Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities - Division on ...

applied the vocabulary word to a given situation.
For example, Jacob successfully participated
<strong>in</strong> this activity as he learned the mean<strong>in</strong>g
of the words disturb <strong>and</strong> delight. Jacob
correctly responded as his teacher asked him,
“Give me a thumbs up if what I say might
disturb someone who is sleep<strong>in</strong>g.” She then
listed specific situations one at a time as Jason
responded with a thumbs up or down: turn<strong>in</strong>g
on a bright light, play<strong>in</strong>g loud music, whisper<strong>in</strong>g,
etc. As stories were read, students listened
for <strong>and</strong> discussed the target words. Teachers
encouraged students to use these words appropriately
<strong>in</strong> complete, spoken sentences.
Teachers provided scaffold<strong>in</strong>g by us<strong>in</strong>g target
words <strong>in</strong> appropriate sentences <strong>and</strong> extended
student language by model<strong>in</strong>g sentences that
built on student sentences or phrases.
Us<strong>in</strong>g Read Alouds to Foster Oral Language
Development
Most often books were read aloud to students
on three separate occasions. Prior to a story
be<strong>in</strong>g read for the first time, teachers guided
the students to predict story events <strong>and</strong> describe
what was happen<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the pictures.
The first story read<strong>in</strong>g was followed by brief
discussion. The second time a story was read
the teacher stopped occasionally <strong>and</strong> encouraged
discussion of events <strong>and</strong> vocabulary
with<strong>in</strong> the story. After the third read<strong>in</strong>g of a
story, the teacher guided discussion through
questions designed to assess student comprehension
<strong>and</strong> provide opportunities to develop
oral language. Dur<strong>in</strong>g all discussion, teachers
supported student language by restat<strong>in</strong>g student
responses, extend<strong>in</strong>g student language,
<strong>and</strong> us<strong>in</strong>g targeted vocabulary words <strong>in</strong> sentences.
The primary goal was to improve expressive
language skills, specifically focus<strong>in</strong>g
on <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g sentence length <strong>and</strong> us<strong>in</strong>g targeted
vocabulary words <strong>in</strong> context. For example,
if a student po<strong>in</strong>ted to the cat <strong>and</strong> the girl
<strong>in</strong> a book say<strong>in</strong>g, “Cat, girl,” the teacher would
say, “The cat lived with the little girl.” Then
the teacher would encourage the student to
repeat the new sentence. Jacob, Carl, <strong>and</strong>
Rachel all participated <strong>in</strong> these activities.
Integrat<strong>in</strong>g Skills
One technique we used to relate oral language
to pr<strong>in</strong>t was through an activity we
called Po<strong>in</strong>t <strong>and</strong> Read. Simple sentences related
to the storybook read aloud were pr<strong>in</strong>ted
<strong>in</strong> large text with picture support. Dur<strong>in</strong>g this
activity the teacher would first read the sentence
to the students, po<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g to each word as
it was read. Then the students repeated the
sentence as they po<strong>in</strong>ted. In this manner, students
were build<strong>in</strong>g oral language, relat<strong>in</strong>g
oral language to pr<strong>in</strong>t, <strong>and</strong> be<strong>in</strong>g exposed to
concepts of pr<strong>in</strong>t such as text be<strong>in</strong>g read from
left to right. Initially, Carl was unable to repeat
sentences with more than two words, but as he
practiced, he was able to “po<strong>in</strong>t <strong>and</strong> read” the
sentences <strong>in</strong> the curriculum, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g those
with four to seven words. Jacob <strong>and</strong> Rachel
experienced more success with this activity.
The purpose of the activity was not to identify
specific pr<strong>in</strong>ted words, but to recognize that
pr<strong>in</strong>t is mean<strong>in</strong>gful <strong>and</strong> related to spoken language.
Techniques for Teach<strong>in</strong>g Phonological
Awareness
Focus<strong>in</strong>g on Key Skills
In teach<strong>in</strong>g phonological awareness to the students
<strong>in</strong> our research study, we employed several
techniques. First, we chose to focus specifically
on blend<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> segment<strong>in</strong>g at the
phoneme level. For younger students, teachers
should work with larger units of spoken
language (syllables with<strong>in</strong> words or words
with<strong>in</strong> sentences), but currently research has
not proven that these levels of phonological
awareness must be mastered prior to develop<strong>in</strong>g
phonemic awareness (i.e. phonological
awareness at the phoneme level). Therefore,
<strong>in</strong> our research with students with ID who
were <strong>in</strong> the primary grades we chose to focus
most of the <strong>in</strong>structional time on the two most
important phonemic awareness (PA) skills to
develop, blend<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> segment<strong>in</strong>g. Although
we used a variety of activities to keep student
engagement high while they practiced blend<strong>in</strong>g
<strong>and</strong> segment<strong>in</strong>g, our rout<strong>in</strong>es <strong>and</strong> teacher
language were consistent. When blend<strong>in</strong>g, the
teacher said the <strong>in</strong>dividual phonemes one
sound at a time <strong>and</strong> the child blended those
sounds <strong>in</strong>to the correct word. The script <strong>in</strong>
our <strong>in</strong>tervention used the follow<strong>in</strong>g term<strong>in</strong>ology:
Read<strong>in</strong>g Techniques / 359