them.
~Liz
I found myself in this place, once again, with some very sweet, precious, and most importantly hard working students. They were working their little brains to the point of exhaustion every day trying to read. Again and again we would go over our letters and sounds, reading strategies, and sight words. Again and again they would struggle to identify the sight words we had just discussed. We were building our spelling words and breaking them apart every day and yet...nothing seemed to be working. Frustration was setting in for both the students and myself. Something had to be done!
I began to pour over the research about struggling learners and why it can be so hard for them. I was desperately looking for new teaching techniques that might break through whatever it was that was hindering their progress. That's when I came across Child1st Publications. They suggested using a multi-sensory approach with sight words. I had just recently started using this method of teaching with my spelling words and had seen a huge success with my students. I immediately ordered their SnapWords® cards.
The fact is, that most of our struggling learners are right-brained thinkers. They think in pictures and so it is easier for them to take in, store, and retrieve information that is visual or associated with movement. I myself am this type of learner and it is extremely frustrating for someone to read something to me. You are truly wasting your time as well as mine. It enters my brain like a jumble of sounds and noises and after a while starts to make my nerves feel jumpy. However, if you show me a picture, teach me a song, or let me see the words visually on paper I can input the information into my brain in a much more organized way. Most struggling learners are right brained thinkers and need to see the WHOLE picture and then examine and break it down into the parts. However, the majority of education teaches strategies that are based around the part-to-whole process. We have to start realizing that for a lot of our struggling learners not only do they not learn this way, but for some they actually can not learn this way.
How do we help our struggling learners? How do we answer the question 'What else can I do?' It starts by looking outside of what we have been trained to do. It extends past the curriculum, instruction methods, and interventions we have been given as a whole to use with our students and involves looking outside the box into the right brained thinking world. It is an impressive world filled with creativity that we can only hope to harness from these amazing little people. They have so much to offer us and it is our job to find a way to help them effectively learn how to communicate across the hemispheres of their wonderfully intelligent brains.
It has been several months since I started using the multi-sensory approach in my classroom and I have seen so much growth in my students who struggle. The excitement I have seen in their eyes as well as the sheer amazement they have had at their ability to recall, instantly, the sight words that were impossible before is priceless! The most important thing they are learning, through this process, is that you can NEVER give up! So when you reach the point where you feel like you have done everything and nothing is working please...don't give up on them.
~Liz
Fantastic post, Liz! What a testimony to our struggle as teachers to do everything we can for kids. We must keep learning ourselves in order to find what works for specific kids.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bethany!
ReplyDelete