Question 1- This was a very enlightening chapter for me on Reading Disabilities. Many of our students with autism have strengths in the area of decoding and weak skills in comprehension, along with speech difficulties. So it really helped me to see first of all how linked language impairments and reading impairments are, and also to see the different brain structures and neural systems that come into play for decoding vs those that are activated for comprehension. Decoding and comprehension require the coordination of the visual cortex (for visual processing), the temporal lobe (for phonology) and the frontal lobe (for semantics). Difficulties can occur anywhere in these three systems, causing different reading disabilities.
There were many strategies listed to teach students with reading problems, including more explicit teaching in phonological awareness skills, fluency and comprehension. In addition this chapter discussed and evaluated several good reading programs and their effects not only on reading but on changing how the brain works while reading after intervention (you could see different parts of the brain being used before and after intervention)! Use of research based reading programs that use computers that focus on phonemic awareness, auditory processing and oral language programs can substantially benefit students with dyslexia.
Question 2 - Access to good reading programs, early and intense intervention for students having difficulty in reading, intervention strategies that target all three brain systems involved in reading (auditory processing, visual processing, semantics), awareness of cultural and social causes of reading problems (linguistic/dialect differences from home), better evaluation techniques, including response to instruction, to determine who has reading disabilities.
Question 3- I think it would help teachers to understand the importance of language in developing reading skills, the integration needed of so many different parts of the brain, as well as the potential to re-wire the brain through direct intensive intervention.
I had a student with autism this year in first grade, who has made tremendous gains in two years. She still had a significant speech delay. The teacher kept telling the parents that she was at grade level in everything, and the parents kept saying she’s really good at decoding, but really struggles with comprehension. At the end of the third quarter, the teacher came back and said she needs intense training in comprehension, and is falling quickly behind her peers. She did not feel she had the skills to work with her and asked the special ed teacher to take over reading instruction. More training early on to help the teachers more closely monitor her comprehension and to dissect it a little more closely may have helped to get started earlier and would not have caused so much stress between the parents and the teacher. I learned through this experience, and it is reinforced by the brain-based research referred to in this chapter. Marcy – Chapter 5
Hi Marcy...I need you input on two things...first there is research out there that says that some kids are ready to read at age 4 and some aren't ready to read until age 10..and we are the only industrialized nation to have reading classes before 5th grade...and the research also indicates that if we push kids into reading before they are ready they struggle and thus labels... the other thought is really a story about a 2nd grade student who transferred into our school..after a few weeks the teacher sent him to the reading specialist to get fixed because he was such a poor reader...as the reading specialist was watching this boy read he noticed that the boy was using some good strategies to figure out words and meanings so he let him go till the boy finished the passage(about 20 minutes longer than he should have)...but the boy finished the passage and his comprehension was that of a freshman in high school...now was he a poor reader or just a slow reader??? and in this fast fast and faster culture don't we prize those kids who answer quick and hav timed tests, etc...does Sousa say anything about these two things?...thanks for stimulating my brain!!!
Evansville School district offers free and reduced breakfast and lunch. A few problems I see will our program is our breakfast program is only available before school. The students that would benifit from this program often do not get to school ontime. I would like to see the students get something they could bring back to my classroom kind of like a cold breakfast. Another problem is we have a new lunch program that is suppose to be health and teach student appropriate portion sizes. These ideas are great and very important,but students are coming back hungry because they did not get to make their own choices of sides. There use to be hot lunch which served the main meal and then a buffet style bar were student picked what else they were going to eat. Now the lunch is premade and only has one kind of vegetable and or fruit. If the students don't like the veggie or fruit they are out of luck. In my classroom I allow water bottles. daily snacks, and feedom to the restrooms and drinking foutain.
Our district makes sure we meet the physical and psychological need of our students to obtain optimal learning.
I will continue to allow and encourage my students to bring in water bottles, healthy snacks, and restroom/drink opportunities/ I also will offer my students an additional snack time after lunch if they complain they are hungry or I see the lunch offered was something most children will not eat. Also I keep crackers in my closet for students who may have an upset stomach because of meds. In addition to this we wash our hands in the morning, before snack, and before lunch. We then use sanitizer throughout the day.
hi Katie...Birchwood school now has their breakfast program around 9:30 to solve the late for class or school issue and they say its fabulous...and another school near here has kids go to recess before they go to noon lunch...less eating and running and a calmer lunch room...
1. Nutrition and learning go hand in hand. Our district does not offer school breakfast at this time. I would love to see it happen in the future. All students would benefit from district breakfasts. In today's high paced society most students come to school without eating and learning is difficult for them. 2. In my school water bottles are allowed in the classrooms. Some teachers allow them above lockers in the hallway. Students are able to get a drink when needed. Students also bring snacks to school and eat them at specified times in the morning. The only rule is the snacks need to be healthy. 3. I bring snacks and keep them in my classroom for students who forget. This doesn't happen often but it's nice to have extra just in case. Some parents will send a box at a time and I notify them when snacks run low. We have time before morning recess to eat our snacks. I like to talk to my students during this time. Sometimes we read a book. They seem to enjoy the social time to relax.
I ditto what Katie states about how our district, Evansville, runs their breakfast program. They try hard to promote it and increase their numbers. They'll have "special theme" days to invite more students to try to make it more successful. I like your comment about Birchwood serving breakfast at 9:30... that's about when we do snack... so I think that would draw a lot of kids to take whatever the school is serving. It's neat to hear what other districts do. My friend teaches in Beloit - they serve breakfast to every student first thing in the morning. She loves it, it give the kids (and herself) time to chat with each other and start the day off on a good foot. Like Katie explained about our new lunch menu, our district is always trying different things... hopefully they'll try at later breakfast time (even 8:30)... I think the students would really benefit from that.
We have a set snack time each day - which the kids love - it's a great time for them to interact with eachother, relax and enjoy a little non structured time. They can have water bottles at their desk too. I'm very comfortable with letting them take bathroom and drink breaks as needed.
I will continue to have a snack time each day and will continue to have some crackers, pretzles or whatever for the kids that don't have a snack. I do encourage kids, especially in the hot weather, to take plenty of drink breaks. Our classroom gets soooo warm - I do worry about them drinking enough. I WISH my next step for making my curriculum (classroom) brain compatible would be to add a bathroom and drinking fountain IN our room. That would be IDEAL!!! The convenience would be priceless.
Barney - I don't have definitive answers to your two questions, but Sousa does touch on both. His chapter in this book is a condensed version of his 2005 book How the Brain Learns to Read - that may be where you remember reading it. He does raise the question that we are teaching reading in kindergarten and that there is a debate if they are ready yet, especially boys whose brains are 1-2 years less mature physiologically. He does say that reading is probably the most difficult task we ask the young brain to undertake and has no area of the brain that specializes in reading, but requires coordination of multiple systems. He said it was difficult for about 50% of kids... He did say it was very related to language learning - late talking toddlers sort of catch up at age 6, but start to lag behind bu afer 8-9 and by age 13 score lower in many areas of reading.
That was a very interesting student you mentioned - I would guess you are right - that speed was the issue. Sousa talked about some very interesting research about visual and auditory processing speeds, that suggests that they are out of synchrony (auditory processing speed lags behind visual processing speed and the brain is hearing d while reading g in the word "dog" and ends up more like "god". Using computer program Fast Forward, they were able to slow down the visual processing to allow the auditory processing time to recognize the initial phoneme. Processing speed certainly could throw off one's reading ability and fluency, especially when being tested. Interesting... Marcy
7 comments:
Question 1-
This was a very enlightening chapter for me on Reading Disabilities. Many of our students with autism have strengths in the area of decoding and weak skills in comprehension, along with speech difficulties. So it really helped me to see first of all how linked language impairments and reading impairments are, and also to see the different brain structures and neural systems that come into play for decoding vs those that are activated for comprehension. Decoding and comprehension require the coordination of the visual cortex (for visual processing), the temporal lobe (for phonology) and the frontal lobe (for semantics). Difficulties can occur anywhere in these three systems, causing different reading disabilities.
There were many strategies listed to teach students with reading problems, including more explicit teaching in phonological awareness skills, fluency and comprehension. In addition this chapter discussed and evaluated several good reading programs and their effects not only on reading but on changing how the brain works while reading after intervention (you could see different parts of the brain being used before and after intervention)! Use of research based reading programs that use computers that focus on phonemic awareness, auditory processing and oral language programs can substantially benefit students with dyslexia.
Question 2 -
Access to good reading programs, early and intense intervention for students having difficulty in reading, intervention strategies that target all three brain systems involved in reading (auditory processing, visual processing, semantics), awareness of cultural and social causes of reading problems (linguistic/dialect differences from home), better evaluation techniques, including response to instruction, to determine who has reading disabilities.
Question 3-
I think it would help teachers to understand the importance of language in developing reading skills, the integration needed of so many different parts of the brain, as well as the potential to re-wire the brain through direct intensive intervention.
I had a student with autism this year in first grade, who has made tremendous gains in two years. She still had a significant speech delay. The teacher kept telling the parents that she was at grade level in everything, and the parents kept saying she’s really good at decoding, but really struggles with comprehension. At the end of the third quarter, the teacher came back and said she needs intense training in comprehension, and is falling quickly behind her peers. She did not feel she had the skills to work with her and asked the special ed teacher to take over reading instruction. More training early on to help the teachers more closely monitor her comprehension and to dissect it a little more closely may have helped to get started earlier and would not have caused so much stress between the parents and the teacher. I learned through this experience, and it is reinforced by the brain-based research referred to in this chapter.
Marcy – Chapter 5
Hi Marcy...I need you input on two things...first there is research out there that says that some kids are ready to read at age 4 and some aren't ready to read until age 10..and we are the only industrialized nation to have reading classes before 5th grade...and the research also indicates that if we push kids into reading before they are ready they struggle and thus labels...
the other thought is really a story about a 2nd grade student who transferred into our school..after a few weeks the teacher sent him to the reading specialist to get fixed because he was such a poor reader...as the reading specialist was watching this boy read he noticed that the boy was using some good strategies to figure out words and meanings so he let him go till the boy finished the passage(about 20 minutes longer than he should have)...but the boy finished the passage and his comprehension was that of a freshman in high school...now was he a poor reader or just a slow reader??? and in this fast fast and faster culture don't we prize those kids who answer quick and hav timed tests, etc...does Sousa say anything about these two things?...thanks for stimulating my brain!!!
Evansville School district offers free and reduced breakfast and lunch. A few problems I see will our program is our breakfast program is only available before school. The students that would benifit from this program often do not get to school ontime. I would like to see the students get something they could bring back to my classroom kind of like a cold breakfast. Another problem is we have a new lunch program that is suppose to be health and teach student appropriate portion sizes. These ideas are great and very important,but students are coming back hungry because they did not get to make their own choices of sides. There use to be hot lunch which served the main meal and then a buffet style bar were student picked what else they were going to eat. Now the lunch is premade and only has one kind of vegetable and or fruit. If the students don't like the veggie or fruit they are out of luck.
In my classroom I allow water bottles. daily snacks, and feedom to the restrooms and drinking foutain.
Our district makes sure we meet the physical and psychological need of our students to obtain optimal learning.
I will continue to allow and encourage my students to bring in water bottles, healthy snacks, and restroom/drink opportunities/ I also will offer my students an additional snack time after lunch if they complain they are hungry or I see the lunch offered was something most children will not eat. Also I keep crackers in my closet for students who may have an upset stomach because of meds. In addition to this we wash our hands in the morning, before snack, and before lunch. We then use sanitizer throughout the day.
hi Katie...Birchwood school now has their breakfast program around 9:30 to solve the late for class or school issue and they say its fabulous...and another school near here has kids go to recess before they go to noon lunch...less eating and running and a calmer lunch room...
1. Nutrition and learning go hand in hand. Our district does not offer school breakfast at this time. I would love to see it happen in the future. All students would benefit from district breakfasts. In today's high paced society most students come to school without eating and learning is difficult for them.
2. In my school water bottles are allowed in the classrooms. Some teachers allow them above lockers in the hallway. Students are able to get a drink when needed.
Students also bring snacks to school and eat them at specified times in the morning. The only rule is the snacks need to be healthy.
3. I bring snacks and keep them in my classroom for students who forget. This doesn't happen often but it's nice to have extra just in case. Some parents will send a box at a time and I notify them when snacks run low. We have time before morning recess to eat our snacks. I like to talk to my students during this time. Sometimes we read a book. They seem to enjoy the social time to relax.
I ditto what Katie states about how our district, Evansville, runs their breakfast program. They try hard to promote it and increase their numbers. They'll have "special theme" days to invite more students to try to make it more successful. I like your comment about Birchwood serving breakfast at 9:30... that's about when we do snack... so I think that would draw a lot of kids to take whatever the school is serving. It's neat to hear what other districts do. My friend teaches in Beloit - they serve breakfast to every student first thing in the morning. She loves it, it give the kids (and herself) time to chat with each other and start the day off on a good foot. Like Katie explained about our new lunch menu, our district is always trying different things... hopefully they'll try at later breakfast time (even 8:30)... I think the students would really benefit from that.
We have a set snack time each day - which the kids love - it's a great time for them to interact with eachother, relax and enjoy a little non structured time. They can have water bottles at their desk too. I'm very comfortable with letting them take bathroom and drink breaks as needed.
I will continue to have a snack time each day and will continue to have some crackers, pretzles or whatever for the kids that don't have a snack. I do encourage kids, especially in the hot weather, to take plenty of drink breaks. Our classroom gets soooo warm - I do worry about them drinking enough. I WISH my next step for making my curriculum (classroom) brain compatible would be to add a bathroom and drinking fountain IN our room. That would be IDEAL!!! The convenience would be priceless.
Barney - I don't have definitive answers to your two questions, but Sousa does touch on both. His chapter in this book is a condensed version of his 2005 book How the Brain Learns to Read - that may be where you remember reading it. He does raise the question that we are teaching reading in kindergarten and that there is a debate if they are ready yet, especially boys whose brains are 1-2 years less mature physiologically. He does say that reading is probably the most difficult task we ask the young brain to undertake and has no area of the brain that specializes in reading, but requires coordination of multiple systems. He said it was difficult for about 50% of kids... He did say it was very related to language learning - late talking toddlers sort of catch up at age 6, but start to lag behind bu afer 8-9 and by age 13 score lower in many areas of reading.
That was a very interesting student you mentioned - I would guess you are right - that speed was the issue. Sousa talked about some very interesting research about visual and auditory processing speeds, that suggests that they are out of synchrony (auditory processing speed lags behind visual processing speed and the brain is hearing d while reading g in the word "dog" and ends up more like "god". Using computer program Fast Forward, they were able to slow down the visual processing to allow the auditory processing time to recognize the initial phoneme. Processing speed certainly could throw off one's reading ability and fluency, especially when being tested. Interesting...
Marcy
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