Lily's just finished her second week of third grade. It's hard to believe. When she was born the days were so long. Now the days fly by and Lily is growing into a "pre-teen." She's continues to be at the top of her class and gets to sit next to her best friend. Lily loves reading and she pours through books as fast as we can check them out. She is still doing gymnastics and will be starting Girl Scouts and Destination Imagination soon.
Here's Lily's new big IEP goal that covers many topics.
Goal: During discussion of challenging listening or social situations, Lily will use problem solving steps to increase her independence from a baseline of 6 points to 15 points out of 16 point rubric on self-advocacy rubric.
This year, Lily has a new hearing resource teacher who I think will be great. Lots of energy, passion and high expectations for kids with hearing loss. She will check in with Lily for 20 mins a week (3x per month), either in or out of the classroom.
Lily's new third grade teacher seems terrific. She's expressed her openness to learn/collaborate about hearing and said Lily has been helping her remember the FM and captions. She is also pregnant, so hopefully will put all the supports in place with a substitute when she's gone. All great things. Both teachers have indicated things are going well.
Lily continues to wear an FM and her school classrooms all use sound fields. We are also experimenting with a Dynamic, connected to the sound field, inside the classroom and the lunchroom.
Other issues we identified on the IEP that continue to be a focus:
- Helping new teachers know how to use equipment
- Helping subs use the equipment
- Effective small group experiences - use equipment, staying on topic, one person talking at a time, clarification strategies
- Strategies in noisy listening environmnets
- Giving feedback that equipment is being used correctly and consistently
- Social engagement strategies with peers (reading others feedback, greetings, developing best friends)
- Understand how her hearing loss may impact her in a variety of social situations
- Understands characteristics to make or keep friends
- Respects physical space/boundaries of others specifically when trying to hear better.
Another area we have started to focus on is CC or closed captions. When dealing with videos or TV, captions help significantly in understanding the content and have helped Lily to become a super reader. Captions move fast and so your reading practice and speed have to match. They fill in all those words you didn't even know you missed.
This week when Lily's teacher turned on a Kahn Academy video in the classroom, the captions were in Czech. Eventually we figured out how to translate them back into English.
It's all such amazing technology. We just have to stay on top of the various components to make sure they are working seamlessly.
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