Dealing with COVID-19: An Interview with Traci Hobson
Dealing with COVID-19: An Interview with Traci Hobson
Traci Hobson is a Dyslexia Interventionist at Lincoln Elementary School in Montgomery, Texas. In this role she works with elementary students who have dyslexia. Rather than having her own class, she uses the Orton-Gillingham Approach which means she meets with students in small groups or one on one to help them.
Her role has changed during this time, as it has for many other educators as well. The most challenging thing for her has been not being able to see her students and not being able to help parents who feel overwhelmed when their children are struggling with core subjects.
Since she works with elementary students, there really isn’t a great avenue to communicate with them directly, so she’s working more closely with their parents. She communicates with them via phone call, email, and the school website. On the website, she has shared many different resources related to remote learning. Her students also use Learning Ally so she has resources from there as well. Learning Ally has audio books for dyslexic students and parents are able to login to it from home, in addition to the resources that she shares on the school website. Core classroom teachers in her district have been using Google Classroom.
Traci’s been staying in communication with her colleagues through email, phone calls, texting, and Zoom video conferencing. She’s dealing with the uncertainty by taking it one day at a time. As of April 2nd, Texas has not canceled school for the rest of the year, but the school closure has been extended through May 4th.
She’s staying encouraged during this time thanks to her wonderful team. There are 11 of them all together and they try to stay in contact regularly through the methods shared in the previous paragraph. They help each other in anyway they can since this is a new challenge for everyone. They also have frequent Zoom meetings and recently had a birthday party on Zoom. One day last week, the teachers did a drive by parade which you may have heard about online. This entailed teachers driving slowly past their students’ homes and waving as they go by.
Beyond the school, their community has also done a Teddy Bear I-Spy which you also may have seen online. Activities like this are great to help everyone stay encouraged.
We’d like to thank Traci for taking the time to share with us!
Over the upcoming weeks we’ll be sharing more stories about how music educators are dealing with the current situation regarding COVID-19.
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