Share your success stories! :)

[anne marie]

I still get tears in my eyes when I think of this story. A 16 year student entered my class unable to write his name after several years of OT, AT suggestions and teacher interventions. When I asked my students what their dreams and hopes were for the school year Rich said he wanted to be able to write his name like his sister. In comes the SB-- he had been "sky writing" his letters for several years, but was never able to transfer that skill using a pencil and paper. So when I asked him to use his finger to write the letter "R" on the SB he was able to make an approximation and was soooooooooo excited! After 2 weeks of finger practicing I introduced the SMART pens for him to use and he did very well. He now was approximating writing his entire name! After approximately a month we transferred this skill to pencil and paper and again he did quite well. As a matter of fact he was so excited he ran from room to room shouting and showing his success! I have found the SB to be a wonderful asset for differentiating lessons and allowing students to demonstrate their abilities.
Please share your success stories with how the SMARTBoard has supported your students to achieve their dreams.

[Sarah Soltau-Heller]

Wonderful success story! This young man must feel so much pride, I do think the smartboard has HUGE possibilities as a tool for to engage students that have unique needs, I also have a little guy in gr1 who is having great success writing on the smartboard. Currently we are using the highlighter pen for him to trace, but I did get this great app for the itouch that I would like to use on the smartboard that involves tracing letters - but I'll have to find time to play around with the board or search online for something similar - I will post the name of the app as soon as it is charged.
I am very interested in how to engage this little boy (autism) with the board! Thank you for your post of the links. I have used the Priory Woods site with a little girl that was learning to use switches and it was an excellent resource. Thanks for your inspiring story!