Thursday July 10, 2014

Great discussion connecting the readings and the reading process.  "The reading process is a ridiculously difficult thing".  After trying to discuss and break down what we actually did when it came to reading a passage we made a list and did some investigating on the internet.  We found three different images that described the reading process and compressed it into one graphic organizer using Kidspiration.  Even if we took all the information from the three images it would never compare to the reading process you showed us on the slideshow.

 Our Reading Process

The three diagrams we found to help create our reading process:

I loved the videos about the way the brain works, how the visual and auditory process things.  The most important thing that I took away from this is how students with learning difficulties struggle and work multiple times harder then we do.  This was reinforced in the Child’s Brain video explaining that kids with dyslexia use more of their right side of their brain to read. While the “average” person uses their left side.  It is these kinds of messages that I try to pass along to staff when they are having problems or are feeling frustrated with a student.  The student’s frustration is probably multiple times more because they are working multiple times harder. 

Remediation/Compensation

Reading Dave L.Edyburn’s article on Learning from Text brought up a lot of questions around remediation or compensation.  I was really surprised the statistics that 80% of students with learning disabilities receive services for a reading disability.  I think this number is very high.  I think it depends on the population of the school and the number of students identified.  Unfortunately when there is a high population of need only the severe get services and the other students on the cusp receive very little support.  Or they don’t receive the proper support they need.  Because the numbers are so high students get grouped together so that more students are seen at a time.  It looks good on paper/the schedule but it’s not realistic.  My niece has been diagnosed with dyslexia and because the student need is so high at her school she does not receive support.  She is very lucky because her parents had the finances to have her privately assessed early and they pay for her to see a tutor 3 times a week that is specially trained to work with kids with LDs.  She does not receive support from AT and it doesn’t look like she will unless it comes from her parents. 

“Learning from Text” was a great guideline for implementing remediation and compensation programs.  They had great suggestions and broke everything down so that it was easily understood.