Week 6, Assignment #1 - ONLINE SOURCES - Learning Disabilities

Week 6, Assignment # 1

3 ONLINE LEARNING SOURCES – LEARNING DISABILITIES

“ALL CHILDREN CAN WRITE”

http://www.ldonline.org/article/All_Children_Can_Write

This is a great article as it is considered the best approach to writing. It is known that many children who have learning disabilities are poor writers. This article touches the four essentials to successful writing-process program: the adequate provision of time, child choice of writing topic, response to child meaning, and the establishment of a community of learners. It is a very useful article for someone to consider in applying in the classroom, as the most critical factor for children with learning disabilities is the meaning-making decision. We, the educators, need to first believe we know and we have important and useful information, and to work and confirm for the child the importance of that information. From the beginning, we should work to build strong history for writers through collections of all their work, publishing and their effective sharing with other members of the class. We should always encourage them to write, even with errors and move on, always move on.

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“STUDENTS WITH NONVERBAL LEARNING DISABILITIES”

http://www.ldonline.org/article/Students_with_Nonverbal_Learning_Disabilities

In this article, the author refers to the difficulties faced by students with nonverbal learning disabilities, who do not process accurately information that is not verbal/linguistic in nature-conversely, they rely almost exclusively on their interpretation of the spoken or written word. Such nonverbal information includes tactile, kinesthetic, visual-spatial, effective, experiential information that the learner does not integrate with language. We, as educators, should aspire to help these students to adapt and to achieve fulfillment in their lives, we should engage them in explicit and direct instruction to remediate their difficulties and to use their strengths in the most effective way. We can achieve a lot by teaching them to use their own verbal analytic strengths, anticipate situations in which they might have difficulty, teach them to interpret facial expressions, gestures and nonverbal aspects of communication, teach them to be particularly careful to ensure their understanding when spatial language is involved, teach and practice organizational skills with them. It is important that we are confident and as helpful as possible, because our effective interventions in those cases can make a positive difference in the lives of these students.

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“TECHNOLOGY-SUPPORTED MATH INSTRUCTION FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES: TWO DECADES OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT”

http://www.ldonline.org/article/Technology-Supported_Math_Instruction_for_Students_with_Disabilities%3A_Two_Decades_of_Research_and_Development

This article is a guide on how to identify students with disabilities who have difficulties with math and how to provide support on this matter. As we know, when it comes to mathematics, there are three basic types of mathematical knowledge that are required for the development of mathematical literacy and competence: declarative, procedural and conceptual. Today, a variety of technologies are available to enhance students’ mathematical competency by building their declarative, procedural and conceptual knowledge. In an effort to resolve problems that are affiliated with the above-mentioned, researchers and educators have turned to technology with varying degrees of success to help students achieve fluency in math facts. Scaffolding has been defined as a “process that enables a child to solve a problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts. This scaffolding technique reduces or fades itself overtime as the student becomes more capable on moving on by itself. As educators, we can find this article very useful in guiding us on how to develop fluency in math-delayed children using technology, how to convert symbols, notations and text, build conceptual knowledge and understanding, make calculations and create mathematical representations, organize ideas, build problem solving and reasoning, and more. A major goal for us educators in dealing with students with math difficulties should be to conduct ongoing research to determine the best way to use the existing technology to enhance mathematical learning and to successfully identify areas of need that will serve as a start point for future effective research and helpful activities that will help in the development of the student.