I want to tell you a story from this fall. This is my first year as speech pathologist (I just graduated from graduate school in May). I've been busy learning the tricks of the trade, and one of those is learning how to get students motivated. I've also had to learn various strategies for writing, such as the Step-Up to Writing method. One of my students has a goal for writing a 4-6 sentence paragraph with an introduction, conclusion, and at least three details. Well around Thanksgiving time, I wanted this student to write about what he did over the break. I figured it would be a fairly easy prompt for him, especially since he loves food and Thanksgiving is all about food. I gave him the outline, and he quickly wrote an introduction and four details. He needed some prompting for the conclusion sentence, but he was able to create one. When he began transferring it to a paragraph format, he began adding more details with minimum cueing from me. In the end, he had an 11 sentence paragraph. I had promised him some Cheese-Its, so he wrote it for me. It was a breakthrough moment for him because he had never written anything that long before and had never written a narrative. I immediately called his mother to brag about him a little bit. It was in that moment that I realized how important it is to call parents to share positive stories (and not just the negative ones).
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Breakthroughs like that are so exciting! Thanks for sharing your story!
ReplyDeleteYou'll never forget that first "breakthrough"!! You'll have many more in your career, and they will remind you (when you most need it!) that you're in the right profession!
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It's these amazing moments that confirm that we're doing the right thing! I'm so happy you found this moment and that, more importantly, you recognized it and shared it!
ReplyDeleteSharing positive stories with parents is so important! Great story!!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the parent was thrilled that you called to share such a positive moment!
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