Saturday, June 28, 2008

This is really cool!

Make your own worksheets and then print them off!!

http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/

Jess

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Merrolee's Blog

Hey check out Merrolee's Blog! Its alot more developed than ours but ours will get there :)
The link is listed..

Jess

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Hi everyone - just added another element to the page called "Useful links/blogs/web pages to check out"
Thought we could get a list going so we can all have a good share interesting sites we find that others might want to check out

Jess

Monday, June 23, 2008

Handwriting assesment protocol

The Can Child website (www.canchild.ca) has a new handwriting assessment protocol which is free to download. Just look in the area for service providers and researchers – it is at the top of the list of announcements on the right side of the page.

moderate contract

has anyone heard what is happening in terms of if the budget has allowed more children onto the contract and whether moderate contract will accept ASD children? So glad i finally got on to this site. has anyone posted their assignments yet?

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Hi - I sometimes get people writing to me asking for ideas for there practice this is one conversation I have had. I thought I'd post it, and then we could discuss it together. For today I'll just post it, then I come back later in a day or two and reflect on what I said and my reasoning behind it.

This first bit is what some on emailed me......
I have another one of those children I need you help with this 6 year old won't make it onto our case load he has a diagnosis of ADHD.???. he is a neat kid..one of those children born at 26 weeks so always been behind.. great family and classroom teacher they have some teacher aide time for him.. he is a classic in that he can't focus very long very superficial thinking not really able to perservere and consolidate his learning .. you can see he wants to try and get on with it very directable back onto task but so distractable......... He does not yet know all the alphabet but can copy the leters not too bad he is one of those kids who no doubt is spending all his time just thinking how to draw the letter and can't move no spelling/expressing ideas.. I don't think he has a big cognitive delay but his learning is very affected by his inability to sustain attention.. So what can I suggest i don't just want to say he doesn't meet our criteria and do nothing...

This boy like dinosaurs & tanks wondered if I could some how link a topic such as this that he really likes to his hand writing. Any idea where you can get resources with the alphabet if there is such a thing eg.. Army tank shaped letters of the alphabet?? any quick ideas you have would be great.

Then this is what I answered....
Hi - off the top of my head, I'm thinking that giving him and the key people in his life some knowledge around attention , how it develops and how it is so important to memory would be information that they could then apply through out his learning career. In particular the use of chunking and using association.
Then find out which letters he doesn't know and only target these within handwriting, TA time. Go for three at a time, anything that is a tall letter call a dinasour letter, anything that is short like e or n call a tank letter, then come up something important to him that could be used for letters that go under the line. Then encourage someone to do a search on clip art to find a shape of a dinasaour tank etc. Then the TA could either shrink the pictures and he writes inside them for example he has a worksheet with a line of tanks a line of dinosaurs etc, blocked practice, starting dots could be inside the spaces, tracing moving to independent forming etc. Then a line of tank , dinosaurs, etc. With the teaching asking him questions like " dinosaurs are tall, today we learnt three letters which letter was tall ? Is h tall ? What is tallest a dinosaur or a tank? Where would h fit best as a tank letter or a dinosaurs letter? This way you would assist his memory by chunking letters into three groups dinosaurs tanks and submarines (?). Finish the lesson with him writing a basic sight word that used some of these letters. e.g he. Get him to sight read the word he and move on learning to spell it. Get the TA to write the word on his hand, through out the day mum and dad and the teacher ask him to read the word to them and to say what the letters are. Varying the question, either the letters or reading so that he truely has to think of the answer not just rote learn without processing it. The next day encourage the child through prompting questions to tell as much about the lesson as he can remember. Get him to practice accessing his memory.

Rita

Note this moving between tanks and dinosaurs and letters takes divided attention and may be a challenge, however it is a skill he needs to learn.........

Friday, June 20, 2008

How could we use this blog?

Hi everyone

Ive been giving some thought to how we could use the blog other than just to keep in contact.
I think i would be useful to post questions regarding practice or reflect on practice that is more than "in action reflection". In action refection is what we think about when we are puzzling over what to do, and it is also useful to reflect on why we did something in practice and how we could do it different next time. Having a blog helpful when you can puzzle over or query ideas to do with simple or complex problems - it can really expland you thinking and get other peoples input along the way.

Does everyone think it would be helpful to post questions to get other peoples point of view on a scenario or case study? It would not only help you to get a broader set of ideas, but it would help others to think about what they would do in that situation.

Just an idea

Jess

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Assignments

Hi - well my part of the paper is done I have marked all the assignments and have sent them off for moderation. Overall the scores were high, more A's than usual for a postgrad paper, however I may have been a tad bais in my marking!!! This is all I'll write for now as I'm still learning my way around the blog experience. Rita

Monday, June 16, 2008

George

Hi Jess :)

Looks like it is working :)

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Welcome everyone

Hey Guys

Set this up initially to see what you think of using a blog - i realise not everyone will be interested - however for those who are - choice!!

So how does everyone feel now the course is over?? Im a bit lost - having handed in 4 assignments!! but i have another one in 2nd semester..Anyone else doing the AMPS course??

What things from the course have been useful for practice??

Jess