Lesson Plan for ESE students in preparation for FCAT

     My third grade class I have been interning with are taking the FCAT next week and to say they are anxious is an utter understatement. These kids are horrified of this test. But their teacher has been preparing them for this test since the first day. The following link is a really good and thorough example of how to convey the importance of going back into your passage to find evidence to answer their questions.

                                         http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/4601.html

     The teacher I am with does this with their grammar homework they must complete every night in order to reiterate the concept and make sure that they know that this skill is a must when it comes to comprehension in their reading assessment on the upcoming FCAT. Hopefully, this lesson can be used in one of my future classes to develop my students skills.

Lesson Plan for the little ones

     I am interning in a third class with wide assortment of students from highly gifted to below level including ESE and ESOL students. I have been looking for some type of lesson plan that all of the students could be interested in and would be able to retain all of their interest for a prolonged amount of time. The following link is a link for the lesson plan I would like to use sometime with these students or perhaps my own class once I start teaching.

http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/1321.html

    The teacher I have observed separates each level of students and has them read different books and discuss different aspects of each story. With this lesson plan, I believe all the students, no matter what level they are, could participate and perhaps even working in groups, the students could help each other fully understand the concepts being taught.

FCAT and special needs students

        While I do believe that all students should be assessed on a yearly basis to see if they are obtaining a maximum level of education, I do not believe that the FCAT should be used when it comes to our ESE students. I know that schools obtain a certain amount of money each year as an incentive for teachers to continue to drill and press this information into each students head but when it comes to these specific students, we know that this specific test is not made in a way that will allow our students to show their abilities and shine for the information they have attained through out their education.

     In the article, Parents of Florida students with special needs challenge plans to change state school grading in the Tampa Bay Times discusses the view point of parents who have children with special needs. As they state, "We must inform the State Board of Education that this is unacceptable and needs to be revised. Our children with disabilities will not be wanted in schools, because their grade will affect the school's grade."

    It's unacceptable to ask our students who are special needs to take a state mandated test that even the "normal" population have a difficult time passing. If anyone remembers, several years ago when President Bush passed this bill that mandated state run tests, he couldn't even pass the test.....just saying...

This is the article I based this posting off of: http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/content/parents-florida-students-special-needs-challenge-plans-change-state-school-grading

http://getworksheets.com/samples/lessonplans/specialed.html

         In this sample lesson plan, we would be working with Special education student is preschool and teaching them how to notice items that are the same and items that are different.