First year remedial teacher - need suggestions for shy 8th grade student

Hi everyone,

​

I am a first year Remedial/Resource teacher working in a Cree community in Northern Quebec. I am mainly working one on one with students from grades 7 to 10. I take them during their English periods about twice a week to either catch up on assignments or build on their reading comprehension and vocabulary.

One student in particular I work with is a shy 8th grader. She does not speak at all at school, does not socialize, and feels uncomfortable being around her peers so much that puts her hood up and head down on her desk in every single class to avoid any interactions. She often comes to my office during the day because she says she's scared of going to class. It is clearly affecting her performance in every one of her classes.
At first, she barely spoke to me. She would write instead of speak, but she was very open with me. I was surprised at how open she was about her feelings, her home situation, bullying she's experienced etc. Now it is very off and on. Sometimes she will not speak at all when we are working together and she does not seem to care about anything we do.
Her reading and comprehension level is low so I have been doing some English assignments and using Readtheory to help improve on that. I have also tried just focusing on improving herself by journaling with her, giving her a journal to take home (but she admits she does not care to use it.) and making SMART goals as well as giving her strategies to help cope and improve on her personal challenges. Working on English with her is important, but I would like to continue to try to build on her socializing/confidence/shyness first so that she can actually attend and pay attention in her classes.

I feel like I am not getting anywhere with her English wise or confidence wise, and am running out of ideas and activities for when we are working one on one.
Can anyone suggest any strategies, assignments, activities etc. that I can use with her? I normally see her 2-3 times a week for about 45 minutes each.

​

Thanks in advance.

Submitted February 24, 2021 at 09:55AM by SnooBeans2363 https://ift.tt/37FYL2E