Teaching Tommy...Another Day, Another Way

I am mentally drained at the end of each day.  Tommy continues to require all of my attention. 

For example, today we were working on one of our first writing assignments.  This is a typically difficult assignment since writing with first graders is tedious to say the least.  Take this process with a child who has problems with letter/sound correlation and phonics in general, and I am spent!  Many of the students in my class can independently sound out words, but there are a handful that still need me to say the word slowly and stop at each sound so they can write the letter.  While I'm at one child's desk, Tommy becomes a behavior problem.  Then when I'm with him, he has such issues that I end up spending the bulk of my time with him.  This isn't fair to the other children who need and/or want my attention.

I think I will assign him a "buddy" to help him s-t-r-e-t-c-h his words.  I will train one of my higher leveled students who work at a quicker pace.  This way he won't have too much time in between my attention and he won't get into too much "trouble" alone.


I'm willing to try ANYTHING!