Designing an Inclusive Day Book - Essay Example

? Designing an Inclusive Day Book Part Lila is a year 2 who attends a school in the Western Sydney region. After careful observation it seems that Lila shows symptoms of dyslexia. Lila is currently part of an integration program at the school and is withdrawn from class for half an hour a day by a reading recovery teacher, even though Lila is not in year 1 his reading level is at year 1. This is Lila second session of reading recovery, she had one in year 1 and is now part of the 20 week program once again. Lila also goes with a support teacher twice a week during maths lessons for help with numeracy. The class teacher aims to give instructions to the whole class, sends them to their desk or wherever they need to be in order to complete the task, she than goes up to Lila and repeats the instructions to ensure she understands. Throughout the lesson Lila approaches the teacher to ask for clarification of certain steps of the task. From my classroom observations I notice that Lila has a certain motivation for learning, she is keen to learn and the teacher fosters an environment where Lila feels comfortable. Huitt (1999) claims, dyslexic students require constant repetition in order to learn words and sentence structure. Lila has demonstrated a skill in memorising words and facts rather than understanding or sounding out words. This was apparent when the teacher asked Lila to repeat the sights words and he repeated them without looking at them and in the order they were written on the board, obviously she has memorized them in order to do this. However, Lila tends to lose concentration easily as well; even though she is motivated in the task she tends to lose concentration and give up after attempting the task a few times. Her failed attempt at the task overrides her curiosity to learn. Lila enjoys creative arts lessons where she is able to explore her creative ability, especially music lessons which unfortunately the teacher finds difficult to incorporate on a regular basis. However, the teacher allows Lila to play independently on a keyboard, on a regular basis, in order to keep her motivated and passionate throughout the year. During visual arts lessons Lila creates artwork with lots of patterns and similarities, for example during a lesson where students were learning about patterns, the teacher had Lila paint the patterns in order to demonstrate her understanding, and he created amazing pieces of work which demonstrates understanding beyond the Stage 1 level. Due to Lila’s dyslexia he is reading at an early stage 1 level and requires help with tasks that involve a large amount of reading. The teacher modifies tasks for Lila in order to ensure she builds upon her existing skills rather than providing work beyond her understanding. For instance: during a lesson on writing information reports the teacher had a sample information report printed on paper, cut out and jumbled up. Instead of writing Lila was expected to identify the features of an information report and put the sentences in an appropriate order. After which Lila glued the sentences in her English workbook. During this task Lila demanded less attention than normal from the teacher, as she wasn’t struggling to write, rather she was aiming to learn and understand. This is a great activity as it takes Lila’s mind away from writing and allows her to concentrate on putting the sentences in chronological order. Huitt (1999) believes that repetition is the key to dyslexic students suffering from sequence problems. Lila is very vocal and assertive at times in the classroom. She prefers to work independently as she feels that her peers thinking are not of her liking. During group work Lila raises her voice and quarrels with her peers on the logistics of the task, she feels that her way is superior and expects her peers to follow. At times Lila’s creativity and intellectual abilities are beyond the task, therefore she find group work boring and irrelevant during these times. There are also instances where Lila is not concerned with the technical logistics of the task, rather she is interested in the holistic approach and views the task differently to her peers. Lila’s strengths include her creative ability, intuition, passion, motivation, ambition, reasoning, holistic approach. Lila’s weaknesses include her reading ability, some mathematic concepts, lack of concentration at times and weak social interaction with her peers. part 2: Day Book Class: ___Year 2, (2M) Date/Week: Week 5, Term 2, Wednesday June 20 2011 Time Lesson Outcomes/Indicators Teaching/ Learning Strategies & Activities Resources Evaluation/Assessment 9.00 Classroom Roll Admin – Mark roll, notes, lunch orders etc. Ensure that all students are sitting on the floor with their 5L’S. Ensure that Lila is seating at the front and facing the teacher. IM classroom roll (9.15-10.00) Literacy Groups RS1.6 Draws on an increasing range of skills and strategies when reading and comprehending. Predict what a text is about from its cover and title. Maintains continuity in understanding when meaning is disrupted. Attempts to self- correct when meaning is disrupted while reading. Guided reading with one group – focus on comprehension: Divide students to 4 groups of 4-5 students according to their reading level. Sets the other groups to do different activities or literacy games with some parents’ helper before sitting with the nominated guided reading group. Set with each group separately and orientates students to the story before reading it. Asks students to predict what the story is about by looking at the cover page. Asks each student in the group to read a page from the story. Rehearses a difficult structure in the story – a sentence or phrase that the teacher thinks students may not have come across in everyday language. Asks students some comprehension questions and listen to their responds. Chooses a high frequency word that occurred frequently in the story and gets the students to quickly flick through the book and locate it as many times as it appears. This will assist students to build their reading vocabulary and allow them to read fluently. Lila is seating with the reading recovery teacher and she is reading the appropriate book that suitable for her reading level. After Lila read the book, ask her to retell what was the story about? Ask her to tell what part of the story she liked more any why? Writes 2-3 sentences from Lila’s answers. Cut the sentences and muddle them up. Ask Lila to put the sentences in there right order and glue them in her English book. Note: This activity is very good as it has hands-on activities .Provide Lila with lots of hands – on activities keeps her busy all the time and decreases her distraction. Nominated guided reading books for this week for each group. Literacy activities. Reading recovery book that is appropriate for Lila’s level. Pen. A piece of paper. Scissor. Glue. Lila’s notebook. Students were able to responds to the comprehension questions and predicate the answer from the pictures except the lower group; they need more concentration and help. All groups were seated on the floor sensibly, were responding to the teacher and they did not interrupt each other. Lesson went as planned. Lila needed some assistance in putting the sentences in order. 10:00 Crunch & Sip/News. (Talking and Listening) TS1.1 Communicate with an increasing range of people for a variety of purposes on both familiar and introduce topics in spontaneous and structured classroom activities. Gives a simple description of familiar things to the class. Gives personal recount about what they have done over the weekend. Recounts real events in logical sequences. Presents news to the class. Speaking- Oral recount Students present news to the class once a week. Students asked to do an oral recount about what they have done on the weekend. Students are encouraged to include all elements of the recounts while they are doing their news. Students address the class by saying “Good morning” and finish by asking if there are any questions or comments. Ensure that Lila is setting on the floor, facing the teacher and is setting next to a good behaved student to ensure that he/she will not incite her behaviour. ??? Students’ crunch and sip. Lesson went as planned. Students were able to cover all parts of the recount orally expect lower level students who are need more focus on the sequence of the events. Some students need to concentrate on eye contact. Students sat on the floor sensibly and listen to others recount quietly. 10: 20 Writing WS 1.10 Produces texts using the basic grammatical features and punctuations of the text type. Uses adjective to provide more information about noun. Uses past tense relatively consistently in literary texts. Using relating verbs to describe and classify in information report. Uses capital letters at the beginning of sentence. Uses full stop at end of sentences. Information report: Recount of the weekend- focus on language using past tense. Description: Sheep- consolidate concept of nouns and adjective. Label diagram of a sheep. Information report on sheep using heading –general statements, appearance, habitat, food, movement and babies. Creative writing. Instead of writing, gives Lila a sample information report printed on paper, cut out and jumbled up. Lila should identify the features of an information report and put the sentences in an appropriate order. Lila required gluing the sentences in chronological order in her English workbook. Another activity that Lila could do: Gives Lila a big laminated picture of a sheep and laminated flashcards for its parts. Ask Lila to label the Sheep’s picture. Provide her with different laminated flashcards that have various words. Ask Lila to use the labelling pictures and the laminated words in order to make different sentences that are related to the sheep’s picture. Picture of a sheep. White board markers. Students writing notebook. Big laminated picture of a sheep. Laminated flashcards of the sheep parts. Laminated flashcards with various words. Scissor. Glue. Printed sample of an information report. Students were able to write their own information report and using at least one noun and one adjective to describe a noun. High level students were able to write a correct structure of the information report using the introduction, at least two descriptive sentences and a conclusion. Lila could not put the sentences in the chronological order and she needed some assistance. 11:00 Recess 11: 20 PDH SLS1.13 Recognises that their safety depends on the environment and the behaviour of themselves and others. Compares the characteristics of places where students feel safe and unsafe Identifies things needed to play safely, eg helmets for bike riding. Safety on wheels- Wear a helmet: Have students tell how they get ready to go and ride their bikes, scooter, skateboards or roller blades. Ask students to describe their helmets to a partner and ask some students to report back to the class. Shows students a you tube video clip about how to ride bikes, scooter, skateboards or roller blades safely. Prior to this lesson send a note to the parents asking them to let their child to bring his/her scooter, bike, skateboard or roller and their helmet to school. If any students have brought helmets in, ask them to demonstrate how they put their helmet on and talk to students about ensuring that the helmet is the correct fit and worn properly. Show students how straps can be adjusted so that the helmet fits securely. Let Lila practice how to ride her/bike or scooter and wear her helmet safely. Upon return students to the class, complete Interactive White Board bicycle Sequencing Activity where students examine the photographs from the bicycle safety photo story and then put them in the right order. Gives Lila some laminated flashcards of bicycle safety photos and asks her to put them in their chronological order. Ensure that Lila is sitting at the front of the IWB and facing the teacher Ensure Lila is sitting next to a well behaved student who will not provoke her behaviour. Have students consider what other protective gear can be worn when riding or skating. Possibly students’ helmets for demonstration. IWB Bicycle Sequencing activity. Students interact effectively with the lesson. Students love the lesson. The lesson went as planned. Students wear able to wear their helmets correctly. Some students founded adjusting the helmet strips was very hard and they needed assistance. Lila enjoyed the activity and participated very well. Lila was able to demonstrate how to ride her scooter safely. 12:00 Shared Reading RS1.5 Reads a wider range of texts on less familiar topics with increasingly independence and understanding making connections between own knowledge and experience and information in texts. Interprets story illustrations. Participates in class/group brainstorming activities to cluster and categories ideas and facts following the reading text. Focus on comprehension : Read, discuss and predict title and illustrations. Read, discuss and share story as a class. Use the big big version of the story. Revisit, reread story: joint class retells. Whole class story sequence using illustrations from the story. Independent Retells. Asks students some comprehension questions that are related to story. Asks students to design and label a meanie using oil pastels and dye. Label big nose, sharp claws and messy hair. Independently retell story to parent helper (Parent helper to record responses). Another activity that Lila could do: Provide Lila with some laminated pictures for all or some picture of the story. Muddle these pictures and ask Lila to put them in their chorological order as she heard from the story. Ask Lila to look at the pictures and retell the story. Picture book “meanie’s Party” by Joy Cowley-big big version. Oil pastels. Dye. Pencils. Students loved the story. Students were able to design their own meanie successfully. Students were able to talk briefly about their meanie. 12:20 Mathematics MS1.5 Compares the duration of events using informal methods and reads clocks on the half-hour. •Recalling the number of days in a month •Recalling the days of the week •Naming and ordering the months of the year. •Comparing and ordering the duration of events measured using a repeated informal unit •Identifying the day and date using a conventional calendar. MES1.5 Sequence events and uses everyday language to describe the duration of events. •Naming and ordering the days of the week •Recalling that there are seven days in a week. •Classifying weekdays and weekends. Months of the year: Activity 1: Read the book: “Inside Mary Elizabeth’s house” with students. (Big version). Make sure Lila is sitting at the front of the classroom, making sure she is sitting next to a well behaved student who will not provoke his behaviour. Use a big book rather than a normal sized one so Lila can see the words clearly. Gives Lila the Laminated flashcards of the days of the week so she can practice putting them in order whilst the teacher is reading the story. Recall with students the days of the week through a PowerPoint presentation. Ask students to name a few things they do on each day of the week in order to reiterate. Introduce the months of the year. Have a similar PowerPoint presentation for the months of the year. Have students read through the slides a few times. Asks students to recall when their birthday is, then get students to type in their birthday on the right slide. Asks each student to tell the month which comes before and after their birth month. Print this off and stick up somewhere in the classroom so students can follow this calendar over the year. Gives Lila the flashcards. Expect her to know the days of the week thoroughly, however, the months of the year may take longer. If Lila loses concentration than let me type the days of the week on the iPad. Lila may participate in this activity. Activity 2: Asks students to read the names of the months, cut them out and paste them in their Math notebooks. Asks students to label the months with numbers 1-12. While students are completing this activity give Lila a chance to put the moths of the year or the days of the week in chronological order on the iPad. There are a variety of applications on the iPad which Lila could use. The applications also reiterate weekends and weekdays for Lila from Kindergarten (Early stage 1). If Lila is showing interest then she can complete the same activity the students are doing with some assistance. As a whole classroom, discuss with students what they liked about the activities and ask them some reflected questions. Gives Lila a chance to discuss with the class how she felt. Asks Lila to tell the class whether she liked doing the activity her way or would have like to join in with the class? iPad Power point presentation with the months of the year. Interactive white board. Children’s - “Inside Mary Elizabeth’s house” Big Book version. Months’ worksheet. Laminated flashcards with the days of the week and months of the year. Observe student participation in class discussion Student work samples – (Lila’s work sample of the flashcards in chronological order) 1:15 Lunch 2:00 Assembly Task 3: Discussion Every child has different sets of strengths and weaknesses, and they should be known so that the strengths could be put in good use. Lila’s strengths should be used to make proper and effective lessons. As mentioned before, Lila has a lot of strengths despite her dyslexia. These are creative ability, intuition, passion, motivation, ambition, reasoning and holistic approach. This would make learning easier for her and would make teaching easier for the teacher as well. This would help Lila in the fields of Literacy and Numeracy, especially in problem solving skills. Lila is quite verbal and social. Her weaknesses are solely rooted on her reading skills, because of her dyslexia. Because of this, it would be helpful if Lila has a visual schedule, with pictures on instead of words. Because of this, Lila would not be using words but pictures, and this would take the anxiety off her as she can follow the pictures and be independent in following the schedule (Silverman and Freed, 1991). This would decrease Lila’s reliance on the teacher and it would lead to a more positive self-image because she can do things on her own now. In the classroom roll, Lila was placed in front. According to Teaching Today (Crie, 2005), the dyslexics thrive when put in front of the class as they can easily access the lessons that are on the board. We know that Lila is a visual-spatial learner. For that, we know that her writing skills are not at par with most of her peers. That is why the reading recovery teacher put out some things to clip in order for Lila to do the activities herself. The assessment has the same goal (comprehension) and by doing that, Lila can answer the questions as well. She is in an integration program and her workup program is done for an hour everyday. Part of the routine, especially on Literacy, would be about retelling stories and writing the important parts of the story down. The activity need not be extensive, but then the repetition should be enough to make the lesson, especially some reading and writing techniques, easier to digest. The routine would also make the lesson easier to memorize, ergo, easier to repeat and imbibe (Crie, 2005). The lessons would be reduced to smaller chunks as well, to make it easier for Lila to complete her tasks. Knowing the child’s interests would help the teacher make the lessons more interesting and would make the learning experience for the child more pleasant. Setting achievable goals and targets for Lila would make for a pleasant outlook towards school as well. Letting the child know their expectations and goals also is a positive aspect because it would help them prioritize their goals and they would know how to gauge their abilities. However, this schedule should be strictly followed, as structured learning is quite important and easier to follow. Students with special needs also react positively to this kind of setup and they learn faster. Prolonging lessons and changing parts of the schedule is not recommended as it may cause delays in learning, especially in Reading and Literacy. It may also cause frustration and confusion to children and that is very counterproductive (Crie, 2005). Maintaining the child’s attention is also crucial for a dyslexic since they get bored on things that they cannot really do (Crie, 2005). Especially when the lesson is quite heavy on language, the student might think that the lesson can be really heavy and daunting. Because of this, Lila always has a recovery teacher by her side, especially for Numeracy and Literacy. The teacher would be there to guide Lila with her words, making her less frustrated as the teacher would make her feel confident in class, as this was an integrative setting. She does not need to be embarrassed by comparing herself to her other classmates. ???? Also, because of her inherent communication difficulties, having a teacher by her side actually boosts her confidence because the teacher can actually understand what she is trying to communicate. Dyslexia also makes writing difficult for Lila (Crie, 2005), so with a teacher to guide her, writing would be less a task and more of an exercise. Using technology for education is actually more effective in letting Lila achieve her goals. Again, this would lead to more confidence and self-esteem (Loreman, 2011). Even though she is with a teacher, she is being practiced to being independent. It has to be noted that her activities are different from his classmates though, as his activities are more suited to his ability. As Lila is a visual-spatial learner, she does things with pictures. As like before, her lessons are modified to suit her abilities. She would have to glue pictures and that would be her gauge in making narratives (as in recounting the weekend). Lila can actually do stuff independently, especially when there is less writing that is involved. The technique that happens mostly is that, when in lessons, instead of writing, cutting and pasting the important details of the story should also work as fine. She manages to exercise her comprehension skills and also hone her fine motor skills. With this activity, she can also answer her teacher’s questions correctly, but with less stress as she does not really take enormous efforts in reading and writing (Loreman, 2011). For her PE lesson with helmets, laminated flashcards assembled in a chronological order would be recommended because, again, they are visual cues (Silverman and Freed, 1991). This would not hamper her thought process, in fact, it would make her feel confident because she knows she can carry out the task herself . In Guided reading, Lila was tasked to make a meanie. This is enjoyable for her as she loves art in general. Before doing that, though, her book was the extra large version, for her to clearly see her letters and to absorb the story. The output of making a meanie is to check her comprehension, and in a nice way as she enjoys working on creative outputs. For Maths, Lila was again made to sit up in front of the class. This would ensure concentration for her. Her flashcards at first weren’t from the iPad, and it was fine as long as she kept her concentration. Lila used the iPad for her flashcards activity when she got bored, as iPad applications are more visually appealing than flashcards anyway. (Silverman and Freed, 1991) This happens also in the same manner as with her activity regarding Maths, by reading “Inside Mary Elizabeth’s House”. By managing to work on the exercises visually, it would ease her stress and make her feel more confident and capable. Again, with the use of technology (the and “painless” for her as she uses her own knowledge and skills to arrive at an answer. iPad), learning would be easier (Crie, 2005). All in all, Lila’s lessons are tailored to meet her capacity as a dyslexic, but not in a way that would put her in such a stress. It is a fun way of learning for a child but it would also make her productive. All in all, her lessons are specific and regulated, studied and planned. This is what education should be like. References: Crie, M. (2005). Helping Dyslexic Students Succeed. Teaching Today. New York, USA. New York: McGrawHill Co. Loreman, T., Deppeler, J., & Harvey, D. (2011). Inclusive education: Supporting diversity in the classroom (2nd ed.).Crows Nest, Australia: Allen & Unwin. Lyons, G., Ford, M., & Arthur-Kelly, M. (2011). Classroom management: Creating positive learning environments (3rd ed.). South Melbourne, Australia: Cengage Learning. Silverman, L.K., & Freed, J.N. (1991). The Visual Spatial Learner. Retrieved September 29, 2012 from Davis Dyslexia Association International, Dyslexia the Gift Web site: http://www.dyslexia.com/library/silver1.htm Warnke, A.(1999). "Reading and spelling disorders: Clinical features and causes". Journal European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 8 (3): S2–S12. doi:10.1007/PL00010689. Retrieved 29 September 2012. Read More