You’ve addressed a lot and I understand most of your points, however, the one issue I’ll revisit is having the TA repeat directions.

Some students do have this written in their IEP (a specialized plan for special education students) as I stated and if they have a specific auditory processing problem then of course the TA can address it. However, in Los Angeles when we have a TA we have them for one or two hours a day. When the teacher is doing a whole group lesson and everyone is working together on the workbook then I see it as my job to simplify the directions enough so that everyone can follow along. (In fact, that’s a mandated part of reading program). Consistently students would be working fine when the TA was not in the room but when the TA was there, all of a sudden they were unable to do their work, they would rely on the TA, and they would fall behind and be unable to keep up with the class. I need them to be learning to keep up with the class because we’ve still got another four hours to go and these were students who did not have auditory processing problems, it was just easier to have a personal assistant.

The point of the workbook pages (and there are many in our required reading program) is not so much that you put the right scribble on the right line (I could care less about that but that was what the TA was most concerned about) but that the students understand the concepts (commas go in a list, verbs are action words, etc.). The real assessment of their learning would come later when they would do authentic writing.