Classroom talk

I have a student who chooses not to talk in many situations. I have been working with his family to develop strategies to support him at school. I also referred him for speech and language therapy. He was observed this week and her feedback was encouraging.

Slowly during the year I have built a relationship and developed the student's trust. When he started at five years old there was no way of attaining any baseline data from him. So, when I knew his 5.6 testing was coming up I considered ways to support him to get fair and accurate data. I thought about going to his house and assessing him in his environment as I know he speaks confidently at home. Before embarking on this approach I decided to see what assessment I could get from him at school during my classroom release time. Surprisingly, he was able to verbally respond to each assessment I required from him! This meant I was able to report his results back to mum.

I am feeling positive about the progress he is making and recognise the importance of creating a safe environment to support him when speaking in the classroom.

Feedback from the observation was that he looked extremely uncomfortable, anxious and not willing to participate.
I was told that I had a kind and supportive manner with him and that my approach has supported his ability to share his writing back even though it can be difficult to interpret what he is saying.

  • That I need to accept anything he says and not ask him to repeat what he has said.
  • To continue not to pressure him to speak however offer him the same opportunities to speak as the rest of the class. 

It feels like a small win!

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