Literacy for All: A Community of Practice for Junior/Senior High

Teachers of Students with Significant Disabilities

Day TwoKaren Loerke, Edmonton Regional Learning ConsortiumSandra Gluth, Alberta EducationBonnie-Lynn David, Glenrose Hospital

2011- 2013 Communities of Practice

http://abnumeracyforall.wikispaces.com

http://abliteracyforall.wikispaces.com

A Community of Practice for

Junior/Senior High Teachers of

Students with Significant Disabilities

Wiki

Literacy for All

Blackboard Collaborate

Tour of worthwhile resources!

ERLC Literacy for All wiki Numeracy for All wiki Supporting Every Student Inclusive Education Library

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Break!

Literacy Practices for Contemporary Times

• Students need to be immersed in all language arts (reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing and representing)

• Students need interactive language experiences (e.g. story-based lessons, LEA)

• Assessment should be ongoing, focus on improvement and feeds into instruction

Literacy Components• Assess and understand individual learners• Knowledgeable about a variety of instructional

components• Create learning opportunities that fit the specific needs• Move from support to independence as student takes

on each new task

http://www.definingthecore.com/downloads/optimal_learning_model.pdf

Literacy Components

High Teacher Support to Lower Teacher SupportRead-aloud…Shared Reading…Guided Reading… Independent ReadingWrite aloud…Shared Writing…. Guided Writing….Independent WritingMini-lessons Reader ResponseWord study Exploration

Lunch!

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Break!

Collecting evidence of success

• What evidence would you accept that your students have made gains?

• What would that evidence look like?

How we collected evidence that our students with significant disabilities made literacy gains

June 14, 2013

WebinarsKaren, we can ask participants for ideas for webinars…

Important Dates!

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http://inclusiveeducationpdresources.ca/literacy/conversation_with_caroline_musselwhite.php#10

Increasing opportunities for participation

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A key aspect of this work is

and

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Karen Loerke karen.loerke@erlc.ca

Sandra Gluth sandra.gluth@gov.ab.ca

Thank you!

We need to figure out where to use these during the two days.

Is this reading?

Non-example

While the other students in Patty’s Grade 7 class work on writing personal essays, Patty sits at a separate table sorting coloured buttons with an educational assistant.

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Positive example

During structured writing time in her Grade 7 classroom, Patty works with a peer to use word prediction to answer questions about what she enjoys doing with her friends.

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Let’s look at examples

1. Brainstorm three positive examples of learning goals, activities or resources that align with this principle.

2. Record on yellow post-its.

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Your turn!

A Snapshot of My Classroom

Literature Review (Roberts et al, 2013)

• 19 studies between 1975 -2011• Prevalent approach to teaching adolescents

with significant cognitive disabilities –vocabulary instruction through sight word acquisition

• Instruction is not comprehensive• Does not address the guidelines set out from

National Reading Panel

Recommendations

• Students should have access to the general education curriculum

• Comprehensive literacy instruction should include the 5 pillars of reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension) advocated from the National Reading Panel

• Students should be exposed to a wide variety of texts

National Reading Panel

Components of a comprehensive literacy instruction program –designed for early literacy, but is appropriate but has application for adolescents with significant cognitive delays• 1. build motivation for literacy• 2. phonemic awareness• 3. sound/symbol connections (phonics)• 4. letter formation• 5. language development

National Reading Panel

• 6. sight words• 7. listening/thinking skills• 8. world and word knowledge• 9. concepts of print• 10. spelling• 11 schema development• 12. real reading• 13. real writing

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Everyone

brings expertise to the table!

Highly Effective Literacy Activities: LEA & Story-based

• Involve a multiple of language arts strands and outcomes (reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, representing)

• Flexible and adaptable for a range of learners• Engaging and interactive

Language Experience Approach

• Is adaptable to whole group, small group or individuals

• Five components: – Experience– Discussion– Recording– Reading– Follow-up activities

Story-based Lesson (Browder, Trela, & Jimenez (2007)

1. Attention getter –activate background knowledge2. Review vocabulary/new symbols3. Make predictions –can be used throughout lesson4. Student points to title5. Student points to the author6. Student opens book

7. Student turns the page8. Predictable book that allows

anticipation of the repeated story line9. Identify key vocabulary words10. Word-by-word matching11 Comprehension questions12. Word study (phonemic or phonics)