5/22/2019
Topic:
Students with Disabilities
mela striker
|
I had a student this past year who has developmental delays and some intellectual disability. She is in my concert choir and participates wonderfully and enthusiastically! She matches pitch okay, however, she has extremely immature, spread vowel resonance. No matter how much I tried to get her to blend, I couldn't make much progress with her. I spoke with support staff, because I suspect it is related to an actual speech impairment of some type--as it related to resonance and vowel formation. None of the support staff were able to give me more background info--the student's speaking voice was affected as well--she had a very young, bright child-like voice. However, she was not receiving any kind of speech therapy, as it wasn't delayed or affected other than the higher pitched childish quality of the speaking/singing resonance.
Despite my efforts, I wasn't able to achieve a more mature, full resonance with a blended vowel with the student. I haven't had much experience with this type of disability... I was glad she was able to participate--she had no trouble learning/memorizing the music, very competent with solfege and learning rhythms. I didn't have to alter my tier 1 instruction. I did use sectional time to work with her vowels and to try to blend the section, and I use some hand motions of how vowels should look INSIDE the mouth. The student was ALWAYS compliant and attempt everything I asked her to do. I also had her come in during our intervention time to work with her individually--but I didn't notice much in the way of progress as the sound would revert--It seemed to have something to do with her soft palate structure or ability to manipulate it.
edited by mela striker on 5/22/2019 |
5/29/2019
Topic:
Assessment of Learning
mela striker
|
I have ESE students in the classroom. For sightsinging assessments, I use sight reading factory and assign tests that must be recorded and turned in to me. For these students, I can adjust the level, number of measures, and how many attempts they have. I generally see how they're progressing and assign accordingly. I also can choose to assess on the correctness of the solfege syllable versus the pitch is the student doesn't have the ability to match the pitch. I also will sometimes have a section leader partner with them when attempting the assessment so they have a voice to follow with the pitch. If I give extra attempts, I might have the person sing with them the first time, and then encourage them to attempt on their own the next. |