A to Z
Guide
for
Inclusion
Literacy Skills
When lessons are based on the interests of the students, the lesson would be more effective. If the students see that learning to read and write is the base if communication, this would instill more motivation to learn. This way the students will understand that learning to read and write, will in turn give them the opportunity to share their ideas, thoughts and feelings with others around them. If this main focus of communication is not understood by the students they will simply learn phonics, word identification and spelling and not how to use these important skills in everyday life.
This concept of print being a means of communication needs to be taught to the students at a very early stage, before they learn to read and write. Simply teaching a student how to write his/her name without a purpose would not instill much motivation, give the activity a purpose and learning will occur much faster. Allowing the child to write his/her own name on the attendance sheet would give learning to write his/her name purpose. This is very important for all students and not only students with learning disabilities, regardless of their level of reading and writing, focusing on the communication property would increase the impact of the lesson and would show students that these skills can be used in everyday life.
ALL students need to have access to the materials needed to learn literacy. If we have a student with a physical disability and he/she cannot hold a pencil then this tool is useless and not considered a tool for this child's learning. We need to make sure that the child with sensory impairments can see or hear the tools being used, the child with a learning disability is understanding the tools being used and ALL students must be motivated to use the materials being presented to them.
Although we are saying a teacher should adapt tools and materials to be accessible by all, one needs to keep in mind that the adaption should not change the purpose of the tool, hence, the same learning should occur with the original tool and the adapted tool.
Using your imagination and technology, adaptations could be pretty easy.
Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and sound out, the different sounds associated with the different letters of the alphabet. This skill can start being taught at the age of 4.
It is of utmost importance not to teach this skill in isolation, phonics should taught using words rather than single letters. Teaching phonics in isolation would not give the sounds much purpose, when teaching phonics with words the students would begin to notice that each sound has a purpose in the word they wish to read, say or write. Familiar words should be used to teach phonics, such as the child's name and other words that they use and see everyday. Learning sounds of letters in common words will help students associate these sounds with other new words, hence, reading will be being learnt in a fun and interesting way.
UDL should be used when teaching phonics, this is due to the different learning styles and also many different interests of the individual students. The teacher should not use a single book or song to teach phonics, a large variety of visuals and multimedia should be used.
A word wall is simply one room of the classroom designed to attach words to it. Five new words are attached to this wall every week. The words on the word wall are placed in alphabetical order. Since the words are visible through out the day, this wall is a great way for students to learn how to read and spell different words. By the end of a scholastic year the students would know how to read and write around 150 words.
The words on the word wall should be written with thick markers and cut out in a block shape to size. The word block should then be stuck on a dark coloured wall.
The word wall should be used for at least 15 minutes everyday. There are many activities that could be done using the word wall, such as, hangman, silly sentences, guess the covered word, word bingo, chants and many more.
When teaching students literacy it is extremely important to allow them to have a choice of text. As we have already mentioned, motivation and interest is of utmost importance when it comes to learning. Students with learning disabilities find it much easier to learn when they are motivated and interested in what is being taught.
When you think about it, does it REALLY matter what the student is attempting to read? As long as the child is being exposed to letters, words, sentences or paragraphs, it really does not matter what the content is all about. If a student with Down syndrome is interested in cars, why not teach literacy using words and texts that have to do with cars? This would interest the student and show him/her that if he/she learns to read they could learn more about cars.
How many times has your childhood piano teacher told you, 'Practice makes perfect', and 20 years later here you are still practicing and practicing but yet you have never reached perfection?
Practice makes perfect might work for some people, yet it does not work for all. This phrase is on of the reasons that many children with learning disabilities tend to give up due to never reaching perfection. The constant feeling of failure to reach their parents and teachers view of perfection leads to lose of interest and hence leads them to quit.
Teachers would like their students to practice using reading skills daily in order to be able to use the skills successfully in everyday life. This is practicing makes progress rather than perfect. Teachers want their students to be lifelong readers and not perfect readers.
Students with learning disabilities and other disabilities may find it much harder to accept failure, hence it is very important to give these students reading texts that are very close to their reading level, this way less failure is seen and the student would enjoy learning and have a sense of pride. Home-work given to these students should not include any new skills but only the skills that have already been learnt, this would result in good practice and help the students progress towards their learning goals.
