Child Study
Cynthia Machol
ED603 – Human Growth & Development
University of New Haven
March 28, 2011

Introduction As a future teacher it is important to be able to understand the physical, cognitive, and emotional changes that students are going through. Teachers must be versed in the basis of all areas of development. Teachers have a huge responsibility to give their students a positive, enlightening classroom in which they can blossom physically, cognitively, and emotionally. A teacher that understands their students’ physical development may find it easier to identify a possible cause to a problem a child is having in school. Understanding the stages of cognitive development is of the utmost importance. Knowing a child’s starting point is essential for a teacher so they can plan the right way to help move the child through their zone of proximal development. It is a teacher’s job to promote thinking abilities in their students. By asking higher order questions a teacher will help in their cognitive development. A child’s development of personality and self-esteem is important to not only their schooling, but in their whole life. A teacher can help their students establish this personality and give them multiple ways to develop their sense of self. My purpose in this child study is to be able to analyze an individual child’s physical, emotional, and cognitive development and determine how the changes she is going through will affect her learning and behavior. Making my decision on which child to study was not an easy one. I sat with Kimberly Mach, a sixth grade language arts teacher at Memorial Middle School who has become a mentor for me in my internship. We discussed the child study project and the specifics it would entail. We discussed several students that could be used in this study; all of the choices were middle-level, average students, that Mrs. Mach felt would be appropriate. Mrs. Mach felt that the student I chose would be the perfect choice because she is a hard worker, always strives to do her best, and will use the teacher’s comments to help build her skills and improve her work. She is consistently a “B” average student, but according to Mrs. Mach she just can’t quite “get there”, but she’s very close. These sentiments were later echoed by the sixth grade social studies teacher when he heard about the project. His exact words were “oh yes, she’s definitely the perfect choice”. With the help of her teachers, our hopes are to see how we can prevent a student like her from falling through the cracks and getting lost in the shuffle. Her teachers would like her to become an A-B student in the higher grades but they worry that as she gets older her popularity and dependence on her friends may hinder the learning process without proper guidance.
Student Background My student is a twelve year old sixth grader at Memorial Middle School. She is extremely proud of her Italian-American heritage and takes every opportunity she can to talk about her “crazy Italian family”. In various projects she has spoken about her Italian grandmother’s homemade biscuits and how whenever she makes them it is a family bonding experience because her and her sisters get to help. Her parents are divorced and she lives full-time with her father and stepmother in Durham during the week. Her weekends are spent with her mother in East Haven. Neither of her parents have a college education, but her mother went to trade school for hairdressing, which is currently what she does for a living. She has three sisters, two older and one younger, and she tries to spend as much time with them as possible. She looks up to and admires her oldest sister who is a psychology major in college. One of her goals is “to be smart” like her sister. She attends a Catholic church with her mother and sisters every Sunday, but she doesn’t consider herself to be religious. She loves soccer and plays on an extracurricular league along with her sisters. Her entire family will play soccer together and it is a big part of her life. She is popular in school and has her first boyfriend. She appears to be well-rounded and very well-adjusted. She is enthusiastic about her life and her future and she has defined goals and dreams of who she wants to be as an adult. When I approached her about this project she was very excited that I would choose her but couldn’t understand why since “there has to be many more interesting kids in this school”. Even though she is popular in her group of friends, she can be considered an introvert, but she is far from shy.
Literature Review Twelve year olds are at a crucial stage in development. They are right in between Piaget’s concrete operation and formal operational stages. As children enter Piaget’s formal operational stage they develop the “capacity for abstract, systematic, and scientific thinking” (Berk, 2010). Formal operations children become capable of thinking hypothetically. Most middle school curricula are geared towards formal operational thinking, but many students are still in the concrete operational stage at age twelve. “When students cannot think abstractly, they revert to memorizing what they can, or, in frustration, give up altogether” (Soares, 2010). Children benefit from the experience of being able to interact with a more knowledgeable peer or adult. These interactions help them move through their zone of proximal development. The zone of proximal development is a “range of tasks that an individual cannot yet do alone but can accomplish when assisted by the guidance of others” (Soares, 2010). For a student with dyslexia, it is harder for them to move through this zone as well as being able to move through Piaget’s stages of development. Dyslexia is often misunderstood as simply a disease where a child has a problem with spelling or reversing letters, but the language difficulties are much deeper than that. Dyslexia is a learning disability that “stymies the acquisition and processing of language, a condition that hinders not only reading and comprehension, but also oral and written expression” (Anonymous, 2010). Proficient reading is essential for students to be able to move through the school years, in all subjects, not just reading and writing. “A dyslexic child who finds the acquisition of these literacy skills difficult can also suffer a lot of anguish and trauma when they may feel mentally abused by their peers within the school environment” (Hodge, 2000). Providing a positive learning environment will make the dyslexic child comfortable and help to develop confidence in their learning ability.
Methods
For my case study I used a combination of methods in my observations. I kept an anecdotal record of my observations in a notebook that I carried with me every day during my internship. In this notebook I wrote not only what I observed, but also my notes and comments about the student. I observed the student from without intervening, expect in the case of the student interview. She had no idea I was in class to observe her so I was able to watch her reactions to others and the way she worked without her feeling any pressure to behave in a certain way. I also made note of conversations that I had with the student in passing or other times when she struck up a conversation with me.
Environmental Observation Community. For my community observation I strayed from my usual route to and from my internship and took an afternoon to drive around Durham. I took about two hours driving through the small town. I chose to visit the local grocery store and library and made notes along the way. I also made a stop at Carmine’s, which is a pizza restaurant that seems to be very popular with the students in my school. As part of my community observation I did some research on the internet about the town of Durham and its demographics.
My student spends her weekends in East Haven with her mother. I did not have the opportunity to visit East Haven, but I did live there and know from experience that the setting is much different than Durham. East Haven can be considered an urban city, but on a smaller scale than the towns of New Haven and Bridgeport which are nearby. Some areas are nicer than others; it depends on how close to the Branford line you are in the city. There are several chain stores, grocery stores, and fast food restaurants throughout the city. School. I have been interning at Memorial Middle School since the beginning of the school year and I am very familiar with the building and its staff. This was by far the easiest observation because of my existing familiarity. I did make notes of specific features in classrooms and talked to several teachers about the school itself. I also researched CMT data and student demographics on the internet and used this as part of my observation. Academic. I observed my student during a forty minute English lesson. My presence in the classroom went rather unnoticed as the students are used to seeing me throughout the day. I made notes about the lesson length, lesson type, and student interactions throughout the class. The class took place right before lunch. I chose to observe this class because I am acquainted with the teacher and the material they are working on.
Social Observation My social observations occurred during lunch, recess, and in between classes in the hallways. Unfortunately, I was unable to observe her in an after-school setting because she does not participate in any clubs and the only sport she plays takes place off of school property. I observed her at lunch for the entire time, approximately twenty-five minutes, and at recess for the whole time as well, approximately ten minutes. The hallway observations were spontaneous and were often observed in passing. I did not make any formal notes during these observations, but I did record my findings after they occurred.
Student Work Analysis With the help of her language arts teacher, I gathered writing samples from the beginning of the school year. I chose to analyze her writing work because it is in my content area and it is the part of language arts that she is the most comfortable with. Not every piece is graded, but there is a good mix of papers that I am able to analyze for the student’s growth, or lack of growth.
Student Interview After obtaining parental consent for the interview I set this up with Kristy to occur during a tutorial period. We sat in the conference room and I recorded the interview on a hand-held digital voice recorder. I chose to use the questions provided as a starting point for my interview. This was handled completely informally to make the student feel as comfortable as possible. She was told that she didn’t have to answer any questions that she did not want to and that everything she told me is confidential.
Results
Environmental Observation Community. Durham is a small, rural, mainly middle-class town in Middlesex County. The people here would say that the “cows outnumber the people”. For the most part the homes are all very well taken care of and on the larger side. Through some research I found that the average home price in Durham is about $300,000. The nearest chain grocery store is in Middletown, about twenty minutes away, but Durham does have the Durham Market. The Durham Market is a small, locally owned store where families often stop in to pick up quick items they need throughout the day. The Market truly has a small-town feel as it is one of few places left that still uses and I.O.U. system and allows its regular customers to pay for the week’s purchases on a Friday, or their next payday. Many of the businesses in Durham are locally owned and operated and have been in the town for generations, Carmine’s is no exception. This pizza place is very popular among the residents of Durham, and I can understand why. The atmosphere is friendly and you feel at home. The Durham Public Library is what you would expect from a small town. Compared to larger cities in the state the library is tiny, but they offer a good selection of books, especially for children and teens. The library also hosts special book events that attract the attention of the most avid readers in the town. The town of Durham hosts the Durham Fair every year. This is important to note because in the town the fair weekend is considered to be a holiday weekend and the kids don’t have school the Friday the fair begins. The Durham Fair attracts visitors from all over the state and is known for its good food and fun rides. School. Memorial Middle School serves the fifth and sixth grade students in the towns of Durham, Middlefield, and Rockfall. It is a small school that houses a total of 349 students; 183 in grade five and 166 in grade six. The school is 96% white, 1% Asian, 1% Hispanic, 1% African American, and 1% unspecified. The school houses two programs of study, the contemporary and the integrated day program. In the contemporary program the child experiences fifth and sixth grade as they would in any other school. In the integrated day program the child has the same teacher for both fifth and sixth grade and is in a classroom with the same classmates for both years. This option is chosen by parents in kindergarten and continues through eighth grade. My student is in the contemporary program. The students are grouped into five different sections in the sixth grade (61-65). As part of the contemporary program my student has different teachers for each academic class, but she travels with the same group of students to each class. She is a part of section 65. The school’s CMT scores fall near or above proficient most often, but according to the staff there is always room for improvement (see Figures 1 and 2).
CMT Data (2009 data currently not available)
Results indicate percent at or above proficient

Figure 1 – Grade Five CMT Data

Figure 2 – Grade Six CMT Data The staff at Memorial Middle School is professional and courteous and is helpful to both students and parents alike. The school provides a safe and structured learning environment for all of its students. The teaching staff is a blended mix of veterans and new teachers that are in their first or second year. There are no more than twenty-five students per class, with the average being around twenty. The teaching staff is supplemented by a special education program with aides available to help in the classrooms as needed for their special needs children. Regional School District 13 does believe in a full inclusion program and students are pulled out of regular class only on an as needed basis, or as part of an individual child’s specific program. The library-media center is small and unfortunately does not have the full supply of books that the librarian would like. Each classroom is the same size, but they are set up different per the teacher’s preferences. Most of the classrooms are set up so teachers can use cooperative learning in their classes. Academic. My classroom observation was a forty minute English class. During this class the teacher covered how to compare sentences for use in the student’s compare and contrast essays. After the formal lesson the students spent the rest of the class period drafting their personal essay. My student appeared to be on-task the entire period, but did appear to be a little off. I’m not sure what was going on, maybe she was just having a bad day, but there was definitely something bothering her. She focused her attention on the teacher when the teacher was speaking and made notes where she thought it was important for her to remember. When given time to review what they have written in their essay so far she fiddled with her notebook for a bit but eventually began to add details to her writing. My student did not volunteer to share her writing when the teacher asked. She simply listened to her classmates and made notes on her essay when someone said something that she thought she could use to improve her writing. She does not sit with any of her friends in class, but this is not by choice. Her assigned seat is close enough to her friends that she was able to turn around and giggle with them a few times while she was waiting for the teacher to continue with the lesson. She didn’t engage in any excessive or distracting talking; when she was supposed to be working, she was. However, she was distracted by students sharpening pencils and looked up from her work every time someone entered or left the room. The biggest distraction was when a special education aide entered the room and had a conversation with one of the special needs students that she is assigned to.
Social Observation My student brings her lunch from home every day, but since the beginning of the school year I have never seen her actually eat during lunch. During my observation I casually asked her why she wasn’t eating and she said that it’s because she “never likes” what her father makes her for lunch so she just chooses to wait to eat until she gets home. She sits with the same group of people during every lunch period, including her boyfriend and best friend. Her best friend is another girl in section 65 and they are virtually inseparable during lunch and recess. The friend wears rather provocative clothing for a sixth grader and always has a full face of makeup. I have noticed her influence on my student over the course of the school year. My student has begun to wear heavy black mascara and lip gloss, her hair is always done perfectly every day, and her clothing has gotten tighter and smaller as the year has gone on. During recess she stays with the same group of people that she eats lunch with and they always just hang out in a group and talk. Most of the other kids play on the swings, play kick ball, or another game, but this group can always be found on the side of the building in a pack. They do not cause any trouble, they just talk amongst themselves. My student is usually more quiet and reserved than the rest of her friends; she just watches and takes everything in. She can often be found with this same group of students in the hallway at their lockers in between periods. Rarely have I observed my student without a smile on her face when she is with her friends.
Student Work Analysis I chose to analyze pieces of my student’s writing throughout the course of the school year. At the beginning of the year her language arts teacher gave the students a reflection to fill out about their feelings about English. My student does not consider writing to be her strongest subject and she thought that spelling would be the most difficult thing about English this school year. Her goal was to become a must better writer in the sixth grade. This is a goal that I think she will easily be able to accomplish. The strengths in her writing are shown when she is able to write about a subject that is personal to her. She learns by observing others and is able to translate these observations and her feelings into writing very well. Her best pieces of writing involved her mother and her dog Penny. She is completely capable of building an essay around her personal feelings and opinions. These personal essays are much stronger and better organized than the writing prompts in which the students are limited to what they can write about. This isn’t too surprising considering that her family and friends are the biggest and most important parts of her life. When she enjoys what she is writing about she flourishes. Her biggest weakness is her learning disability. My student has dyslexia and because of this, writing and spelling are challenging for her and she frequently makes errors in her papers. The teacher allows the students to self-evaluate their work before she grades it. My student has always risen to the challenge of critiquing her own work and finding areas in which she can make it stronger. She also uses the teacher’s comments to guide her revisions. Her learning disability makes it hard for her during timed writing prompts because she doesn’t have the opportunity to make corrections as she does on a long term writing project. If you were to ask her, she would not consider her disability a weakness, she considers it to be a source of strength because she has to work extra hard to overcome the problem. There is obvious growth in her writing and she is improving on every project she undertakes (for her writing samples see Appendix A).
Student Interview My first attempt at the student interview was a failure. Even though she and I have a good relationship and she is used to working with me, she was extremely nervous and gave limited answers during the interview. Every answer was preceded by giggles and I felt like I had to pull whatever information I did get out of her. It did not feel like a conversation as it should of. I decided, later, to write out my questions for her and have her answer on paper. She seemed more comfortable with this idea and completed the written interview much faster than I had expected her to. The results of the interview were quite shocking to me. Until she told me in writing I did not know that my student has dyslexia. She was diagnosed in second grade and was held back that year so accommodations for her learning disability could be made. From her second year of second grade through the end of fifth grade she was considered a special needs student and received help through the special education program in her schools. She has made sufficient progress in school that she no longer needs the extra assistance and sixth grade marked the first time she has been able to work alone using her own ability. Because of her improvements she considers herself to be smart. She has had to work hard to where she has gotten and feels that by overcoming the limitations of her disease that she can do anything she puts her mind to. She considers the work to be hard but she knows that she needs to do the work to be able to succeed in life. She told me “even though the work is hard, I am glad I am getting an education”. She considers herself to be honest, respectful, and responsible and it is these qualities that she thinks makes her a good student. She consistently gets good grades and always tries her hardest no matter what is thrown at her. These same qualities make her a good daughter and sister. She does what she is told, even if it’s something she really doesn’t want to do, and helps out around the house as much as possible. She sometimes fights with her three sisters, but this is normal. Even though they fight she says she always “has their backs”. Her favorite aspects of school are being able to spend time with her friends. She doesn’t get to spend much time with them outside of school because she lives in a different town on the weekends with her mother. She thinks that school is the place to be because her friends are there. She is aware, though, that her focus needs to be her school work and that there is a time and place for the social aspect of school. It is obvious that her friends and family mean a lot to her and she does whatever she can to help them when they need it (for a complete transcript of the student interview see Appendix B).
Discussion
Summary My student is an average sixth grader who seems to be on the right track developmentally. Even though she is a product of a split family, this does not seem to affect her behavior or her learning ability at school. She is a well-rounded, popular student who makes the best out of everything she sees. She is always positive and has a wonderful personality. She is extremely close with her family, especially her mother who she considers to be “the rock” of her family. Like many twelve year olds her friends are a top priority in her life and spending time with them is what she looks forward to the most about coming to school. She is well liked by her peers and teachers alike. She is the type of person that sits back and observes the world around her. She is not shy by any means, but out of her circle of friends she tends to be more reserved and quiet. She appears to be content watching and taking everything in than actively participating in what is going on around her. She is often fearful of saying the wrong thing because of her dyslexia. She does not want to be made fun of if something comes out wrong because she doesn’t know how to process the words in her mind. It is my understanding that many, if not most, of her friends do not know about her learning disability and this isn’t something that she shares freely with others.
Her teachers consider her to be a good student. She works hard and always hands in her work on time. She seeks to always improve herself and does the best she can on every assignment given. Some of her writing assignments lack focus and this is something her language arts teacher is working on with her. Due to her learning disability reading, writing, and spelling can be a challenge. This is the first year she has worked without a special education aide and seems to be thriving in the sixth grade. With proper guidance and support there is no reason why she shouldn’t be able to continue to succeed throughout her remaining school years. From conversations that I’ve had with her teachers they are also unaware of her learning disability because she is no longer considered to be a special needs student. Some of her teachers knew she used to have an aide but they weren’t sure why. I find this surprising as I would think that the teachers who are to be working with her would need to be aware of any limitations that she may have, even if she isn’t receiving special help for them at this time.
Overall she may be cognitively a little behind because of the dyslexia. She considers herself to be smart but has to work extra hard to accomplish her tasks. She is still very much in the concrete operations stage and I feel that she may not have the ability to enter the formal operations stage. She will be the student that struggles in the upcoming years, especially with the more abstract concepts in math that she will be required to take. It would not surprise me to find out that in her later years in middle school, or early years in high school, that she is back working with an educational aide to accommodate her disability.
Recommendations
Willingham says “children do differ in intelligence, but intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work” (Willingham, 2010). I believe that this is indeed this case with my student. As a child with dyslexia she must work hard to overcome her disability to be able to succeed in school. Often children with dyslexia have poor short term memory and must repeat things frequently before they finally get them. My first recommendation would be that her teachers need to be made aware of her problem so they can help her within the classroom situation. With this knowledge, a great deal of her problems can be prevented. Accommodations can be made for this student in reading and writing as needed. “Since dyslexic learners have difficulty with the printed word, they benefit from multisensory approaches to reading, writing, and even arithmetic” (Anonymous, 2010). Lessons can be differentiated to allow my student to create a piece of art rather than a piece of writing to show her understanding of a novel or vocabulary words. While this student’s writing has improved greatly there is room for more improvement. More access to computer resources, rather than hand writing, may eliminate some of the difficulties this dyslexic student has. The spell-check feature in many word processing programs will help with the frequent spelling mistakes. Because my student is very reserved about her disability it would benefit her most to not be made to read aloud in front of the class. This could turn into an embarrassing situation for her if she is not able to properly read the material. Read alouds should be done during a quiet time with the teacher. Reading should be fun for students, not something they fear. If the classroom teachers understand the child’s disease they will be better equipped to analyze her strengths and weaknesses and how this disease will affect her in the classroom. This knowledge will allow the teacher to “adopt teaching methods and strategies to help the dyslexic child to be successfully integrated into the classroom environment” (Anonymous, 2010). My student is a strong learner and has the ability to do very well with the proper support. This particular student’s focus in school is on her friendships and maintaining them. The twelve year old’s greatest desire is to be with their friends. A teacher can use this to their advantage by allowing more group work with peers. According to research, most twelve year olds “can help peers significantly with school work; will make good use of time allowed for peer conferencing, partner projects, working as science lab partners, etc.” (Wood, 2007). My student would benefit greatly from more opportunity in working with others, especially with her disability. This will allow her to combine her strengths with those of someone else and not have to focus on the weaknesses. Studies show that middle school students like classrooms that use cooperative learning strategies and the ability to work alongside their peers. Physically my student appears to be developing normally. During this age children tend to be hitting their growth spurt and have a lot of physical energy. Currently the students at Memorial Middle School have about ten minutes a day for recess. I would recommend giving the students, especially the sixth graders, more of an opportunity to run around. “Physical exercise not only helps twelves do better academically, but in the form of team sports, it can also provide some of the rites of passage twelves need as they enter the teen years” (Wood, 2007). Middle school students need this physical exercise as much as younger students, and unfortunately they currently aren’t getting it in school. This would not only benefit the student in my case study, but all of the students in the school.
Reflection
As a future teacher I found this case study to be extremely useful. While an in-depth study like this would not be able to be completed for every student in my classroom, I feel this study allowed me to become more aware of what I should be watching for and how to observe my students properly. Teachers need to be aware of their student’s developmental needs. From what I noticed throughout this study, many teachers are not aware of what is going on inside their students and do not know how to accommodate the changes. Through my observations, both for the child study and in general, I noticed that many teachers in my internship school teach the same lesson to each class from a book or some other resource provided to them by the curriculum. After watching the students I learned that this is not the best way to teach since not every child learns the same. I discovered in my student that she has a learning disability that her teachers are not aware of. The fact that they don’t know about this is shocking and I fear that in the long run it could lead her educational process to suffer. Teachers must learn everything they can about their students in order to guide them and make sure they are taking everything they can from the classroom. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with a student that I already knew fairly well. I was happy to learn that she was extremely excited to be the topic on an interview and to be able to help me with a school project. Looking back I will have to agree with her teachers that she was the best choice to use as my child study. I would be interested to check back in with her in high school if I had the opportunity to see if she is able to grow more as a student and accomplish more of her goals. The only part of the project that I thought could have gone a little better was the in-progress group reporting. In my group, the discussions were dominated usually by one person with a lot to say and the rest had to rush through their status updates. In theory these could have been very useful because we would have had the opportunity to learn about the development of students in different age ranges and from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Unfortunately, I feel that that was not the case in my group. Much of the information that was reported was useful, especially the views that some of my classmates had on parenting styles in regards to their students. For future projects my suggestion would be to give each group more of a structured format to follow during the discussions to make sure that all group members are on task and come prepared with the information that they need. Overall I think this whole experience was great. I am looking forward to being able to help my own students someday by being able to understand what they are going through. Every child is different and should be treated as such. There is no one-size-fits-all teaching style. It is in every teacher’s best interest to be able to fully grasp the developmental progress so they can watch their students succeed.

References
Anonymous,.(2010). Dyslexia: what teachers need to know. Instructor (1999), 120(1), 49-55.
Berk, L. (2010). Exploring lifespan development. Boston, MA: Pearson College Div.
Hodge, P.L. (2000). A dyslexic child in the classroom. Retrieved March 17, 2011 from http://www.dyslexia.com/library/classroom.htm
Soares, L. (2010). Psychology of learning/teaching. Boston, MA: Pearson Learning Solutions.
Willingham, D. (2010). Why don't students like school: a cognitive scientist answers questions about how the mind works and what it means for the classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Wood, C. (2007). Yardsticks: children in the classroom, ages 4-14. Turner Falls, MA: Northeast Foundation for Children.

Appendix A
Student Work Samples 1. September Reflection 2. What Makes Me Happy Essay 3. My Dreams Essay 4. Memoir Draft One 5. Memoir Draft Two 6. Winter Writing Prompt 7. Winter Prompt Reflection 8. Who I Admire Essay 9. English Reflection Sheet – Marking Period 2

Appendix B
Student Interview 1. How would your teachers describe you as a student? Do you agree with this description? Why or why not?
“The teachers would describe me as a good student. I agree with them because I do my work and get good grades. And I am very responsible and respectful to them and everybody.”

2. How would you describe yourself as a student? Why?
“I would describe myself as a good student. Because I do my work and get good grades and I always try my hardest no matter what. And I am very honest, respectful, and responsible.”

3. How would you describe yourself as a friend? Why?
“I would describe myself as an awesome friend because I am always helping my friends out no matter what, through the worst and the best times. I am always there for them no matter what, and I am always making them laugh and putting a smile on their faces.”

4. How would you describe yourself as a sister? Why?
“I would describe myself as a good sister, even though we might get into fights sometimes I always will have their backs and be by their side no matter what because we are family and we love each other.”

5. How would you describe yourself as a daughter? Why?
“I would describe myself as a wonderful daughter. I always do as I am told by my parents even if it is something that I don’t want to do like wash the dishes. But I am happy to do anything for my parents and they’re happy to do anything for me.”

6. What is your favorite thing about school? Why?
“My favorite thing about school is seeing my friends because I don’t always get to see them a lot outside of school and they are just so much fun to hang out with. We also do our work together which is good.”

7. What do you least like about school? Why?
“What I like least about school is all the hard work the teachers give me. Sometimes we get really hard work and you have to think a lot to get it but that is what school is all about. Even though the work is hard I am glad I am getting an education.”

8. What is your favorite subject in school? What subject are you the best in?
“My favorite subject in school is social studies because I think that it is so much fun to learn about our world’s history and what is happening to our world now. My best subject in school is also social studies because I always get A’s and I always get the best grades in social studies.” 9. Do you think that students who have to work hard in school are smart or not? Why?
“I think students who have to work hard are not always smart. Because I am dyslexic and I used to have to work extra hard to understand, but I still wasn’t very smart. So sometimes people might have a problem like dyslexia and have to work hard and still might not get good grades. But I finally understand and I still work hard.”

10. How do you get to be smart? Do you consider yourself smart?
“You get to be smart by doing your work and studying and understanding what you are doing and why it happened like that. Yes, I do consider myself smart because I worked very hard to get to be this smart. I used to have to go to a special class to be taught differently from my second year in second grade to the end of fifth grade. And I got released from that because I was smart and did my work and I worked hard for me to finally understand everything. So for me to do that I do consider myself very smart for accomplishing what I did and to keep it up because I am doing very good without the extra help.”