struggling learner » Special Education and Learning Differences

Real Teachers-Real Strategies 11: The Spelling Game

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Mar 212012

From Manning, SC, we are pleased to share with you our second place PCI/We Are Teachers Teacher Grant Winner, Adela. She is a Resource Teacher for 7th and 8th graders. Adela’s strategy is making spelling a fun activity to keep her students engaged, which in turn strengthens her students’ vocabulary and spelling skills.

The Project: Let’s Learn How to Spell.

Each student thinks of or finds 2 words containing at least 5 letters and is hard to spell. Using Ran Barnes strategies with the “Paper Plate” spelling game, each student writes their words on a paper plate and places them on a table top. Next, a student is chosen to stand in front of the class with their word-plate facing the other students and pronounces their word for the class. The other students then look for the word-plates that have letters that the word in front of them contains. Making this spelling exercise a game helps the students learn new words and how to spell them.

Learning Objectives:

Because the majority of students struggle with spelling and vocabulary, we know that making the task fun to do will improve both spelling and vocabulary.

Materials:

Paper plates, markers or crayons, and “The Differentiated Classroom: Challenging All Students, NOT Dummying Down For Some” by Ran Barnes.

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Brought to you by We Are Teachers partnership with PCI Education’s Teacher Grant Ask: http://www.weareteachers.com/teaching-ideas/grant/teaching-idea?app=17318&grantId=75

Real Teachers-Real Strategies 2: A Radio Broadcast

Special Education Classroom, Teaching Tips No Responses »

Jan 162012

Our second post in this series is from Matthew in Carteret, NJ. He teaches 7th and 8th graders.

His idea: Fireside Chats.

Students learning about the Great Depression had the opportunity to step into the shoes of President Roosevelt and create their own fireside chat radio broadcast based on the events of the 1930′s. Students learn the material in the classroom and then record an audio broadcast using the software program Audacity. The tasks involved are research, writing a script, and performing the broadcast. The project has different modalities so that each student in the group can shine in his/her own way.

Learning Objectives:

Students will be able to understand the impact that the events of the Great Depression had on America. They will also be able to relate the information they have learned to today’s economy. Students will enhance their research, writing and technology skills throughout the process of the project.

As well, this project was a collaboration between the students’ social studies and language arts classes. It took place in a variety of settings in our 8th grade. Both in-class support students and self-contained students had the opportunity to create their own group broadcast. The students learned tangible skills while also learning the important characteristics of teamwork.

Materials:

Audacity, an opensource audio recording program. Microsoft word, to type the script. Microphones to record the broadcast. EBSCO and Grollier online for research.

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This post is brought to you by We Are Teachers partnership with PCI Education’s Teacher Grant Asks: http://www.weareteachers.com/ideas/partnerask/teachingidea?app=16996&grantId=75

Say It, Rhyme It, Spell It

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Nov 102009

Emergent Readers and Struggling Readers Have Fun Learning and Discover Reading Success

Say It, Rhyme It, Spell It is an engaging game, made in two levels, that helps emerging readers and struggling readers become familiar with words that follow a consonant-vowel-consonant (c-v-c) pattern. The reproducible worksheets binder can be used in conjunction with the board game, as a stand-alone program or supplement to another reading program. Say It, Rhyme It, Spell It Software offers picture representations of words as well as words without pictures for visual learners and students with developmental disabilities to reinforce the foundation and skills needed to begin reading and strengthen the reading skill process.

Playing the interactive board game or software game helps struggling learners develop phonological awareness. Students begin to understand individual sounds apart from words, how sounds form words, how words begin and end, and how to recognize parts and patterns of words. Once students recognize the parts and patterns of words and associate them with the letters of the alphabet, they begin to equate sounds with symbols. This is the beginning of reading. By playing these games, students improve their phonological awareness and learn to recognize, identify, spell, and rhyme c-v-c words with the most common letter patterns.

Say It, Rhyme It, Spell It 1 & 2 both consist of a game board and 150 draw cards. The game board features 28 squares. Each square has an icon to represent one of the possible tasks to complete during the game. As a student lands on a square, he or she selects a draw card from the appropriate stack and completes the designated task: saying a word, rhyming a word, or spelling a word. Say It, Rhyme It, Spell It 2 progresses in difficulty from the first board game by using c-v-c-c and c-c-v-c short vowel word patterns.

Say It, Rhyme It, Spell It is appropriate for a wide variety of classrooms, including specialized reading programs, language arts, resource, inclusive, and ESL classrooms. These easy-to-play games help students learn to read c-v-c, c-v-c-c and c-c-v-c short vowel word pattern words and establish the foundation or reinforcement of reading skills for emergent readers, struggling readers, and students with specials needs and learning differences.

To encourage parental involvement and reinforcement of emerging reading skills at home, reproducible activities and a parent letter are included. These take-home activities provide an easy way for students to practice saying, rhyming, and spelling words.

Product Developed and Authored by Rosie Simms

Funding, Idea Sharing Available Through Microgrant

Special Education Classroom No Responses »

Oct 152009

WeAreTeachers announces a new microgrant, “Special Education: Individual Attention, Collective Impact,” sponsored by PCI Education.

Share how your work, project or idea can make a positive impact for special education students. All of the grant submissions will be published online, where members of the WeAreTeachers community will vote for their favorite project. The 10 submissions that receive the most community votes will be awarded a $200 cash microgrant and a Flip Videoä camera to share the project in action. Your project will inspire other teachers who collectively can make a difference in the lives of more students with special needs.

Grant submissions will be accepted through Oct. 31st. To apply for this grant online, visit www.weareteachers.com. Voting will begin Nov. 3rd, when the submitted projects will be posted online for community review, and winners will be announced Nov. 19th.

The microgrant is part of a new partnership between PCI Education and WeAreTeachers, an online network that brings together teachers, learners and content in the education industry. The partnership provides the WeAreTeachers community with special education expertise, by offering teachers access to community support, idea sharing, product recommendations, and grant opportunities.

Through the PCI Education home page on WeAreTeachers, special education teachers can connect with one another, share best practices and interact with one another, as well as with PCI Education, to create a classroom culture that is up-to-date with the latest and best in teaching techniques and products.

In addition, WeAreTeachers offers members the opportunity to rate PCI Education products to help colleagues make informed purchase decisions. Teachers can write and share reviews and implementation recommendations on products they are using in their classrooms. Each review provides members with points that can be redeemed for charity contributions, gift cards or other classroom supplies.

To access the online community, visit www.weareteachers.com/web/pcieducation.

Coupons as Math Manipulatives

Teaching Tips 1 Response »

Oct 082009

Teach Number Operations and Practical Life Skills Using Coupons

$PCI1857-Coupon-Math-Coupon$

by Kristine Lindsay

Finding special education resources to teach students that are on a level that isn’t too childish for older students but appealing to all students with special needs, and that do not have to be overly modified to fit your students’ learning abilities can be a challenge. Teaching basic number operations in a meaningful way to children with learning disabilities needs to be applicable to their lives to retain the information and build real-world life skills.

Students with learning differences and in special education classes learn basic number operations best through real-world applications. Coupons are a convenient and fun tool in helping struggling learners improve their mathematic skills in relevant ways.

When I taught in a special education elementary classroom, I found that my students were able to add and subtract monetary amounts better when the materials related to a life skill they could use or observe daily. I created several hands-on strategies using coupons and grocery store ads that helped struggling learners improve their addition, subtraction, and problem-solving skills.

Here are some of the strategies I used successfully with individuals and in group activities:

Needed Materials: a variety of coupon flyers and multiple grocery store ads

1. Parts and Purpose of a Coupon: Have students create grocery lists with 3 items and look through coupon flyers to find as many coupons as they can for those items. Have students identify the coupons’ attributes, including product, value, brand, restrictions, and expiration dates. Discuss the purposes of coupons and when they do or do not save shoppers money. Explain that students may find several coupons for an item, but the “best deal” is based on price, coupon value, or size/quantity of the item.

2. Subtraction: Give students pre-made grocery receipts, listing 3 items and their prices with a subtotaled amount. Have students find a coupon for one of the items on the list. Students will subtract the values of the coupons from their subtotals to find the totals to be paid. Discuss what using a coupon does to the total amount paid.

3. Addition and Subtraction: Give students pre-made grocery receipts listing 5 items and their prices with a subtotaled amount. Have students find one coupon per item on their lists, knowing that some items will not have coupons. Then, have students add the values of their coupons and subtract the total values of the coupons from the receipts’ subtotals. Discuss what using several coupons does to the total amount paid.

4. Two-Step Problems: Instruct students to create a shopping list of 5-8 items and try to find one coupon per item. Then, have students add their items’ prices to find a subtotal, and add their coupons’ values. Subtract the coupons’ values from their subtotals to find their total amounts paid. Students can swap lists with other groups for more practice.

For more activities and practice sheets on using coupons as math manipulatives, see the Coupon Math program I wrote that was inspired by my teaching needs for special education materials that are relevant and fun. This program is an appropriate elementary special education curriculum for introducing and reinforcing addition, subtraction, two-step problems, and problem-solving strategies. It is also a great secondary special ed resource for reviewing and reteaching number operations and money concepts to middle school and high school students with special needs.

Take the “Arrrddd!” Out of Standardized Tests

Teaching Tips 1 Response »

Sep 142009

Incorporate Teaching & Test-Taking Strategies Now to Minimize Anxiety at Test Time

In a society where standardized tests are reality in many states, teachers are faced with an ever-present dilemma: “Should I, or should I not, teach to the test?”

Both sides of the debate have merit. In a world where teacher salaries, school funding, and student promotion are sometimes determined by test scores, it is seemingly impossible not to teach to the test. However, many feel that teaching to the test limits meaningful learning in the classroom, especially for students with special needs, in special ed, and students with learning differences.

The following activities are recommended for educators to combine meaningful learning with test-taking strategies, thereby facilitating overall academic achievement and standardized test success:

1. Provide repeated exposure to standardized test format. Broaden the curriculum by applying standardized test format and test-taking procedures in other areas of the curriculum. Repeated exposure to standardized test format takes away some of the anxiety experienced when students are faced with “real” standardized tests.

2. Teach necessary components in bite-sized pieces. In an effort to avoid students feeling overwhelmed by too much at one time, break necessary skills down into individual components. For example, when teaching writing, break lessons down into individual components such as topic sentence, supporting sentences, and closing sentence. Allow plenty of time for struggling readers and learners to succeed in one area before moving on to the next.

3. Tailor modifications to meet the needs of each child with learning differences. Not every modification works for every child. Providing more time for one student may not be as beneficial as having a test administrator read the test aloud. Large print accommodations do not benefit all students, and in some cases, may cause them to see the test as longer and more intimidating.

4. Teach test-taking strategies.

• Emphasize first and foremost: read directions thoroughly.
• When reading long selections, teach students to read the questions first so that they know what information they are looking for.
• Have them underline key words and phrases and make notes in the margins.
• For multiple-choice items, teach students to cross out wrong answers with a pencil before choosing the correct answer from the choices remaining.
• Teach the importance of reading all of the choices before answering.
• To help students avoid feelings of frustration and inadequacy by spending too much time focusing on one difficult passage, question, or test area:
o Help them understand that it is okay to skip an item and come back to it after the remainder of the questions have been answered.
o Have them circle the question number so they know which one to return to quickly.

5. Encourage critical thinking skills across the curriculum. Provide opportunities each day for students to “think outside the box” in an effort to improve critical thinking skills. Encourage creativity, instead of letting the pressure of standardized tests stifle it.

6. Make every effort to reduce the pressure for students. Employ test-taking strategies as a routine in the classroom, not just at standardized test time. Help them understand these tests scores don’t make or break their grades. Emphasize that all students should do their best, and leave it at that.

Authored by Rachel Kaspar
___________________________

“I feel the most important requirement in success is learning to overcome failure. You must learn to tolerate it, but never accept it.”
–Reggie Jackson, Major League Baseball Player

Special Education is PCI’s Specialty

Special Education Classroom No Responses »

Sep 102009

Academic Materials Tailored to a Variety of Special Needs

2008 PCILogoNew by Kristina M. Swann

Several years ago, I jumped at the chance to write curriculum and other materials for PCI Education. Previously, as a special education teacher, I had spent hours modifying materials for my students. At PCI, I had the opportunity, along with other former teachers, to create curriculums and worksheets that feature a variety of modifications for students with special needs. We have the unique opportunity to create materials tailored to these students so teachers in the field did not have to go through the extensive modifications on their own any longer.

In my role as teacher, the modifications most frequently included:
• enlarging the font of a textbook page or worksheet
• shortening assignments
• providing study guides so students will know what information they need to know
• testing only on the most important information

I’m sure many of you can relate that these modifications needed to be accomplished without resulting in pages that look babyish or too different from what other students were using, which is not an easy task. However at PCI Education, the art directors and graphic designers know how to make materials easy to read without being juvenile.

To encompass the variety of special needs and learning differences, PCI’s products are specifically written to these students’ needs to facilitate learning in an inclusion classroom or special ed classroom in these ways:
• Written at a lower reading level to accommodate struggling readers
• Are printed in 14-point font
• Have worksheets that are pleasing to the eye and not visually confusing
• Questions are broken up into blocks of 5 questions at a time
• Limiting choices in a word bank
• Including crossword puzzles that are fun but also provide clues to exercise critical thinking skills
• Include worksheets that also serve as study guides for the quizzes and tests. Each worksheet tells students on which corresponding student text page they can find the answer.
• Created to have no surprises on tests and quizzes. Each test question comes from the worksheet pages, and all test and quiz questions have been answered before in a different format.

For example, a true/false question that appeared on a worksheet might appear on the test as a multiple-choice question, like the example below.

1. Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States during the Civil War.
• True or False?

1. ________________ was President of the United States during the Civil War.
• A. Abraham Lincoln
• B. George Washington
• C. George Bush
• D. John F. Kennedy

At PCI, our goal is to make it as easy as possible for students to learn and retain the information presented in our student texts. PCI Education prides itself on creating materials that meet academic standards for students with special needs, struggling readers and struggling learners, students with learning differences, and students with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

Um, What Happens After High School?

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Sep 042009

Incorporating Transition Instruction for Students in Special Education

Research and daily interactions with secondary students support the need for focused instruction in the area of transition, especially students with learning differences, emotional/behavioral needs, mild cognitive disabilities, or students with other special needs. They will be asked to answer what type of career they have an interest in or an aptitude for.

Career research via writing projects can provide valuable information and experiences utilizing critical thinking skills. After researching career options, students with special needs often need assistance charting a transition path and should be encouraged to develop at least two alternate or back up transition plans. An initial outline of their main idea should be put together answering who, what, when, why, where, and how.

Then, the focus needs to be a progression of learning self-advocacy and self-determination skills. It is important for them to know:

Their legal rights and responsibilities as an adult with a disability.
They understand what type of support they can expect to receive after high school.
Students in special ed or with special needs should exit high school with current documentation of their disability to allow a continuation of support services if needed.

These basics along with skills for getting a job and keeping it should be addressed prior to completing an in-depth transition path.

The skills to secure and retain a job need to be taught and practiced along with workplace behavior and social skills. Often the skills of completing applications, interviewing, demonstrating good worker traits and teamwork are expected or at best quickly reviewed. Teaching students’ with special needs how to access and succeed in any of the post secondary options – employment, technical/trade college, college/university, or the military – is crucial.

Tips for where to begin:

A separate elective course using a transition curriculum
Supplementing a regular education “careers” curriculum
Integrating it into a self-contained classroom
Providing additional assistance during a resource period
Coordinate with other teachers for writing and/or research assignments that would work for both classes

There are many resources in a variety of mediums specifically designed and written for students in special education and students with special needs. Several examples of curriculums offered are:

Career Folio Curriculum is a reproducible activity binder that contains everything needed to organize relevant career facts into one meaningful whole for students, including blackline masters to help students organize their own Career Folios as well as a career action plan and post-program goals.
Career Planning includes student text and an audio cd library, plus teaching strategies, application activities, ideas for classroom projects, and tips on learning styles. Covers a variety of skills job seekers need-reference gathering, résumé writing, communication, interviewing, working with others, and managing time.
Everyday Life Skills is a textbook and video series that is a comprehensive career development program for high school students making the transition to postsecondary life. This curriculum focuses on the important “how to live and work” issues not always covered by regular curricular materials. Interactive cd’s and audio cassettes are also part of the curriculum.

“Minds-On” Science Instruction

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Aug 282009

Helping Special Ed Students and Struggling Learners Get Their Heads into Science

For years, we have been taught that “hands-on” science activities are the ones that students remember. The writers of the National Science Education Standards state that, “ ‘Hands-on’ activities, while essential, are not enough. Students must have ‘minds-on’ experiences as well… and all students should have access to excellent science education, regardless of age, gender, cultural or ethnic background, disabilities, aspirations, or interest and motivation in science.”

This means that students must develop their understanding of science by not only learning the basics of scientific knowledge, but combining that knowledge with critical thinking skills. Students are now being asked to say why the demonstration is interesting and how it’s relevant to our lives.

Students need to take in the science information they are being taught and then apply it, whether in a class discussion, a one-on-one conversation, or in writing. Whether you teach an inclusive class, a special education class, or have special needs students, you can provide students with the essential skills that they need to develop a better understanding of the world of science and how it impacts their life.

These activities are a start to getting students to take a minds-on approach along with hands-on practice in your elementary, middle school, or high school science classroom.

• Use a hands-on lab experiment as a springboard for other activities. For example, students could do research to find out if other schools or other classes within your school achieved the same results as them. Add the minds-on to it by having them create a presentation to illustrate their findings, or their results versus another class’s results. Or, have a class debate about why something happened the way that it did in the experiment.

• Assign research projects to students about different experiments. Then, have students recreate the experiments (hands-on) in the classroom and write up their results (minds-on).

• Conduct a hands-on lab experiment, then have the students turn their minds-on writing a short paper about how this experiment relates to something important in our lives today, along with “what if” this experiment never happened, what impact it would have.

For special needs, special ed or learning differences students, using a science word bank journal, a science flip-chart, or science graphic organizer would afford them a visual tool to successfully complete any of these ideas. There are also great software and audio programs available to provide reinforcement and added visual aids.

[ The above quoted information comes from this website: http://www.nsta.org/standards ]

By Kristina M. Swann

Getting the Words Right

Teaching Tips 1 Response »

Aug 242009

Vocabulary Tactics in an Inclusive Classroom by Kristina Swann

We know that learning vocabulary is an essential first step to learning anything. Obviously, students must learn vocabulary while learning to read, but they must also learn vocabulary for every subject they study. Each subject comes with its own vernacular. Without basic knowledge of the vocabulary of a topic, understanding the subject would be hard at best, but vocabulary can be especially challenging for special needs children and students with autism or those with learning differences.

In today’s inclusiveclassrooms, vocabulary development is more important than ever before. There is a growing number of students with learning differences and special needs challenges and students who are English language learners.

These are some things I used while teaching and reinforcing vocabulary in my inclusive classroom:

• Use multiple methods of review and reinforcement of terms. Students can match terms to definitions, sort terms into categories, or identify the correct term from a list of choices.

• Practice vocabulary in a fun way. For example, play vocabulary bingo with your students. You can also turn reviews into a rhyming game or a sing-along. Depending on the age of your students, they could even be engaged to make their own song or rap to remember the words.

• Make vocabulary visual. Put up a word wall. Students will be able to see the vocabulary words every day when they walk into the classroom. If you have a few extra minutes between lessons or at the end of a class, call on volunteers to define words from the word wall or put them in sentences. Reward students for answering correctly.

• Use technology. Instructional software programs are a fantastic way to provide extra practice to students who need it most.

• Use the words. Once you have taught students a vocabulary word, use it. For example, if you have taught students the word “subtract,” don’t use the phrase “take away” anymore when teaching about subtraction. Say “subtract” every time you address the topic.

• Get students to own their vocabulary words. Have students make up definitions in their own words. Have them write words in sentences and draw pictures to represent the words and their definitions. Letting students take control of the words while they are learning them allows students to keep those words with them for the long term.

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