What Are Your Deficits?
Do you have any deficits? Are you proficient in structuring your day and being on time to everything with your work always completed? As educators, we typically focus on reading and math when identifying skills gaps or deficits. We are taught when students have deficits in these areas, we should assess, interpret and develop an intervention. However, when students have deficits in other areas such as organization, time management, or even “appropriate school behaviors,” we tend to skip the interventions and focus more on punishment or taking something away from the students such as recess, “Fun Friday,” etc.
I have also heard statements such as:
Joe is in 5th grade now and should know how to keep track of his assignments.
Sally has been using google classroom for years and should know where her homework and class assignments are.
How do we support Joe and Sally with an intervention instead of punishment? Instead, how do we find out whether this is a deficit or behavior? When we go back to the student who is struggling with comprehension and assess, we may find that the student is just rushing through the assignment too fast and missing key points. Now that the true issue is identified, one intervention would be to have the student slow down and take their time, ensuring to read and reread. This same student may need some prompting along the way to make sure they are taking these steps, but the punishment shouldn’t be part of the initial outcome.
When a student continues to struggle with things like day-to-day readiness in the form of understanding their assignment notebook or assignments and homework within google classroom, have we assessed or reviewed why this keeps occurring? Can we move past the idea that students should have a specific skill by this age and work on finding a way to develop the skill? The student will benefit in the long run. I have worked with some of the brightest students, but they work so hard at staying focused in the moment, that they don’t always process what is due the next day or what they should complete first. This takes time to develop.
Let’s support all our students!
#standreadytosupport
