Larry Ferlazzo is an English and social studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif.
The new question-of-the-week is:
What is the single most effective instructional strategy you have used with students with learning challenges?
This post is part of a longer series of questions and answers inviting educators from various disciplines to share their “single most effective instructional strategy.”
Three weeks ago, it was about teaching English-language learners.
Math was the focus two weeks ago.
Last week’s posts were on science.
There are more to come!
Today, Toby Karten, Julia Di Capua, Aubrey Yeh, and Lou Denti offer their responses.
Toby Karten is an award-winning special educator, international presenter, and author who is passionate in sharing her knowledge with others to build on the strength of students with special needs in inclusive classrooms, thinking about what to do and what to do better ! She has taught students ranging from preschool to graduate level across the least restrictive continuum. Her interactive live and online presentations , digital resources , and more than 30 publications offer practical and creative inclusive applications:
Students with IEPs and 504 plans, struggling students, and students who just need to learn differently appreciate active engagements. Let the learning hop, jump, and skip beyond the textbook into inclusive places in each student’s heart and world.
Whether students pay attention to lessons might depend on numerous factors that include their mood, internal or external distracters, or stimuli or situations beyond their prior knowledge and experiences. Although video clips, curriculum songs, interactive whiteboards, and colorful charts or visuals will captivate many students, novel material is usually more difficult for them to learn. Learners often need to see and experience an example or model before they can reproduce an action on their own. Abstract concepts and skills need to be translated into active instructional engagements.
The most effective strategy to accomplish this is to allow students to “do it, speak it, link it, and own it (D-S-L-O)!” Whether they cut up an apple to model fractions or learn about the civil rights movement by reenacting the Rev. Martin Luther King’s March on Washington, or stand closer together to represent solids and farther apart to show themselves as liquids and gases, all learning is better processed, remembered, and internalized by the things we do!
These D-S-L-O literacy practices offer ways for students to “do it, speak it, link it, and own it!”
1.Do It! Concrete demonstration with teacher direction and self-discovery (sans worksheets).
As examples, students:
a. Toss or dribble a ball to collaboratively create an oral story.
b. Play sight word hopscotch.
c. Create paragraphs with group discussion.
d. Morph different parts of speech with magnetic letters; e.g., sun to sunny or teacher to teach or teachable.
e. Demonstrate vocabulary through pantomime and charades.
f. Find words in classroom and text “scavenger hunts.”
g. Play word-family toss; e.g., time, rhyme, lime, sublime.
Specific language occurs with literacy talks, word walls, songs, stories, informal chats, cooperative forums, curriculum-related songs, and student conferencing to link actions and concepts to precise academic vocabulary to create ongoing literacy discourse. Vocabulary is attached to text, e.g., setting, characters, sequencing, plot, resolution, figurative language. Students can also engage tools such as Read Aloud on Immersive Reader and online sites, such as Newsela, ReadWorks, and Common Lit to hear how to pronounce the words correctly before they say them. Im-mer-sive Read-er al-so has a tool that with a click of a but-ton, breaks up words in-to their syl-la-bles.
Concepts and representations are connected to paper and/or digital forums to increase fluency, vocabulary, written expression, and comprehension. Tools such as the picture dictionary in Read and Write for Google Chrome has visuals for vocabulary and creates a dictionary that students can reference for practice and reinforcement and to visually link the words to objects.
Students become the “reading/writing proprietors” who demonstrate knowledge, reflect, and ultimately internalize. Teachers monitor progress with formal, informal assessment:
a. Fluency drills
b. Quizzes
c. Cooperative-learning stations
d. Game-based activity
Students with learning challenges can learn, but they learn differently, so let’s offer them these types of diverse engagements to experience the skills and concepts and to ultimately show what they know in inclusive classrooms and beyond!
