Action Research Plan
Participants
The participants for this study will be students in a fourth-grade direct instruction program for reading at Soaring Heights School, Clearfield, PA. Soaring Heights School is an alternative placement school for students with Emotional Disturbance or Autism Spectrum Disorder. The school has strict licensure regulations that require both populations to be educated separately. Therefore, the participants chosen for this study will be students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). “Current research indicates that DI is a promising practice for students with ASD” (Cadette et al., 2016). Although the school is an alternative placement setting, the students are required to take the same assessments as students
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Four of the students are of a low-socio-economic status and are being raised in a single parent family. Two of the students are being raised by both parents in a moderate-income level family.
Selection of the participants will be the existing fourth grade level reading class. The teacher researcher has a personal stake in her students’ academic success and identifies this class as the ideal population for this study because of their lower level reading ability. School wide parental consent was obtained prior to the implementation of the SRA Curriculum, therefore parental consent will carry over to this study. Each of the students were given the SRA direct instruction curriculum placement testing for reading in August 2017, and scored at the fourth-grade reading level. The students were also given the Kauffman Test of Academic Achievement, Second Edition, (KTEA II) in May. The KTEA provides a more precise level of achievement (e.g 4.2 meaning the second month of fourth grade). Therefore their scores from the reading comprehension subtest will also be considered for placement purposes as well as to determine overall achievement at the end of the intervention. The study will take place over one nine week marking period. The purpose of this study is to measure individual growth before, during, and after remediation utilizing the direct instruction curriculum. Due to the limited number of students available for this study, there will be one sample group of six
The steps of Response to Instruction and Intervention are to begin with Universal Screen and Pre meeting prep. This is the point when the classroom teacher will assess the student’s ability in reading. The assessment is brief, easily administered, and will assess the risk level for academics. It will examine the skills of fluency, oral reading, phonemes, segmentation, letter naming, and other reading strategies. Once all the students have been screened the results will be reviewed by a school professionals. There are data management system where the scores are calculated and the students risk level is assessed. If a school district does not have this system available to them, the “core team” will use a spreadsheet and determine the students risk level. Once the risk level has been determined there will be e a core team meeting; this will consist of principal and teachers, reading specialist, literacy coaches, curriculum specialist and a school psychologist. This is the overall group that can make up a
Most parents wonder what is the next chapter after their child with autism spectrum disorder graduate from high school, for some individuals, it is to move onto higher education. As stated by Cai and Richdale (2015), the USA has one of the lowest rates of college enrollment for individuals with ASD, with over 50% of these individuals being in neither education nor employment following their secondary school, with similar finding in the UK (p. 31). For the individuals with ASD who move forward in gaining a higher education will have to learn to adapt and determine how to transition into higher education. Mentioned by Cai and Richdale (2015), a USA national survey illustrated poor outcomes from transitioning from secondary school into adult-hood. “The findings showed that after young adults with ASD left the public school system, 80% continues to live at home, only 32% attended postsecondary education, just 6% had competitive jobs, while 21% had no employment or education experience at all. Further 40% reported having no friends. (p. 32)”
Which is why the Individualized Education Program was created in the late 1970’s. IEP’s provide children with ASD proper personalized learning strategies they need in order to achieve academically. With this program enacted, psychologists, behavioral analysts and doctors began researching the topic of autism and studying how children with ASD learn. They slowly began coming up with effective methods of how to teach children with ASD and how to help these children learn at their highest potential. These methods included DDT, PECS and PRT which have been applied, analyzed and refined over the years to create evidence based techniques that result in the most effective ways
|Who is the author of the study (i.e., insider or|insider - teacher |insider- teacher |insider- teacher |
Apply principals of effective teaching based on educational theory, laws, county and school policy, and ethical practice in the comprehensive
According to the U.S. Department of Education, autism is defined as a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interactions and verbal and nonverbal communication. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may also display attention deficits, engage in repetitive behaviors, resist environmental changes, have unusual sensory experiences, and may exhibit inappropriate behaviors that have adverse impacts on educational performance (Delano, 2007). The incidence of children identified with ASD has steadily increased and has thus changed the dynamics of education. Due to the number of children diagnosed with autism dramatically increasing over the last fifteen years, the demand for research-based
Autism spectrum disorders are a set of similar disorders that each have their own challenges that educators must address. Although K-12 educators are not directly responsible for the types of interventions that individuals receive before they begin school, it is beneficial for educators to be aware of how those interventions work so they may incorporate useful elements in future teaching. Additionally, educators should have a stockpile of knowledge that they can draw from. This should include current research in the field because so much of education is research- and evidence-based. Therefore, it is the educator’s responsibility to ensure that they are aware of early intervention programs and are keeping up to date with the trends and best practices in the field.
Response to Intervention is defined in the book as the multi-tiered framework for addressing academic skills. There is three level of tiers, primary instruction or primary prevention, secondary intervention or secondary prevention, tertiary intervention or tertiary prevention. This approach if given to the students so they do not have to be failing in third or fourth grade, before they are provided with this intervention to help them succeed in reading. The students are given research based teaching in their classroom to help them with their reading , if so they are struggling the teacher will be able to catch it in their earlier years, such as the first or second grade.
How effective is the SRA program in placing student in the correct SRA reading intervention program level?
Family background In Harvard 's "Civil Rights Project", Lee and Orfield identify family background as the most influential factor in student achievement (Lee, Chungmei; Gary Orfield , 2012). A correlation exists between the academic success of parents with the academic success of their children. Only 11% of children from the bottom fifth earn a
The present articles were all conducted over a ten week timespan, with the common theme of the Lindamood-Bell Reading Intervention. The Lindamood-Bell Reading Intervention was reading interventions for children at the average age of ten. The families were recruited through clinics and different support groups across the United States through different Lindamood-Bell Learning Centers. During the study, the children with ASD got instructions one-on-one in a setting that was distraction free. These instructions were given four hours a day and for five days out of the week. The purpose was to help strengthen activity in certain areas of the brain where an ASD individual would lack in such as language, reading comprehension, etc. To do so,
Research designs will be a mixed measures design such as a combination of a typical experiment and other forms of non-experimental designs. Procedures will be used in this research will be audio and video recording, audio and video editing, researchers and confederate will observe children and their families, in addition to ask open and closed ended questions to children, parents, teachers, and school administrators. Younger children would benefit from play therapy, whereas older children would benefit from written and spoken journals in addition to additional learning time in respite care. What are the necessary steps, procedures, and funding to help these children, teens, and young adults with ASD to become overachievers in academic, vocational, and professional settings?
One of the most difficult obstacles in achieving personal self-development is the lack of a good action plan. It is not a difficult task, but requires learning to be efficiently executed. The result should be an effective practise to reach my goal. This is done by the inclusion of an Action Plan, which will assist in reaching my goal and narrow my focus and drive to achieve that goal. To enable me to create an Action Plan, I first need to list particulars of thing needed to do to accomplish my goal. This is done by
Autism or Autism Spectrum Disorder is one of many developmental disabilities that affect students learning. In fact, in the United States, Autism is the fastest-growing severe developmental disorder (“What is Autism,” n.d.). Also, the prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder is 1 in 68 children and the prevalence in boys is 1 in 42 children (“What is Autism,” n.d.). Furthermore, Autism Spectrum Disorders also affects the way a child learns and over the years, several teaching strategies have been developed to help teachers to effectively educate students with Autism. Research has also been conducted to develop and test new teaching strategies for Autism and continues in playing an important role in the education of students with Autism.
Autism is a complex disability, as the way it manifests in each child differs in severity across numerous characteristics. Children diagnosed with autism qualify to receive special services and a “free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment” under the federal legislation, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (Hunt & Marshall, 2012, p. 15). Autism was added to IDEA in 1990 as a new disability category. The legislation defines autism as “a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age 3 that adversely affects a child’s educational performance” (Hunt & Marshall, 2012, p. 301). The “Rules for the Provision of Special Education” from the State Superintendent of Public Instruction of Washington state also outlines eligibility and individualized education programs for children diagnosed with autism (Rules for the Provision of Special Education, p. 11 & 46). Furthermore, the DSM diagnoses autism when a child shows “qualitative impairments” in social interaction, communication, and “restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities” (Hunt & Marshall, 2012, p. 302).