Hudson, M. E., Browder,
D., & Wakeman, S. (2013). Helping students with moderate and
severe intellectual disability access
grade-level text. TEACHING Exceptional
Children, 45(3), 14-23.
The article that I read gave suggestions for supporting
students with intellectual disabilities in the general education classroom. The focus was promoting grade-level reading
for students with intellectual disabilities with supports. The studies included adapting the text
through shortening the length of the passage to accommodate the individual
student’s attention span, adding pictures and repetitions of the main idea to
build comprehension. Other suggestions
included adding definitions for unfamiliar words and writing summaries for the
student’s current Lexile level. The
authors also support the idea of textual dependent comprehension questions,
meaning that the student must read or hear the story in order to answer the
questions. Possible selections for the
student to choose can be false but plausible answers to promote the idea that
the correct answers can only come from the text.
The article connected with our class subject matter
because it emphasized including students without intellectual disabilities as
resources for students with intellectual disabilities. The method is called shared story reading,
where a partner reads the text aloud so that the other partner can listen for
comprehension. This is particularly effective
for students with disabilities who are just beginning to read. It is an important way for students to access
grade level text. According to our
readings, students with intellectual disabilities do not have the academic
skills of students at their particular age group, so giving extra supports in
the forms of visual representations and summaries helps those students access
the same content with accommodations and modifications.
In addition, I found some of the strategies useful in my
own classroom. The use of graphic
organizers is a good way for all students with and without disabilities to
succeed in the classroom by being able to organize main ideas across all
content areas. I also found it interesting
to read that the amount of text presented at the middle and high school age for
students with intellectual disabilities can be expanded to two or more
paragraphs per page for accessibility. It
shows the progress that the students can make from starting with only one or
two sentences per page.
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteIt is awesome to hear how you are already taking what we are learning and plugging it into your classroom. It is great to see the work we are doing have immediate pay off . I cannot wait to use the information in my classroom! As for the article, I love the idea of using peers in blended classrooms as a resource for the students with intellectual disabilities. It provides a good opportunity for the typically developed individual to work in a mentor role. Doing this also helps students who may not normally interact make connections and possibly form friendships, which is always a great accomplishment. I look forward to hearing how some of the techniques work out in your classroom.
These seems like such a helpful and practical article. Determining strategies that allow students with disabilities to access grade level text is so important. I am glad that you have found these strategies helpful and can implement some of them into your classroom. That graphic organizer is such a universal strategy; it helps so many students and can be adapted for a variety of learners.
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