Gordon Pershey, M. (2006) PSI1 Language and Literacy Development in Students with Special Needs Workshop Sponsored by PSI Independence, OH Part I – October

Gordon Pershey, M. (2006) PSI 1

Language and Literacy Development in Students with Special Needs

Workshop Sponsored by PSI Independence, OH Part I – October 24, 2006

Monica Gordon Pershey, Ed.D., CCC-SLPCleveland State University, Cleveland, [email protected], [email protected]


Learner Outcomes

1. Learners will identify how students’ language deficits are related to literacy difficulties.

2. Learners will describe how school SLPs can assess the literacy abilities of students with special needs for purposes of helping students access the general curriculum.

3. Learners will identify strategies for collaboration with teachers and tutors.


Introduction

Learners with special needs are emergent literacy learners – compare a learner’s development to emergent literacy milestones

SLP documents deficits in cognitive, language, and literacy foundations and determines how deficits prevent a student from successfully attaining curriculum objectives

Match each developmental assessment with grade levelindicators from the Ohio Reading/Language ArtsContent Standards


Ohio English/Language Arts Content Standards

5 Essential Areas:

Phonemic Awareness

Phonics

Fluency (rapid, automatic, effortless decoding of text for both oral and silent reading)

Text Comprehension

Vocabulary


NCLB and IDEIA

IEP goals and objectives connect to standards-basedcurricula

IEP provides for how elements of the generalcurriculum will be brought to the student by specialists

IEP (SLP) services help students become capable ofperforming on achievement tests

Emphasis on testing outcomes must not shortchangelearner’s needs

Therapy progress is subsumed under schoolprogress


NCLB- Mandated Testing for Special Needs Learners

Accommodations - Do not change what is to belearned; Do change how content or skills will belearned

Examples:Alternate MethodsAlternate MaterialsAlternate Response Modes

Modifications - Alter specific content or performanceexpectations

Examples:Change level of complexity of content or

skillsChange entire curriculum



The Alphabetic Principle

Concepts about phonology and written language

Linguistic abstractions pertinent to phonology,semantics, syntax, and pragmatics

How speech sounds are represented in print, or Englishorthography

The written code is entirely arbitrary and abstract


The Alphabetic Principle: Phonology and Orthography

WHAT IS A SOUND?

WHAT IS A SPEECH SOUND?

WHAT IS A LETTER?

HOW DOES A LETTER "MAKE A SOUND?“

WHY DOES THIS LETTER MAKE ONE SOUND SOMETIMES AND ANOTHER SOUND AT OTHER TIMES?

WHAT LETTERS MAKE THE SOUNDS THAT I AMINTERESTED IN?


The Alphabetic Principle: Phonology and Orthography

HOW CAN I TALK ABOUT WHAT I KNOW ABOUT LETTERS AND SOUNDS?

WHAT IS RHYMING?

WHAT IS MEANT BY BEGINNING SOUND? A MIDDLE SOUND? AN ENDING SOUND?

HOW DO I BLEND SOUNDS TOGETHER TO SAY WORDS?

HOW DO I TAKE WORDS APART TO HEAR THEIR SOUNDS?

WHAT IS A SYLLABLE? HOW DO I FIND THEM IN WORDS?


The Alphabetic Principle: Semantics

WHAT IS A WORD?

WHAT DOES A WORD LOOK LIKE?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR A WORD TO HAVE MEANING?

WHAT OTHER WORDS DO WE USE TO DISCUSS

WHAT A WORD MEANS?


The Alphabetic Principle: Syntax

WHAT IS A SENTENCE?

WHAT ARE THE PARTS OF A SENTENCE?

HOW DO WORDS LOOK WHEN THEY ARE TOGETHER IN SENTENCES?

HOW DO WORDS CHANGE THEIR MEANINGS IN SENTENCES?

HOW DO WORDS CHANGE? (MORPHOLOGY, MORPHOSYNTAX)


The Alphabetic Principle: Pragmatics

WHAT DOES PRINT STAND FOR IN OUR WORLD?

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE PRINT I AM SEEING NOW?

WHEN I READ, WHO IS TALKING TO ME?

WHAT IS THE CONTEXT OF WHAT IS BEING SAID TO ME?

WHAT SIGNALS ARE IN THIS PRINT (SUCH AS PUNCTUATION MARKS)?


Order of Emergence of the Language Systems

Oral Language Literacy

Pragmatics Pragmatics (+Syntax)Phonology Semantics (+ Syntax)Semantics PhonologySyntax Syntax


Designing Assessments

Assessments show skills that are in place

Assessments tell us where to begin interventions

Begin with no assistance and move incrementallythrough minimal to maximal assistance; Note allassistance given

Large print in a type face that does not use Greekletters (example: g or a, use g and a) or block printed by hand

Choose the number of items and trials

Audio or video tape assessment interactions


Assessing the Literacy Pragmatic – The Logographic Stage ofPrint Awareness

See “whole print configurations” found inenvironmental print

Recognize stop sign, McDonald’s sign, Coke, Pepsi

Not reading words

Assess by showing logos, labels, signs, book covers

Reproduce logos, etc., in plain type and match forrecognition

Memorization of small units of decontextualized print:Survival words such as "Men," "Walk," "Exit“


Assessing the Literacy Pragmatic – The Logoraphic Stage ofPrint Awareness

Is the learner aware that print conveys meaning?

Is the learner interested in print – points to text duringread aloud; asks “What does this say?”; experimentswith writing

Recognition of some sight words – Not sounding wordsout – See words as letter groups

Cannot be sure whether the learner is recognizing theletters, the words, or the configuration

Ohio Content Standards – Kdg:Recognize and understand words, signs and symbolsseen in everyday life.


The Alphabetic Stage ofPrint Awareness

Awareness that printed text is composed of letters Interest in single letters and the first letter of words

The language system of phonology becomes operative

Letters are linguistic abstractions and arbitrarySymbols that begin to make sense

Insight!!


Assessing the Alphabetic Stage ofPrint Awareness

Learners point to letters and say letter names, both inand out of alphabetical order

SLP reads letters, asks learner to point to the lettersthe SLP names

Scanning: Find letters in the words as SLP says the letters

Sound-letter correspondences: Learner may saysounds represented by letters


Assessing the Alphabetic Stage of Print Awareness

Spontaneously write all known letters – upper case,lower case

Learner might create letter forms but not know theletter name

Write single letters to dictation, both in and out ofalphabetical order


The Alphabetic Stage of Print Awareness

Ohio Content Standards that are met during theAlphabetic stage – Kdg:

Read own first and last name.Distinguish and name all upper and lower case letters.Recognize, say, and write the common sounds ofletters.Distinguish letters from words by recognizing thatwords are separated by spaces.Hear and say the separate phonemes in words,such as identifying the initial consonant sound in aword, and blend phonemes to say words.Read one-syllable and often-heard words by sight.Identify and distinguish between letters, words andsentences.


The Orthographic Stage ofPrint Awareness

Learning to break words into component parts

Learning to assemble parts of words into whole words

Look beyond the first letter of a word and deliberatelyor automatically scan letters, syllables, and word parts

Find letter-sound relationships, syllables, word parts,or small words within large words

Orthographic readers do not rely on known wholeconfigurations

Make use of information about the sound structure oflanguage and the orthographic code



Learners have gone through a heuristic period ofexploration that prepares them for the logorhythms ofliteracy

Exploration, intuition, and inductive learning have ledthe way for deductive learning about reading, writing,spelling

A spelling conscience develops

Ohio Content Standards that are met by during theOrthographic stage – Kdg:Show characteristics of early letter name-alphabeticspelling.



Ohio Content Standards that are met during theOrthographic stage – Grade 1:

Read regularly spelled multi-syllable words by sight.Blend phonemes (sounds) of letters and syllables toread unknown words with one or more syllables.Use knowledge of common word families (e.g., -ite or -ate) to sound out unfamiliar words.Segment letter, letter blends and syllable sounds in words.Distinguish and identify the beginning, middle and ending sounds in words. Demonstrate a growing stock of sight words.Read text using fluid and automatic decoding skills.Read accurately high-frequency sight words.


Reading Automaticity

Reading is a parallel examination of stimulus andmemory – search memory for knowledge about thisstimulus

For readers with the least experience, storedknowledge is about logos

For alphabetic readers, stored knowledge is aboutinitial letters in words and other salient letters presentin familiar examples of print

Sight word readers make use of both logographic andalphabetic skills


The Later Orthographic Stage ofPrint Awareness

Ohio Content Standards that are met during the laterOrthographic stage – Grade 2: Use letter-sound knowledge and structuralanalysis to decode words. Read text using fluid and automatic decoding skills.


SLPs Work on the Language Skills that Make Spelling and Decoding Possible

Phonics is integrated into word study and meaningfulword use

Phonics learners are metalinguistically aware, haveinsight into their own pattern detection

Capitalize on learners’ pattern detection abilities andteach phonics rules that make sense and can beapplied to spelling on a daily basis

Consistencies in our language can be learned – workwith “chunks,” such as word families


Marie Clay’s Concepts About Print Test

A test of awareness of the conventions of print

Choose an engaging picture book with more than oneline of print per page

Print and pictures on the same page

Read from top to bottom on each page

Punctuation and upper and lower case letters



Ask learner to show the book cover or front – Say, "Show me the front of the book“ or "Show me the title"

Identify text as distinct from illustrations – Say,"Where do I start reading?" Learners understandreading is interaction with print

Directionality – Left to right, top to bottomSay, "Which way will I read from here?"

Return Sweep – Say, "Show me where I read next?”Learner should point to the next line of print

Word Awareness – Say, "Now you point to thewords while I read" Learner should be pointing word byword, line by line, while read to aloud



Beginning of a Word – Say, “Where is the beginning ofthe word “____” referring to the last word readSay, “show me the first letter in that word”

Upper and Lower Case Letters – Say, "Show me acapital letter" "Show me a small letter"

Punctuation – Say, “What is this for?”

Word Order – While finger pointing, read a linebackwards, Say, "What did I do wrong?”

End of a Word – After reading a page, select a word,show its beginning letter, Say "Where does this wordend?"



Sentence – After you read a given sentence, ask“Where did that sentence begin?” "Where did thatsentence end?“

Back of the Book – Say, "Where is the back of thebook?“

Beginning of story – Say, "Do you remember how thestory began?"

End of the story, Say, "Do you remember how thestory ended?"



Ohio Content Standards that are assessed using theConcepts About Print Test – Kdg: Hold books right side up, know that people read pagesfrom front to back and read words from left to right.Know the differences between illustrations and print.Identify and distinguish between letters, words andsentences.Grade 1:Follow simple oral directions.Speak clearly and understandably.


Rationale for Clinician Constructed Literacy Assessments

For most learners with moderate to severe special needs, it has already been ascertained that their skills vary from normative expectations – we do not need touse standardized measures to confirm this

Scattered, spotty, or inconsistent skills are revealedbecause clinician constructed testing progresses “at leisure” and no ceiling or criterion must be enforced

Clinician constructed tests show accomplishment offunctional behaviors

Establish functional tasks to be continued in therapy


Rationale for Clinician Constructed Literacy Assessments

Tasks coincide with Ohio Content Standards andestablish the need for modification of mandatedachievement tests or use of alternative testing

Use pre-primer or primer passages, unless learner surpasses this level

Record both correct and incorrect responses

Note how many items were attempted, how many responses were accurate, and how many wereinaccurate

For most tasks that require lists, 10 items are usually sufficient


Collaboration Models: Working With Special Needs Personnel

GOAL SETTING:

Competitive Goal Setting: Win/Lose

Little attempt to have outside services impact upon classroom success

Teacher is uninvolved with specialists; specialists don’t know curricular/instructional needs of the child

Worst case: “When you are out of class for work with your specialists, you are still responsible for class work”



Individualistic Goal Setting: No Interdependence

Goals for one service have no relationship to goals for another service

Team members seldom communicate about progress

Worst case: “I’ll do mine, you do yours, we’ll staple them together and call it a team report.”

Worst case: too many cooks; too much time spent in diverse pull-outs



Cooperative Goal Setting: Positive Interdependence

Goals are written to coincide

Help child address their main areas of curricular/instructional needs

Worst case: too many strategies and interventions, even if they all coincide


Group Sharing

Planning How to Enhance Your Practice

Assessment

Setting Goals/Objectives

Intervention Ideas

Collaboration

Documents

Gordon Pershey, M. (2006) PSI1 Language and Literacy Development in Students with Special Needs Workshop Sponsored by PSI Independence, OH Part I – October