Week 2: Rope model

As I am sitting here looking at Scarborough's Rope model, I cannot help but question the relationship between word recognition and language comprehension. If the word recognition is not automatic, can we even reach the step of language comprehension? If students do not grasp the skills needed for sight recognition, is it even fair to ask them to provide verbal reasoning?! As i was analyzing this picture, I started to mentally divide the areas into my own categories and realized that perhaps we should use "decoding" as it's own category as opposed to an area under word recognition. This is what I came up with:

Decoding Word Awareness Language Comprehension

-alphabet -sight recognition (familiar words) -background knowledge

-phonological awareness -language structures -verbal reasoning

-vocabulary -literacy knowledge

I would then argue that both the decoding and the word awareness categories must be automatic in order for strategies to be developed to learn language comprehension. I started thinking of strategies that can help students learn how to reason, and develop background knowledge and these are the instructional strategies I thought of quickly on the top of my head:

-scaffolding

-developing prior knowledge

-modelling inferencing

-co-creating

-peer learning

-conferencing

-highlighting main ideas/concepts

-chunking instructions

What I also like about this image is that it demonstrates how the decoding and the word awareness are separate, single concepts at the beginning stages of reading that students must understand, but as time develops, individuals develop stronger word recognition and the skills of decoding, phonological awareness, structures, vocabulary, etc., all work together to help comprehend language....

Week 3: Allington

After reading the readings from this week, there is a specific reading that stuck out to me and that was the chapter by Richard Allington, titled, "Research on Reading/Learning Disability Interventions". This article talked about specifically about identification, the definition of learning disables, and who qualifies, but there was a specific question asked which got me reflecting on Ontario schools, and specifically my board,

"Are all low achievers actually reading/learning disabled?" (Allington, 2001).

If this IS the case, then are we providing effective intervention for these students? If so, what exactly are they? In my school, our interventions for students who might not necessarily be labelled as having a learning disability are informal and not consistent in the sense that it really, unfortunately depends on the teacher. Some teachers provide the extra time, some teachers provide graphic organizers, some chunking, some visuals, etc., but are these interventions actually working? What I appreciated about the chapter was that Allington outline 3 steps that we can take:

1) Preventative interventions- reducing reading difficulties

2) Acceleration interventions -interventions help students catch up to their counterparts not utilizing this counterpart

3) Longer term interventions-literacy development THROUGHOUT, and not just sporadically which often happens

(Allington, 2001)

I truly loved reading this, because it really made me realize where we were in terms of our effective interventions. Sometimes we emphasize preventative interventions, and then have no real follow up with acceleration interventions or our long-term interventions fall through because there is no consistency in the program, the teacher, the methods, etc.

All in all, this chapter was my favourite from this week, it really got me thinking about our areas of improvement

Works Cited:

Allington, R. L. (2001). Research on reading/learning disability interventions. In S. J. Samuels and A.E. Farstrug (Eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction (4th ed.) Newark, DE: IRA.

Week 3: My own research

(Irvin, J. L., Meltzer, J., & Dukes, M. S. (2007). Taking action on adolescent literacy: An implementation guide for school leaders. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.)

As I am going through this book, I cannot help but think about something my old University professor had told me , and that was "what is beneficial for all is necessary for some"-I don't think that this quote could be more relatable to this course on creating effective interventions. Too often, we rush through our lesson plan, too often we say to our students, "read chapter 1, and answer the questions in the back" to demonstrate student understanding, and too little time and energy is spent on something what these authors have defined as "Accelerated interventions" which some students need to "accelerate" them to where other students are. This could be pre-reading strategies such as word banks, cloze passages, graphic organizers, etc. By taking the extra few moments to provide these opportunities to students, it might make a large difference in some student's reading experience. My question is, could we say the same about writing? I am excited to see if the book delves more deeply into writing, and perhaps the importance of providing pre-writing strategies to also help students accelerate their writing capabilities like it does with reading? Does reading and writing have a stronger relationship than I think it had?

What I have learned so far is that not all strategies and interventions will work for all students, but if we diagnose accordingly, we will find the best fit model for each student.

Week 3: Dyslexia and Differentiated Instruction

As I am going through this week's reading on the different theories to explain Dyslexia, I couldn't help but reflect on some of my students that were labelled as dyslexic, but did not have appropriate reading profiles created. As I was reading this week's readings, the idea of differentiated instruction was mentioned a few times, and I would agree, DI is incredibly important for ALL students, but I think that solely DI alone, does not provide us with the information we need to create effective intervention on student profiles/IEP's- we need something else. I looked at the information I have for my students who have an LD, and unfortunately these reading profiles were created in grade 7, and we had them transferred over to us when the students entered high school, and barely any new changes were created over the last couple of years. As a Special Education teacher, in September and in October we take extensive time to create IEP's that reflect the student's strengths, and areas of expertise, but, I know as a classroom teacher, most teachers just accommodate the student by providing extra time, or giving additional verbal instructions, chunking, etc. I am not a perfect teacher, and I know how busy the classroom can get with 30 students, and 30 different needs, however the profiles (in this case the IEP's) we create for the students must meet the needs of the students, by providing effective interventions that help them take the initial stages in helping themselves. I started thinking, what types of interventions can I provide for my students if they have dyslexia? One of the most prominent hypothesis of dyslexia argues that a lack of strong phonological awareness is one of the main contributing factors, so by perhaps creating opportunities for students to develop stronger phonological awareness and naming speed, I would be able to help students manage their LD. I thought of these interventions that could hep students develop automation: providing thinking time when answering questions, allowing students to visually illustrate an answer (as opposed to always verbally), providing students the opportunity to write in journals as a way to write everyday, but without the fear of having it marked by the teacher. I have used this tool before, where I just provided feedback to the students on their journal entries, and this was a great way to create open-dialogue with the teacher, without stressing the student out about marks, so I think any opportunity we give for students to write informally is extremely effective! Another strategy could be providing different forms of texts for students to read (ads, blogs, articles, tweets), so we can target what types of formats students excel in, and which types they struggle with. I think that differentiating our instruction and our process are effective, but we should also take this as an opportunity to target to see where students might be needing more assistance in, and that's where assistive technology such as Google Read and Write, and Kurzweil come into play. Thus, DI is the first step that we need to take, but targeted interventions for individual students will allow us to effectively support them!

Week 4-Response to Intervention

"An intervention

can be academic or behavioural, but all interventions

must have (a) a plan for implementation, (b) evidenced-based

pedagogy, (c) criteria for successful response, and (d)

assessment to monitor progress."

Averill, O. H., Baker, D., & Rinaldi, C. (2014). A blueprint for effectively using RTI intervention block time. Intervention in School and Clinic, 50(1), 29–38. DOI: 10.1177/1053451214532351

As I was reading this week's readings on RTI, I started reflecting on my own school, and what we have in place for "interventions" in the special education department. In our school, we have both a special education department, and a student success department. Both departments work independently, but also collaboratively, in the sense that both collect student data, both implement evidence-based strategies and both monitor students, however the special education department is responsible for mostly the academic support of our our vocational students, our students who may have learning disabilities, and our students who may have Autism. These monitors are responsible for connecting with other teachers, parents, providing tier 2, and 3 academic support, and be part of a a steering committee that involves teachers from the student success department. This department consists of teachers, technology specialists, the administrators, and support staff such as psychologists and social workers. I would say that these individuals are a slightly different team as they focus mostly on behavioural support, but they are also similar to the special education department as they also have monitoring teachers who provide tiered support individually to students on a daily basis. Both of these departments come together monthly for our steering committee meetings, and help each other provide targeted support for our individual in-risk students.

This is how we have identified tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 support at our school:

Tier 1 Support: Students are managed in the classroom by introducing clear expectations and one to one conferencing when needed. A level one student does not usually need to be withdrawn from the classroom. They may however ask to use Contact, though that is up to the teacher’s discretion.

Tier 2 Support: In addition to the supports listed for level one, some of these students are on Behavioural Plans (PBIP), Students and teachers are encouraged to follow the plan each day,

Tier 3 Support: These students receive intensive support from the Contact Program. Additional supports may include a behaviour plan(PBIP), safety plan, outside agencies, Intensive Support Team(IS), etc.

Week 5: Executive Functions

"What was your background knowledge on executive skills prior to this weeks readings and what updating have you done following this module? How might the role of EF be important to consider in your instruction? What are some ways you can help support students in developing EF skills in day-to-day tasks or for larger activities in literacy? What other effective strategies did you take note of? Make sure to record some of these reflections in your research journal or other lightbulb moments for future reference"

Source: Dawson, Peg, and Richard Guare. Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents : A Practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention, Guilford Publications, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/queen-ebooks/detail.action?docID=479599.

I really enjoyed this week's readings. i thought that learning about executive functions was extremely important, but it was not something new, it was something I was familiar with, and something that I could learn to incorporate more explicitly in my lessons. My background knowledge on EF, prior to this week was solely learning skills-especially the ones we report on in our progress reports. After reading this week;s readings, I realized that perhaps explicitly teaching these skills, and taking the time out of the day to push content to the side, and work on problem-solving, or organizing, or setting a routine would be much more beneficial then getting in the last passage in Romeo and Juliet! Over the last few years i have transitioned from a content-based teacher to a skills-based teacher emphasizing collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and other 21st century learning skills that students need to excel in our uncertain futures, but I still often skim over skills such as response inhibition, emotional control and developing strong working memory. A lot of these skills have to do with taking the time to mentally process what is happening, and what should happen next-thus requiring the need to incorporate self-talk. My question is, how do we effectively create self-talk? How can I help support students in developing self-talk to help strengthen their EF skills? Should I voice my thinking process aloud? Will students mirror that?

Some questions to think about as I go on!

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