What are your kindergarten students like? Academically? I am a mainstream k teacher with a student who has the mentality and maturity of a three year old. She does not know her colors, cannot speak in sentences, cannot understand what I am saying to her, is disengaged the whole day and has to be shadowed all day. Our school is very small so we have a spec ed teacher that only comes twice a week. Where should I start with her in terms of testing? Is there any way she would be considered for something? I've never had a student like this before. We've been working on the letter A with her for three weeks and she still cannot identify it. I finally moved onto to the next letter because I can't get stuck on one letter. She only knows red and yellow consistently, even after working on her colors since the beginning of the school year. This student first language is English.
She sounds lower than three. I used to work with the three year old class at church, and they knew colors, listened, and spoke in sentences. Nothing in the SED world gets done without documentation. Start documenting.
Talk to the parent and address your concerns. Hopefully, they can tell you something. If they have any concerns have they addressed them with their child's doctor? Any changes in the child's life? Birth of a younger sibling? Did the child go to preschool? As for letters, focus on the letters in her name. Focus on the beginning sound of her name. Encourage her to speak in complete sentences. What is her articulation like? I'm guessing that her pencil grip isn't correct either. Think easel painting, tweezers in sand, playdough. Writing on paper without lines. Like Ima said document, document, document. How are you modifying? Keep copies of her work. Any benchmark tests that you do. Make sure you bring her to the admin's attention and the spec ed people ASAP. Even if they don't do anything yet, as least they will be aware of her & your concerns.
Her articulation is very poor. She slurs her words as she talks. I had the speech therapist screen her but she said that this student doesn't have any letter sound issues, she is just unable to speak clearly and in complete sentences. Also, she has a difficult time understanding the English language. For example, the speech therapist asked her "What does a duck say?" The student said "Duck." The speech therapist then gave her examples: "Cows say moo, cats say meow..." Then she asked her again. The student still said "Duck." In class, we were talking about things we are all good at such as running, swimming, coloring. All of the students could answer what they were good at. When I asked this students, she was unable to answer. She didn't understand. So, it is frustrating because she cannot understand most of what I am teaching. She goes to RTI everyday but is still not retaining anything. I forgot to mention that she is a young kindergartner. She turned five today. I was discussing with our principal about having this year just kind of be like a Transitional K year and then give her another chance next year. So, she will be with me for two years. However, I still have to grade her as a kindergartner, not a TK because that will show why she needs to be retained.
So the speech teacher only screened her for articulation? I would think not being able to understand the question may be a receptive issue, something that a speech therapist would work on. It also sounds like there is a delay.
The speech teacher should be able to work with her language delay after testing. If she can't get the articulation test done due to the language delay, then she should TEST HER FOR THAT LANGUAGE delay and serve her for that delay if you can't get the SPE teacher out there.
The speech teacher should not just be looking at articulation and speech sounds, she should be screening for receptive language and comprehension. My district would want me to start tier II for behavior and academics and possibly ask for psych eval and IQ testing.
The slurring could be motoric in nature, which is still something that the SLP can and should work on. They should do a receptive language screening at the least.
Thank you all for your very helpful advice! I also didn't agree with the speech therapist saying she did not need speech. I am going to talk to her tomorrow. She only comes once a week. The spec ed teacher is going to give her a kindergarten readiness assessment and the school psychologist (also only comes once a week but is on maternity leave) is coming next week to observe. Next week is also parent teacher conferences so I will have a lot to talk about with the parents. Like I mentioned before, our school is very small so we do not have all of these services readily available to us. What's strange is this student has decent motor skills. She can hold a pencil, cut, paste, trace, and color like an average kindergartner. It's just her not being able to retain anything we do in class and communicating.
As a diagnostician, Kindergarteners are the hardest to diagnose. It's hard to differentiate a cognitive delay and lack of adequate exposure to content. Hopefully the kid can get into special education as a student with a speech impairment, go through progress monitoring then if progress isn't being made, eligibility can be changed to meet the child's need.
It sounds like there are definite language delays, at minimum. Your SLP should have recognized this..... However, you or the parents may need to refer the student for language testing in order to have anything official done. Speech screenings and language testing are two entirely different things. As has been mentioned, document everything.
Has the student been identified as a special ed student? If so, a case manager should be able to help you with modifications. Don't assume that the student is disengaged from your teaching. The difference between students who have been mainstreamed all their school career and students who have been in special ed full time are night and day when they get to me in HS. The student is benefitting, even though it might not look like it to you!
a2z, I worded that wrong. What I meant is when I get a student who is that low, they also are low across the board which includes motor skills. I was just pleasantly surprised that's all. So I went to the speech therapist today and asked her to give her a language screening. The speech therapist gave her what she was allowed. She couldn't do much without parent consent. But, she gave her a screening and the results show that she has a major language delay. She has the language of a three and a half year old. She's five. So, she now qualifies for speech and she will get an IEP so I guess we're on the right path. I'm glad I read all of your replies so I could explain to the speech therapist why I think this student needs these services. I am going to see about getting parental consent on IQ test and psych eval. However, I'm wondering if I should ask for these tests if I'm going to have her next year anyway. Should I wait until next year?
It's difficult to have a kindergartner identified as special ed like kevo2005 mentioned. If she is still like this next year, then yes, I believe she would qualify.
