Assessing Student's Needs for Assistive Technology (ASNAT)

Chapter 5 – Assistive Technology for Reading, Studying, and Math
Selecting Assistive Technology for Use in Reading Instruction
with Consideration of the Child's Stage of Literacy
Basics of Good Reading Instruction
A comprehensive, effective program of reading instructions does the following:
♦ Provides a variety of instructional activities because no one instructional strategy is effective for all
students.
♦ Provides a balanced approach that includes components of reading, writing, and spelling, such as the
Four Block approach: Guided Reading, Writing, Self-Selected Silent Reading, and Working with
Words (Cunningham, Moore, Cunningham, & Moore, 1995).
♦ Provides equal amounts of time for each of the four components each day.
♦ Does not wait for "readiness" to develop. Readiness to read has more to do with experience with
books and reading than any subset of skills or mental age.
Using the four components of reading instruction as developed by Cunningham et. al. (1995), this article
will suggest the use of assistive technology for each component and for each of the five stages of
literacy previously identified.
Guided Reading
This is the place that the teacher provides primary instruction in reading, introducing new words, setting
a purpose for reading a selection (such as finding out the sequence of events or the answer to specific
questions), providing feedback on completion of the task. It should begin with shared reading and later
move to separate reading of a passage. The teacher selects a variety of materials (including basal
readers, magazines, poetry, content area books or trade books), at the instructional level of the students.
The teacher may alternate between grade level and below grade level books. One of the things that the
teacher does during instruction is to activate or build background knowledge that relates to the passage
to be read. The teacher also helps the students create predictions and expectations about what they will
be reading to help students begin to understand the meaning of print.
Part of Guided Reading instruction involves many opportunities for repeated reading of the text,
including the teacher reading to the students, the students reading individually, and choral reading where
small groups of children or the entire group read new material aloud together. Once the student is at the
Novice level, where he or she understands that the meaning comes from the text and can begin to
identify the first letters of words, there are a variety of ways to use assistive technology. It can help the
child who has difficulty speaking to participate in these repeated reading activities. Recording lines from
the text, or the entire text on a voice output device or tape recorder can allow the child to participate.
Other ideas include placing words from the story on an alternate keyboard such as the IntelliKeys ® and
allowing the student to ‘read’ by correctly sequencing those words (with or without pictures as needed
by the individual student).
In addition, the selection of the books to be used in the Guided Reading instruction can be instrumental
in making it possible for students to progress in reading. Books with repeated lines, pattern books,
predictable books, and songbooks are all excellent choices for use with students with disabilities. Here
are examples of each.
Assessing Students’ Needs for Assistive Technology (2004) 123