Whitney: A Very Special Student

Wethersfield High School, Wethersfield, Connecticut

July 1997

A shining example of the power behind sound special education instruction lies in the success story of a 1997 high school graduate named Whitney. Her story is not unique, yet it serves as a powerful example of how proven special services can change the course of life for a student with language based learning disablities.

Whitney entered Wethersfield High School with typical attributes of a teenage special needs student. Her behaviors illustrated her low self-esteem and lack of intrinsic motivation. She displayed weak organizational and study skill development. Her grades in her low track English course were in the D to F range. Whitney's test grades in all subject areas were low despite her perceptions that she studied long and hard during exam preparation. She attributed an occasional high test grade to luck or to teacher error in test correction. Whitney was a passive learner who believed that she had little control over her school performance. By the end of the first quarter of her freshman year, Whitney began to demonstrate avoidance behaviors such as irregular homework completion and fewer study attempts for test preparation. She turned to her strengths in peer socialization to find solace and a sense of self-worth. Learning became a less important reason for school attendance.

What turned Whitney around and helped her become an impassioned, independent learner? For her, the answer was found inher special education program. Whitney's holistic program offered her direct instruction t develop her skills and learning strategies while supporting her need for modifications in the general education setting. Most importantly, this process was completed without watering down her curriculum and without imposing substandard student performance expectations. In fact, academic standards were raised consistently over four years as Whitney moved up in tracked courses and as fewer accommodations were implemented over time.

In the spirit of what special education services are meant to provide, Whitney's program offered a carefully planned and implemented curriculum which was suited to her individual needs. The instructional process and curriculum of the Resource Room program incorporated learning elements into Whitney's plan that could not be provided in the general education setting due to large student numbers and teacher needs to address group rather than individual needs.

Whitney's program relied heavily on a specialized SIM Learning Strategies curriculum. As Whitney learned these strategies in a controlled Resource Room setting, she began to build a reprtoire of skills that she could apply over a variety of school and home environments. An early strategy Whitney learned was  taught in response to her failing test grades on weekly English vocabulary tests. Whitney had tremendous difficulty mastering definitions and recalling definitions for tests. She learned the LINCs Vocabulary Strategy over two weeks in the Resource Room. After she mastered the strategy, she earned and A or B on every vocabulary test for the remainder of the school year.This strategy offered Whitney a source of immediate and long-lasting school success. She learned to apply this strategy for vocabulary test components in other subject areas, and her grades improved in all areas. Whitney's English teacher was stunned by Whitney's first "strategic attempt" at this process. The teacher's admitted initial reaction was to think that Whitney might have cheated on the test. As Whitney performed consistently each week, the teacher asked to learn the strategy so that other low-achieving students in the class might benefit from the process. Whitney taught the strategy to her regular education peers in that class and acted as a mentor strategist to her English teacher thought the remainder of the school year.

Whitney learned many SIM Writing Strategies over four years and found much success in developing her skills though individualized instruction and feedback.As a freshman, her writing was characterized by inadequately developed ideas, lack of organization, no paragraph formations, sentence fragments, and weak mechanical development. Whitney learned specific strategies to address each of these areas, and her progress was reevaluated in each area over four years though her mainstream class exhibits. By graduation, Whitney wrote a college admissions essay that was sound in idea development, sentence, paragraph and theme organization, voice, word choice and mechanics.

Whitney's successes came though the development of intrinsic motivation; she began to feel good about herself as a student and ultimately was empowered. This evolutionary process was accomplished because her progress was continually monitored and evaluated over four years. As a student with special needs, Whitney truly required an individualized educational program that ensured specialized implementation. The following aspects of Whitney's special education program made the difference in her development as a successful and independent student:

  • Continual teacher modeling of internal thought processes and use of metacognitive skills
  • Student goal setting for immediate, short=term and long=term goals
  • Less stress on grades and more focus on personal benefits from successes
  • Use of performance=based standards rather than grading systems in the resource settin
  • Provision of optimally challenging tasks that created a sense of accomplishment and pride
  • Support as she wanted to move up in levels to meet new academic challenges despite teacher recommendation based solely on grade averages
  • Student choice of modification s based on her experiences and student monitoring of effectiveness of classroom modification by reviewing and discussing her unique needs in each classroom setting
  • Allowing student partnership in deciding IEP goals
  • Providing and atmosphere for risk-taking
  • Encouraging Whitney to act as a self-advocate
  • Expecting student charting of own progress
  • Use of appropriate feedback procedures that stressed Whitney's specific task accomplishments, ongoing learning needs, and clear expectations for future performances; eliminating use of generic, non-meaningful praise
  • Ensuring that Whitney could identify some level of personal success in each class every day.

Whitney became a true leader and role model at Wethersfield High School She moved up in tracked courses to average and high levels and became an honor roll student. She joined many clubs and received awards for her extraordinary accomplishments.Whitney will attend a state college this fall. She is working to become a special education teacher.

-Rosemary Tralli

Special Education Teacher

Wethersfield High School

Wethersfield, Connecticut

July, 1997