Intern Year

This week I began to take on some more responsibilities. I now teach from the teachers lesson plans on a few of the reading skills groups. I am also still doing written language and math with one student. We began touch math for addition which he seems to be responding to. Its interesting to watch how be begins to count or which number he begins with. I like to see if he remembers where to touch and how many times. Touch math is such a cool idea for kids who have trouble in the area of math. It gives them a visual of what each number means. This student struggles with knowing what number is which so I think next week when I write my own plans I will focus on some number recognition.
This student is also the same student I work with in written language and we have been working on our lower case ABC's. I am seeing great improvement in his ability to recognize the letters. I feel satisfied when I see him learn new letters and be able to recognize them, when before he couldn't. It makes me think I am doing something right.
With this student I am learning how important drill practice is for those basic facts that we think are so easy. Flash cards or some way to math and drill what letter or number we are working with gives them a chance to work on fluency but learn at the same time. Those daily drill practices is how I believe the students will learn a new basic fact. I plan on doing some drill practice with this student when we work on number recognition. I am excited to see how this practice will help him!