Overbrook Educational Center is a public school outside of Philadelphia. The student body is predominantly made up of students of a minority background and almost one-third of the students are visually impaired. Although the entire school is not special education, many of the classrooms are considered special-ed. My field placement is within a mixed second and third grade classroom comprised of students who all have varying degrees of visual impairments. There are ten students and two of them read using braille and write through a braille typewriter. The others read and write without braille, but use certain specialized equipment such as magnifying monitors to make it easier to see the letters and words. The students are all behind where the majority of other students their age are, lagging behind students in non special-ed classrooms particularly in the subjects of reading and writing. They all know the letters of the alphabet and how to write those, but are mostly unable to form the letters into words and sentences. My participation is primarily working on the students reading and writing skills and I’ve found that the purpose of education in the classroom is predominantly focused on “catching up” these special education students. McDermott and Varenne (1995) wrote about the concept of culture as disability and defined three different approaches to addressing this topic: the deprivation approach, the difference approach and the culture as disability approach. The
Ultimately Americans’ view disabilities as something that needs medical treatment and educational intervention. Other cultures views toward individuals with disabilities are both similar and different in some ways. Pacific Islanders believing that disabilities are a result of their ancestors wrong doing, individuals from the Philippines believing that that a disability is a curse and reject the individuals, and the Chamorro culture believes that individuals with disabilities should be protected because disabilities are a gift from good.
Within our daily schedule and lesson, my students get the opportunity to explore learning in different ways that will meet their needs. Each learning style is displayed within our day. Visuals, audios, and hands on experiences are used. They even have the chance to work with technology which is known to keep the students engaged in learning. They are involved in task that will lead to higher order thinking such as our read aloud. Although they have disabilities, they are still introduced to their grade level standards. I understand that these standards are sometimes modified, but with modifications; my students’ confident are
A visually impaired student lives in a small town where he is the only blind person. The student has repeated a grade, reads below grade level, and has a plethora of functional vision. The presence of functional vision makes it seem as if he can complete all assignments using large print. His educational plan does not include large print or braille despite his exceptionality, visually impaired. However, the regular educator understands that the student works better with large print materials. The parents are uneducated about blindness and only know one visually impaired person, their child. They are also unaware of his right to receive braille instruction unless an evaluation determines that Braille is inappropriate. (IDEA, n.d.)
Disability in a socio-cultural context can be defined as "a barrier to participation of people with impairments or chronic illnesses arising from an interaction of the impairment or illness with discriminatory attitudes, cultures, policies or institutional practices" (Booth, 2000). The traditional view of disability often focuses on the individual, highlighting incapacities or failings, a defect, or impairment. This focus creates obstacles to participation on equal terms since an individual who seems to lack certain capacities may not be able to attain autonomy.
Objective IV: Ensuring success for all students through high quality engagement strategies that support literacy development
Students with reading accommodations may require modifications to fully access the content and activities in this cornerstone task. Teachers may want to differentiate by:
Snell, M. E. & Brown, F. (2006). Instruction of Students with Severe Disabilities (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall
For many years I questioned what I wanted to do with my life. I have always been passionate about my child going further than where I was currently, which was nowhere, and made every effort to helping him succeed in school. It was volunteering in his classrooms that I realized how much joy it brought me helping all children learn and be successful. While my service learning project did not take me out of my comfort zone, it challenged my patience and understanding of children who struggle with reading out loud. It opened my eyes to reading challenges that some children can face and was the motivation for my writing a research paper on dyslexia. Currently, in my son’s fourth grade class I am the only parent volunteer who spends time helping
Students with visual impairments need an educational method that meets the individual needs of ALL students, promotes independence, and is measured by the success of each individual in the school and community. Vision is important to the education process and is the primary basis upon which most traditional teaching strategies are based. Students who are visually impaired are most likely to succeed in educational structures where correct instruction and services provided in a full selection of program options by skilled staff to address each student's unique educational needs, as required by Public Law 101-476, The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act/IDEA (AFB,
Some instructional material might be troublesome for students with specific disabilities. For instance, when showing a video in class you have to consider the audience. Students with visual inabilities may have difficult seeing non-verbalized activities; while those with disorder like photosensitive epilepsy may encounter seizures with flashing lights or images; and those students with hearing loss will be unable to hear the sound. Utilizing closed-captioning, giving electronic transcripts, portraying on-screen activity, enabling students to look at the video on their own, and laying out the part the video plays in the day’s lesson diminishes the access barrier for students with disabilities and permits them the ability to be an active member
Diversity and Accessibility has been a hot topic in my county over the past year. Unfortunately, the reason it was likely brought into the spotlight was a host of red flags on the county CCRPI analysis. Soon after the red flags conversations became intense on how we can meet the needs of our students with disabilities. Personally, the most pressing issue however is how the students with disabilities are grouped in my current school. To help the ‘schedule’ students with disabilities are placed in one, possibly two general education classrooms with a mix of resource and collaboration. While I do believe that they should not be a lone ranger, at times it becomes difficult in a primary classroom when so many need that one on one intensive
Students: My students are in a special education self-contained setting. The students’ grades range from 3rd – 5th, all of whom within the classroom has some form of learning disability; that ranges from dyslexia, auditory processing disorder, attention deficit with hyperactivity [ADHD] and attention deficit without hyperactivity [ADD]. Due to being a multi-grade class and a special education population, comprehending learned instruction is critical.
The classroom that I observed for my special needs placement was a grade 5, inclusive classroom located in the District School Board of Niagara. The school is has a very diverse community with students in my classroom having African - Canadian, Caucasian and even Indigenous backgrounds. Many of the students come from a lower socio - economic background and are always provided with breakfast each morning. The specific building is located in an older part of the St. Catharines, with many older home and structures around it. The school is also an older building with not many modern amenities besides the computers that are located in the lab as well as some smart boards in various classrooms. There are two floors to the school, the classroom that I observed was on the second floor, so students had to walk down to the technological
To facilitate our work, my classmates and I completed a brief field experience at William Henry Middle School in Dover, DE. William Henry Middle School offers many programs to meet the needs of the diverse population it serves. In addition to the rigorous academic programs, there are specialized programs for gifted learners, English Language learners, & students requiring special education. Technology is an integral part of instruction, with the Reading Wonders & Go Math curriculums providing interactive student exercises accessible via computer & mobile devices. Read 180 is designed for struggling readers & provides a small group
I choose to do this topic because I had a lot of problems reading during school. When I was in Kindergarten I was held but because I could not read. I had difficulties sounding out words, and putting them together to make a word. The fact is that to this day I still cannot sound out words. I read by memorizing words or typing them into the computer and use a text to voice programs. I wanted to learn more about reading disabilities, and the impact that they have on students’ education. I was lucky that my reading problems did not impact my education, and I was able to read very well.