sk
11-08-2004, 06:56 PM
This will be the month for Community Diagnostic Clinics. Abaco Rotary has linked with the Every Child Counts special education and literacy program to help us provide a series of Community Clinics like those we have provided in outlying communities like Sandy Point and Cooperstown in the past. The Clinicians swarm into a school, we linked certified with those who are working toward certification, set up testing stations and test our little hearts out. Very often we test upwards of 50 children, depending on how many Clinicians can come. These are rewarding days as concerned parents and teachers cast anxious glances as we review their child's reading progress or needs.
Reports are written and (with the parent's permission) are given to the child's teacher or tutor, outlining the student's needs and providing strategies for intervention.
I will go over Thursday morning and will be settled at Central Abaco Primary. Several students have been referred from there and I will test as many as I can on Thursday and Friday.
Thursday and Friday nights we will do extended (updating) training. I'm brining in the polar ends of the battery -- clusters of evaluations for the very young emergent readers and others for the older academically struggling students. After they all leave and I'm left with the quiet peacefulness of the Convent (ECC Learning Centre), I will evaluate the work of the Clinician hopefuls as 10 or more anxiously wend their way to the end of the certification process.
The actual Community Clinic will be held at St. Francis, although I heard they were badly hit, so we may be relocated. The idea of the link with Rotary is to screen all second graders so any reading problems can be detected early. Intervention that is provided before the problem deepens helps a lot more than if you try to fix things that have been going on for years. Years of failure tend to debilitate. It's hard to convince a child s/he can learn when they have had daily proof for years that s/he has not.
Special heart-felt thanks to Pedro Garcia (one of the ECC Board members) and Fletcher Schiller who brought over Janet's physical therapy equipment and a thousand pounds of boxes of teaching materials and books. I know, I know, I promised Carl "no more book shipments," but.... how can you not when Abaco was hit by not one but TWO hurricanes back to back. I've heard that at least two of the schools may not open for the rest of the year, but I don't want to repeat hearsay and will know more once I'm there.
Reminder: We still need lots of used tennis balls. Several people brought/send some over, but more are needed to cover the metal chair leg bottoms to ease the crunch (and screech) on the tile floors.
Reports are written and (with the parent's permission) are given to the child's teacher or tutor, outlining the student's needs and providing strategies for intervention.
I will go over Thursday morning and will be settled at Central Abaco Primary. Several students have been referred from there and I will test as many as I can on Thursday and Friday.
Thursday and Friday nights we will do extended (updating) training. I'm brining in the polar ends of the battery -- clusters of evaluations for the very young emergent readers and others for the older academically struggling students. After they all leave and I'm left with the quiet peacefulness of the Convent (ECC Learning Centre), I will evaluate the work of the Clinician hopefuls as 10 or more anxiously wend their way to the end of the certification process.
The actual Community Clinic will be held at St. Francis, although I heard they were badly hit, so we may be relocated. The idea of the link with Rotary is to screen all second graders so any reading problems can be detected early. Intervention that is provided before the problem deepens helps a lot more than if you try to fix things that have been going on for years. Years of failure tend to debilitate. It's hard to convince a child s/he can learn when they have had daily proof for years that s/he has not.
Special heart-felt thanks to Pedro Garcia (one of the ECC Board members) and Fletcher Schiller who brought over Janet's physical therapy equipment and a thousand pounds of boxes of teaching materials and books. I know, I know, I promised Carl "no more book shipments," but.... how can you not when Abaco was hit by not one but TWO hurricanes back to back. I've heard that at least two of the schools may not open for the rest of the year, but I don't want to repeat hearsay and will know more once I'm there.
Reminder: We still need lots of used tennis balls. Several people brought/send some over, but more are needed to cover the metal chair leg bottoms to ease the crunch (and screech) on the tile floors.