Submitted by twinkie1cat (not verified) on June 19, 2007 - 19:04.
I am a severe/profound teacher, the least able end of special education. I have found that my students, the ones you would expect to forget most easily, don't. That is they don't forget if they have MASTERED A SKILL. If they have just barely acquired a skill and it is not yet something with which they are comfortable, they will definitely forget. However, if they really know something, it stays.
Schools try to teach too much at one time. They rush on to the next objective before the prerequisite is firmly entrenched---multiplication with two digits before the child is comfortable with one digit, for example. This is probably because administrators are pushing to "cover the curriculum" whether the students are ready or not.
And by the time the slower ones are in the 4th grade and the high stakes testing comes along and they have to write an essay when they cannot write a sentence with correct grammar, they are hopelessly behind, discouraged, and have lost interest in learning. Then you get a whole different batch of problems.
Ok, I teach functional skills. I was teaching a "vanilla" severe child (no concurrent motor or sensory problems. He was just very slow.) to wash clothes. School ended in May. He knew about 1/2 of the steps when he left. The first week of school when he came back, I took him across the hall to wash clothes. He could do exactly what he had done in May! He even remembered that the detergent was not to be put in his mouth! Now if a child with an IQ around 25 can remember what he has really learned, a child of normal intelligence can do the same thing. It is all about how they are taught and not trying to build skills until the prerequisites been learned.
Preventing Learning Loss
Submitted by twinkie1cat (not verified) on June 19, 2007 - 19:04.
I am a severe/profound teacher, the least able end of special education. I have found that my students, the ones you would expect to forget most easily, don't. That is they don't forget if they have MASTERED A SKILL. If they have just barely acquired a skill and it is not yet something with which they are comfortable, they will definitely forget. However, if they really know something, it stays.
Schools try to teach too much at one time. They rush on to the next objective before the prerequisite is firmly entrenched---multiplication with two digits before the child is comfortable with one digit, for example. This is probably because administrators are pushing to "cover the curriculum" whether the students are ready or not.
And by the time the slower ones are in the 4th grade and the high stakes testing comes along and they have to write an essay when they cannot write a sentence with correct grammar, they are hopelessly behind, discouraged, and have lost interest in learning. Then you get a whole different batch of problems.
Ok, I teach functional skills. I was teaching a "vanilla" severe child (no concurrent motor or sensory problems. He was just very slow.) to wash clothes. School ended in May. He knew about 1/2 of the steps when he left. The first week of school when he came back, I took him across the hall to wash clothes. He could do exactly what he had done in May! He even remembered that the detergent was not to be put in his mouth! Now if a child with an IQ around 25 can remember what he has really learned, a child of normal intelligence can do the same thing. It is all about how they are taught and not trying to build skills until the prerequisites been learned.