From Seeds to Success

Educator: Sara Stone
School/District: Freshwater Education District
Position: School Social Worker
Project: Life Space Crisis Intervention Training – Turn Crisis Situations into Learning Opportunities (LSCI)

Summary: As a social worker a level IV setting, I provide support as needed to students when they are dysregulated or experiencing crisis. The Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI) method is a verbal strategy that helps adults guide young people to turn problem situations into learning opportunities. It’s rooted in the knowledge that young people need to feel heard and understood and they want connection, not isolation, when in crisis. The method has proven to be an effective tool when used with students of all ages in this setting. Students benefit from the use of the intervention in helping them to regulate. With more of our staff trained and using this intervention, office referrals should decrease.

Educator: Christy Henry
School/District: Menahga Elementary
Position: Title 1 Reading
Project: Phonological Awareness

Summary: As a tier 3 reading teacher, I work with our most at-risk readers. Through my previous project and research, I learned that phonological awareness has a tremendous impact on orthographic mapping. Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and work with sounds in spoken language. Orthographic mapping is when the oral language processing part of the brain connects sounds of words you already know to the letters in a word making it a “sight word”. It is a key component in learning to read.

A disconnect in phonological awareness is what causes students to struggle with reading fluency skills. Research in this area would impact multiple grade levels, special education, and all title reading programs. I have had discussions with colleagues in this area, and they are eager to learn what we can do to remediate this issue.