Reflections on Articles for Discussion

Learning From Text (Dave L. Edyburn, 2003)

"Learning to read is a developmental milestone celebrated by hundreds of thousands of young children everyday" (pg.1).  This resonated with me and made me stop and really think about how true this is, but how sad it is for our students that are challenged with this daunting task everyday.  I recently finished an assessment where the student is in grade 4 and is now diagnosed with an LD in phonological awareness, impacting reading and writing, spelling, etc.  There were working memory as well as executive functioning challenges identified, also compounding the learning process, as well as attention.  How many of these students do we see everyday?  Far too many!  When we think about the reading process, and thinking back to our assignment with respect to the reading process, the process (as discussed in the article) discusses the early grade levels as working on and supporting 'learning to read' and grades 4 and up take the shift where students then 'read to learn'.  What happens to these children that are struggling from the get go, and then are identified as learning disabled, and then the panic sets in and the question is "now what do we do"?

Throughout this course, we have been discussing the importance of remediation versus compensatory, when do we make the shift to compensatory strategies, and how can we support the students in this shift in learning?  Then I thought about this a little further - the real question is, how can we support staff in making the mindset shift from remediation to compensatory?  It is hard to let go sometimes of the more 'formalized, standardized, traditional" methods of intervention, remediation support. However, with knowledge, more skills and learning in technology (and certainly 21st Century Learning is helping with this more modernized moved for global technology learning in the classroom, etc) has helped in creating more of a bridge to walk across the rougher waters of resistance to change in how we provide support with all students, but in particular, our students that are 'struggling' or have learning disabilities.  The comment about "if a child has repeatedly failed to read and understand printed text, how much failure data do we need before we have enough evidence that the child can't perform the task?  When do we intervene? And, what do we do?"

Welcome to assistive technology!  Thank goodness!  I liked the the Systems Approach for Making Text Accessible (pg. 21) and how it relates to remediation, compensation, and how to bypass the painful reading process for so many of our students, and give them the means to acquire the knowledge, information in a way that is easier, less cognitively demanding and works!

As a closing remark, the student I mentioned above that was recently diagnosed with a learning disability, has been a reluctant reader, can be very anxious around the whole process of reading and writing, and now is beginning to avoid the process of reading and writing because it is becoming increasingly more difficult now, curriculum is getting harder.  The student has been an active learner, hard worker, great attitude, positive, upbeat, has has intensive support, has had great attendance, great family support, great resource teacher and teachers throughout the years.  Today, I worked with the student on a science text.  We used the Book Creator app, took pictures of the book, incorporated his voice reading text, took a video of the student discussing his previous knowledge of the topic, and then videoed his final comments about the fun he had creating this book. The student then asked if he could share it with his class!!!!!!!  OMG!!!!!!!  His teacher (who is phenomenal), totally wanted this to be shared with the class.  They even delayed gym class in order for the student to share the book with the class.  Following the presentation, classmates (in awe), clapped for the student and could not say enough times " great job", "wow, can I do that too", "you rock", "that looks like fun".......  I almost started crying.  The student was beyond excited and cannot wait to do more!  During the meeting with staff and parents yesterday, mom informed us that Santa has already purchased an iPad for the student (of course the student does not know this yet :)   The teacher and myself went through "must have apps" for the classroom iPad for all to use, and we are going to arrange for our AT specialist to come in and help both parent and student with apps on the student's iPad, which will happen after Santa comes!  What a wonderful day!  What a wonderful turning point for this student!!!!!!!!  

In conjunction with reading, I now turn to the writing process.  The article we discussed on "Take the Pencil Out of the Process (Brown, 2009), was so relevant, as many of the students we work with that have specific reading difficulties (processing, letter-sound relationships, rhyming, fine motor/graphomotor control, phonological ability, etc), can be/will be challenged in the writing process as well.  Again, we talk about getting the information out in whatever means works for the student.  "Which is more important - being able to print/write the answer OR knowing the answer" (pg. 17).  The key discussion, again, is teaching skills in independence in communication, learning, learning and demonstrating knowledge.  "Take the pencil out of the process and see what happens" (pg. 20).  Again, the move to compensatory is where we need to go.  The sooner the better for so many of our students. We need to really think about why we continue to insist on paper-pencil skills, completing awful work sheets, writing on the lines, neat print, and measuring this as 'success' or 'ability'......   expression or demonstration of knowledge or ability happens in many other ways - Hallelujah to assistive technology !!!!!!!