Case
Not Prepared?

When I was interning, there was a student in second grade who seemed to be in la la land for most of the day. He would wander around the classroom, draw on his desk, and was not prepared or pay attention in many of the lessons. When asked, he would not be able to tell you the last thing the teacher said. The student was the youngest in the class and his teachers felt that he just wasn't developmentally prepared to be in second grade. What can be done in this situation?

Posted on: 04/19/13 | Views: 1352
Solution #1
This could possibly be a situation where the student has some form of ADD or ADHD and has trouble focusing. As a teacher, you can talk to parents and get their input on the child's ability to focus, and try some strategies to motivate him to get work done in class. When students are not focusing in class, it could be for a wide variety of reasons. He may be too smart and be bored with the lessons. I would try to do some sort of testing with the student to see what his academic abilities are, and go from there.

I really like your solution and that you mentioned that it could be something besides a learning disorder.

I agree with your solution, we should always look for the best solutions with our students.

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Solution #2
If you've already tried asking the student multiple times when the problem occurs what they are supposed to be doing, then I would recommend a parent conference as the next step.
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Solution #3
Try a reward system. If the student has a reason to pay attention (they get points or tokens or tickets), they may try harder to pay attention. My sister had this issue with one of her ADHD students. He is an extreme case as he is not on medication right now, but the minute she implemented a reward system that involved daily points for good behavior (and subtraction for bad behavior), that student was much more motivated to try to manage his inattention.
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Solution #4
See what they like to do outside of school and proceed from there. Maybe their interests are not in school.
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Solution #5
Let the students know your expectations at the beginning of the lesson. Lay the ground rules and make sure they know the consequences of misbehaving.
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Solution #6
I would talk to the teacher about this and suggest that she have the student evaluated for an ESE program since it seems that the student is does not possess the skill level to be doing second grade work. You could also suggest the teacher talk to the parents of the student, since they do have the option to hold him back a year since he's younger than the rest of the students in his grade level. No parent ever wants to see their child held back but if he had the potential to be more successful this way, why not!
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