Reflection on article 6

As I was reading this chapter, it dawned on me that I kind of started out this year in my new class room, almost the same way. It's my first year to teach SPED. I teach second and third graders English and language, and fourth and fifth graders, math. In the beginning of the year, I was given the lesson the my students were suppose to start with, but I had to do my own assessment to find out how much they knew and and where they were at. I tried to follow what was given to me but I had to test each student individually to see exactly where they were at. As Maria did with her students, I did the something similar to what she did. For example, I started my reading students on reading mastery level two, lesson one. As I was moving on to the next chapter, I noticed that out of my 5 students, two were on task, one did not comprehend, one was autistic and couldn't read, and the other one has ADHD and wasn't paying attention. That was a mistake when the D.I. coordinators expected me to start everyone on the same lesson at the same time. Well, as time progressed, I separated my students into two groups. I wish I could have done a "mind mapping" with my students. It would have made things go a little smoother in my class. Now that I have finally separated my students into two groups, I'm able to progress faster with the one group that can do more than one lesson a day. My student that has ADHD is not in a group anymore and has a one to one who focuses on life skills. If I am given the chance to work with SPED students next year, I will tell the coordinators of D.I. that I will do my own assessment and do my own "mind mapping" before I start them on any program. As Maria had done with her students, I would like to do the same strategy.