This week your blog is a reflection on your weekly reading (D & G chapter 7 and K & H chapter 2).  From the reading, define and give examples of reading difficulties, language difficulties, writing difficulties, and other literacy difficulties.  Were there any new ideas that stood out from these chapters or questions you have?  What strategies stood out as strategies you would like to try in your classroom in the future (or currently do use)?

This is due by class time on June 25. 

Key Points and Reading Difficulties

D&G

• adolescents need to be involved in the goal setting process. 
• adolescents need to take responsibility for their disability and changing behaviors that will result in their improvement. 
• talk openly and frankly with the student about his language/communication disability.
• be cognizant of the adolescents stage of development.
• intrinsic motivation is enhanced when we teach what is relevant and interesting to the adolescent learner.

 
K & H defines reading difficulties with a series of diagnostic features; Criterion A –when reading achievement falls substantially below that of what is expected given age, measured intelligence and age appropriate education. Criterion B – when there is significant interference with academic achievement or with activities of daily living that require reading skills. Criterion C – Where individuals have sensory deficits, the reading disorder is greater than would be expected due to that disorder. Oral reading – characterized by distortions, substitutions, and omissions. Oral and silent reading - characterized by slowness and errors in comprehension. I really appreciated reading this list, because it provided me with a specific list of what a reading difficulty really is. Reading difficulties range from issues with decoding words, comprehension and all aspects of literacy. Reading difficulties looks quite different in a variety of situations. One student could be in sixth grade and yet not be able to sound out and decode words, another student could be in high school and still struggle with reading because they have a family living situation that has kept them back.

Language difficulties, like reading difficulties looks different in many varying situations. Language difficulties can range from an ELL student just learning the language to students that are just unable to communicate in the English language. Many students in this situation just can’t communicate what they are thinking. This issue may show up in a student’s writing and oral expression. Again like the reading issue discussed previously language difficulties range from severe to just barely evident. Communication issues can show in a student’s academic performance, to social interactions, cognitive functioning and obviously behavior. In my current teaching situation I see my students as being very much in need of work in their language skills. I see this evident in their social interaction and classroom behavior. After this week’s reading I see myself as needing to work on socialization skills and communication and less on academic issues.

As far as writing difficulties I see K & H as explaining this as almost an extension of communications difficulties. Can and do these students tell or retell a story they know or have read. Can they tell main point? If they can’t decode they probably can’t spell. Then there are the fine motor skills issues. Many students with writing problems have a problem holding a pencil and maybe even tracing shapes. I have seen students that have the ability to explain and retell and even use higher level thinking, but they still can’t put down their thoughts on paper.

Other issues with literacy involve those students that may have issues like intellectual disabilities, visual or hearing impairments, autism and maybe even emotional difficulties. No matter what difficulty a student has it is important for me as a teacher to learn strategies and ways to identify these needs.

As a new teacher with a social work background I find that I combine strategies from both disciplines to meet the needs of my students. I try and normalize their current level of functioning. Since I work with adolescents, they already have a good idea of what they want to do after high school. This actually has a huge impact on what interventions they are willing to engage in with regard to their disability. When we can collectively decide what direction the student is interested in pursuing then developing and implementing an intervention follows effortlessly. My students are more apt to actively participate in interventions they are involved in developing for themselves.