Assignment 10

I liked creating a blog for this class. Although I've never blogged before and therefore was not accustomed to the process of blogging, I enjoyed the experience after awhile. It was nice trying a new vehicle for posting reflections on the readings. The only thing I did not like about blogging is that I cannot see my classmates' blogs. I don't necessarily want to comment on their blogs, but it would be nice to see other ideas and strategies for teaching literacy.

If I ever work in a traditional school (such as for APS, instead of a very alternative charter school), I might use blogging to communicate with parents. I would post newsletters and other anecdotes about class activities/events on the blog. Depending on the age of students I might teach, I would allow students to use a blog to post certain assignments. For example, I might use it for journal entries as well as story and essay assignments.

Overall, I found several of the strategies I learned in this class very helpful for teaching literacy. I enjoyed the blogging, LFE Parts 2 and 3, and I imagine I will find the curriculum project helpful.

Assignment 9

A language disorder is impaired comprehension and/or use of spoken, written, and/or other symbol systems. The disorder may involve the form of language, the content of language, and/or the function of language in communication in any combination. In other words, a language disorder may include both comprehension of language and/or language production and includes either written or spoken language.

A reading disorder is a a reading achievement level that is below a person's chronological age and below the level that would be expected for a person's level of intelligence after given age-appropriate education. Oral reading would be characterized by distortions, substitutions, and/or omissions and both oral and silent reading would be characterized by slowness and errors in comprehension.

A writing disorder includes difficulty in one or more of the following writing elements: written composition, spelling, and/or handwriting. Examples: telling/retelling a story, identifying sounds in words, tracing shapes, holding a pencil.

Specific exceptionalities that are often linked with literacy difficulties are: learning disabilities, intellectual disability, autism, hearing/vision impairments, emotional disturbance.

Strategies I use in my classroom include using technology (for students with handwriting difficulties to express their thoughts, for example), giving and getting information activities, giving students responsibility and say in their treatment plans/goals, using materials with larger print, building background knowledge, giving ample time for reading and writing in the classroom (DEAR, journal entry writing), and trying to pick books that interest the students, among others.

Strategies I like and will try from the reading include mediation and bridging as well as expository text strategies. Although we do not have class meetings where we bring up feelings about the students' treatment/difficulties (this is because the kids are already living at a treatment facility and spend almost every free moment they have outside of school working on these exact issues, and I don't want it to become more overwhelming) except in IEP meetings, I like the prompting questions/statements in the mediation/bridging sections of Chapter 7 from the reading. I will try using some of these when necessary. I like the expository text strategies in that they help develop students' comprehension and language production.

Assignment 8

The literacy strategies for teaching students with moderate to severe disabilities that caught my interest were: incidental teaching, Picture Exchange Communication Systems (PECS), augmentative and alternative communications (AAC), whole language approaches, involving parents, and incorporating technology. I believe all of these strategies, except for AAC, may be used for all students including general education students. I imagine they could provide support for students who are at various literacy levels. I work with students who are emotionally disturbed as well as intellectually disabled and all read and write at different levels. Although none of my students have a disability which requires them to use AAC, I certainly support the use of such devices/means of communication. I've seen AAC in action as there is a deaf/hard of hearing class in the school I work at and they use ASL interpreters for the students, which I highly support. 

I often use incidental teaching and whole language in my lessons. For instance, I may start a discussion about video games and their affects on youth based on my students' interest in them and because we're conducting a literary unit on Ender's Game (incidental teaching). We read often and take turns reading in my class, I encourage students to read (we have DEAR every day), I talk about books I love and information I've learned from reading, and I support connections students might make between their own experiences and books they're reading or interested in (whole language approach). For one student in particular, I also incorporate phonics instruction into his lessons as much as possible because he is in 9th grade at a 1st grade reading level (example: sound-symbol relationships, vowels, and consonants). I involve parents as much as possible by keeping in communication with them via phone and e-mail. I work at a treatment center, so there is not always much involvement from parents, but I occasionally meet them if they come to IEP meetings. I also incorporate technology, when possible, through math and literacy programs like E2020, Compass Learning, and MyLexia.

I'd like to learn more about PECS. Although I do not teach non-verbal students at this time, it sounds like an effective system for encouraging and supporting children to communicate. 

No questions/concerns at this time.

Assignment 6

One of the key components of education is called Response To Intervention, or RTI. RTI is a method of academic intervention to provide assistance to those students with learning difficulties. The purpose of RTI is to prevent academic failure by way of process measurement (continuous monitoring of student progress), early intervention, and instructional interventions based on research. Educators then take these measurements/processes (data) to make educational decisions. For instance, educators might make determinations regarding which students are meeting expected reading benchmarks, release them from the intervention process, then continue to provide interventions for those students who are not reaching benchmarks.

There are three tiers of service delivery within the RTI model which provide increasingly intensive academic interventions, possibly leading to a placement in a special education classroom. Tier one includes most general education students learning the core curriculum. In this tier, it is assumed that 80% or more of the students will participate in all subject areas and be able to read at grade-level. Tier two includes those students (usually about 20%) who are not performing optimally in tier one and need supplementary services and small group instruction. Tier two provides a higher level of support to students who are struggling in the general education classroom and includes intervention methods such as behavioral contracts, extra classes to learn concepts (example: reading strategies), weekly report cards, and therapy sessions. Tier three is the most intense level and includes 5-10% of students. The interventions in tier three are more individualized (may include one-to-one instruction) and are delivered more frequently and for a longer duration of time. Students who are given tier three instruction are often two or more grade levels behind other students and may potentially have a learning disability (may have a referral to special education).

Students may move back and forth between the tiers depending on succession. Success is based on data collected from the research-based interventions and instructional methods used in the specific tiers. For example, rules/guidelines may be created to determine when a student might no longer require extra interventions, when the interventions need to be altered, or when a student might need special education services.

Assignment 5

In my ideal classroom, I would reach out to parents through newsletters as well as monthly reading/writing (literacy) workshops. I would ask students to submit work to be published in the newsletters (such as short stories and poems) so the students feel a sense of participation and pride in showing what they are working on in class. I think newsletters are a great way to communicate with parents as well as show them what their kids are doing in the classroom. I would send the kids home with the newsletters and I would e-mail them to parents if possible. I would invite parents as well as students to the literacy workshops, and in these workshops we would all discuss what we want to work/focus on and how to focus/work on the topics. I'd also have the opportunity to discuss strategies for increasing literacy with both the students and parents within the workshops. I would also help parents find resources for reading materials, such as using the internet to find libraries.

Because it is possible that I would not have a high turn-out of participants in the workshops, however, I would make sure to detail literacy strategies (such as the "Fistful of Words" strategy) in the newsletter. I'd give procedures and explain the importance of the methods. I'd also provide a list of resources for finding reading materials.

Still, I feel very strongly that as much as I can try to help parents understand literacy strategies and give them resources, it is ultimately their responsibility to utilize them. It is also their responsibility to try to find strategies and resources on their own, if at all possible. Part of the responsibilities of parents as parents is to help their children learn and succeed as much as possible in almost every environment and situation (especially if it's a positive environment/situation). I can explain to parents until I'm blue in the face why school is a positive environment, that they can be teachers themselves (especially within the home environment), and that it is important to work together to ensure their children's education. Ultimately, parents, students, and teachers ALL need to work and meet one another half-way for education to be a successful thing.

Assignment 4

I found most of the methods and strategies for increasing student's vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency in this week's readings to be interesting and helpful. For increasing vocabulary, I like the ideas of using writing exercises to build vocabulary (active and generative processing), the yes-no-why activity, the fill-in-the-blanks task, the completion activity (ex. "I was very persistent when..."), the conversation game, and the method of building background knowledge about words (ex. "A persistent person is someone who..."). I also appreciate that the authors emphasize finding vocabulary words that are useful across the content areas that do not have to relate thematically. In terms of comprehension and fluency, I like the ideas of using reading material that is interesting to students, expanding on prior knowledge before reading (ex. brainstorming about a topic/theme), visualization techniques, directed reading and thinking (the 3 questions that go along with this strategy are great), and think-alouds.

In my own classroom, I have used the strategy of building background knowledge and completion activities for vocabulary. I've also asked students to use vocabulary words to write their own sentences, which would be part of active/generative processing. I often use the reciprocal teaching method in my language arts lessons - we are currently engaged in a unit on the novel "Ender's Game" and we are constantly predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing parts of the story. I look forward to trying the directed reading and thinking and the think-aloud strategies to go along with the reciprocal teaching approach. To promote visualization, I've asked students to look through magazines and newspapers, tear out pictures that make them think of what we've been reading/studying, and paste the pictures on construction paper. The students keep these collages in their working folders as a tool to help them remember what we're reading/studying, if necessary.

My only concern about the strategies outlined in the chapters is that I'd like to use some of them in whole-group instruction, but my students are at extremely varying levels. For instance, I'd love to conduct the vocabulary conversation game as a whole group, but I have some students at a 1st grade reading level while others are at a 9th grade reading level. I suppose I could try using various words at different levels. I just have concerns about making the game too easy for some and too hard for others.