As children grow and learn in this society today, there is much competition. As I view the whole child there are many things that can be assessed. However, I feel that we must be careful that we do not over assess. I feel that if you asses you can find something that always need improvement. This is life normality though. As humans we must be challenged to grow and expand.
I believe that hearing and sight need to be a huge assessment. If a child cannot see or hear then of course there will be other situations that arise. Where I am going with this is I really feel that reading and comprehension are important assessments that need to be made. By reviewing, observing and assessing the child on a quarterly time basis, there can be much intervention to assist the child to get the help that he may need to focus on what is needed. Sometimes the issue can be that the child cannot hear correctly or may have a vision issue. Hearing and vision are key points to brain processing.
The measurement of of reading for example, i helped a first grade class twice a week. I took the children in the back of the room individually to pass of site words. It was such a incredible site. Some children could pass them off and others could not. I am not the person to judge or asses, but tot teach and assist these children so they can learn. I would discuss this with the teacher about the children who were struggling. What she had told me was that they were assessed as slow and we just need to do the best we could.
I did some indirect assessments by talking and asking the children some questions. I found out the challenged child was struggling because she was not studying words at home. There was not interaction with mom or dad because they were busy. I asked the teacher if I could pull children in as groups. I cut the site words into separate cards and made it a game and it was amazing to see what happened. At first the child just kept guessing, and I called her on that, next, she felt valued and she was the first to guess the words and we were passing off the words.
By taking a minute and assessing the child as a whole is where sometimes we either do not have time or we forget because of protocol. As i looked at the child as a whole, instead of labeling her as lazy or maybe thinking there was a processing issue, finding that she just did not have any value or worth. Taking time and cheering children on and taking a different approach is allowing the children to be whole as well.I feel that I helped build a child sense of value and that was important. This is why assessment is so important at an early age.
I understand that there are many areas that children are challenged. Here in the United States we are blessed with educators and great developments of inclusion and interventions with different challenges of that the children can succeed. I was interested what developments other countries do with children in other countries. One country that has interested me is Mexico.
I found this article “Autism and Special Education Policy in Mexico”, by John P. Tuman, Danielle Roth-Johnson, Dana Lee Baker, and Jennifer Vecchio.
This article suggests through research that findings suggest that public special education programs have limited coverage, suffer from a lack of resources, and employ teaching methods that may be of questionable efficacy. It reviews different parts of the country where children with Autism can go and get education and intervention. So therefore the children are not getting the intervention, yet are being stereotyped and labeled. Living here in the United States I feel that we sometimes take advantage of what we have. Other countries are not as advanced and put there importance on other issues.
I invite you to read this article and challenge yourself to think in open ways of how we can improve communication and assessment to create value and fairness when it comes to the challenges these children have. Also, to be thankful for where we live and how we need to think twice about judgement and labeling.
“Autism and Special Education Policy in Mexico”, by John P. Tuman, Danielle Roth-Johnson, Dana Lee Baker, and Jennifer Vecchio., retrieved from internet June 7, 2012
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