Susan

 Susan's page

 After reading __Technology: The Great Equalizer__ I decided to go the Council for Exceptional Children website, the source of the article. Their mission statement reads as follows: “The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) works to improve the educational success of individuals with disabilities and/or gifts and talents.” After reading the CEC’s definitions of individuals in these two groups, I wonder why they chose to omit the balance of the student population. I believe that technology can greatly benefit all students. While I am heartened to read about many technologies that are available, I have some questions after reading the article:


 * How do schools acquire the hardware, software and training supports necessary to take advantage of these tools, particularly public schools?


 * How can we accomodate the different training needs of “non-native” and “native” teachers and support staff in these technologies as we try to foster their ability to serve their students’ needs? How do we keep up with changes?


 * How do we address the equity issues that will undoubtedly present themselves in school districts with very different resource bases?


 * How can we navigate the transition from a relatively low integration of these technologies to a thoughtful, personalized integrated model that provides appropriately differentiated instruction? If implemented to a great degree, does this way of teaching and learning affect the student/teacher ratio?


 * How do we implement the use of assistive and/or instructional technologies in such a way that we maintain or build on valuable human interactions and the resulting relationships? How will increased use of these technologies affect the culture of a classroom, school or other learning environment?


 * In software that “allows students to progress only as they achieve mastery, what criteria is used to determine mastery? How c an we develop applications and supports that reflect the standards and needs of a given individual, school, district or state?

 Response to Mather:


 * Members of the class have remarked that they are slow readers though they have good memory, comprehension and integration skills. It is clear that limited fluency leaves less time for the development of these skills, but I am also curious about the other mechanism(s) that foster the development of these skills.
 * Mather and Goldstein write that a person’s reading rate stays constant if the material is relatively easy to read. This assertion doesn’t seem to take attentional issues (and some other issues as well) into account; I wonder how one can accurately attribute the percent of slow reading to various potential causes
 * I really like the shifting gears analogy. As I consider readers who are moving along in their efforts to improve fluency I think of other ways GhostReader might be used. I believe that at times skimming and scanning are a very productive way for a reader who is underway in the process of increasing fluency to begin reading a selection of text. They can get the big ideas and a sense of the arrangement of information, and then go back to read in second gear, or learning mode, more easily. In my experience this is particularly true if the piece is well written and has organizers such as headings of varying type sizes. I continue to regret that GhostReader can’t transfer formatting into the reading window. I’ve been experimenting with having both the GhostReader window and the original text visible at the same time and following along visually on the formatted version of the text. I think this might work well for some students. They can easily stop the GhostReader voice with the space bar and move their attention to that window if following the tracking highlight is helpful.
 * I’m so grateful that we have Academic Support teachers and Special Educators on our staff to give our challenged readers small group or individual attention. Knowing which strategies will support a particular reader can make such a difference, but may be difficult or impossible for a classroom teacher to implement for all of his/her students who could benefit. I worry that financial constraints may threaten the amount of these supports funded by School Boards in the future.
 * I'd like to be more in touch with the changing strategies that classroom teachers, academic support staff and special educator are using so I can provide as much consistency as possible in my interactions with students.
 * I have a good collection of picture book/tape kits (many with audio signals to indicate page turns ) and audio books with print backup for a variety of reading levels, but they do not circulate very much. Though I worry that their rate is too fast for some students with reading disabilities, I feel confident that their increased use could benefit some students. I’m going to become a more vocal advocate for their use after taking this course.
 * I’m so grateful that we have Academic Support teachers and Special Educators on our staff to give our challenged readers small group or individual attention. Knowing which strategies will support a particular reader can make such a difference, but may be difficult or impossible for a classroom teacher to implement for all of his/her students who could benefit. I worry that financial constraints may threaten the amount of these supports funded by School Boards in the future.
 * I'd like to be more in touch with the changing strategies that classroom teachers, academic support staff and special educator are using so I can provide as much consistency as possible in my interactions with students.
 * I have a good collection of picture book/tape kits (many with audio signals to indicate page turns ) and audio books with print backup for a variety of reading levels, but they do not circulate very much. Though I worry that their rate is too fast for some students with reading disabilities, I feel confident that their increased use could benefit some students. I’m going to become a more vocal advocate for their use after taking this course.
 * I have a good collection of picture book/tape kits (many with audio signals to indicate page turns ) and audio books with print backup for a variety of reading levels, but they do not circulate very much. Though I worry that their rate is too fast for some students with reading disabilities, I feel confident that their increased use could benefit some students. I’m going to become a more vocal advocate for their use after taking this course.
 * I have a good collection of picture book/tape kits (many with audio signals to indicate page turns ) and audio books with print backup for a variety of reading levels, but they do not circulate very much. Though I worry that their rate is too fast for some students with reading disabilities, I feel confident that their increased use could benefit some students. I’m going to become a more vocal advocate for their use after taking this course.

Reflection on Day 3

It was great to spend a day focusing on fluency! There is so much to learn!

I've read articles and listened to discussions about fluency over the years but have never taken courses to learn about different kinds of testing and fluency instruction in detail. About three times each year I take a class period or two to read 1:1 with each student to get a sense of his or her current reading level and fluency, but it is an informal (and very quick) snapshot due to my very limited time with each class. The information I am learning this week will help me be able to glean more information from these interactions and the testing results I get from Pat in her role of academic support teacher. Today's overview of fluency and decoding of many of the acronyms in articles about fluency was also very helpful to me. I also feel very lucky to be here with three other teachers from my school so we will have this common experience to refer to in our future interactions.

I was amazed to learn this year from a student teacher that she was required to take only one language arts based course in her master's program. I believe that teachers and school librarians should have a solid foundation in reading instruction and practice to help serve the needs of our students. I'd like to have full-staff discussions about fluency instruction, common language and use of testing tools. This would give us much more information than a simple grade level proficiency number for a given student; we'd have ongoing records showing rate and amount of progress and identification of the particular strengths and challenges of our students as well. Where, oh where do we find the time? I'm excited about locating leveled resources that can be used with GhostReader. I am curious: will the same reader score differently taking a silent test on the screen and with print materials?

We haven't discussed the differences of interacting with information in electronic format and print. I have to admit that the tactile experience of holding a book, feeling its weight and the quality of the paper and being able to flip back and forth is both pleasurable and important to me. I think a great part of this may be that I learned to read with print materials and have many years of pleasurable experience using print behind me. But still, I think there are differences that may be another tool we can use to support developing readers. We haven't talked about it directly, but it's great that we can scan and import text and use GhostReader - there's no reason I can think of that the student can't be holding and looking at the print source while listening. Best of both worlds for some?

Smartboard fun was a great way to end the day. I'd love to have time to learn a lot more about its use and develop curriculum using it. I wonder how students will react to it over time - will it be very exciting at the beginning or move quickly into being the white board (familiar tool) of the near future Kids seem to absorb new technologies into their daily lives very quickly. Marilyn said she thought theirs were purchased through stimulus money. I'll check with our principal to see if this is an option for us.

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