Week 13 Bode

          This is a piece of work from one of my low level students. We were working on patterns and I was trying to work with her to help her complete this worksheet but not help too much because I wanted to see what she could do on her own. This first grader in my class often needs a lot of support and normally goes to the reading interventionist who also works with students on math. The students were asked to use the shape templates to draw what comes next in these patterns. Even using the pattern shape templates she had a hard time tracing and figuring out which way the triangle would go for the first couple problems. I don't know if it was the template that made her confused as to which was the triangle should go but maybe this is a sign that the template hinders some children's understanding of what comes next in a pattern because they need to visualize it without a template. Once it was explained to her by me that we need to look at the pattern and right what comes next like "the triangle points up, then down, then up, then down, what comes next?" I think her hearing the pattern helped her recognize it. It was the same for the next two problems, I read the patterns out loud again so that she could hear the pattern and continue it. In problem where it says make up your own she seems to start off knowing how to do a pattern but tries to add a new shape which tells me she's not quite sure how to make her own pattern. She does a triangle, parallelogram, a rhombus then another parallelogram when it is supposed to be a triangle. so it looks as though she was trying to make a pattern with the three shapes but confused the order of the pattern.
          One solution would be to have her read the patterns and tell it to me out loud instead of me reading it to her. This way she is engaging herself in the work and understanding the pattern as she reads it herself. If she can read out loud what the pattern looks like then I think that will be able to help her stay focused on the task because she's explaining it to someone and also hearing the pattern and if there is a mistake present. Another solution that I think will be helpful to her is giving her multiple examples of patterns that are true patterns and then ones that aren't and she has to identify what they are. By doing this she can start to see and explain to herself why a pattern would work and then why it wouldn't. After having her see completed patterns, have her add on to them so that she can get practice in finishing the patterns. Once she has practiced finishing the patterns and said them out loud to correct herself I want her to try to make one up again. Then have another student help her determine if it's a true pattern or not so that the little girl can correct her work. A lot of work should be done to help this little girl understand and create her own patterns!