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Week 1: Questions and Answers Question # 6: The answer to this question was very surprising because I was under the impression that pairing texts to symbols would enhance the familiarization process and facilitate recognition of the word. It did not occur tome that having the symbol would distract students and would take their focus and attention away from learning the word.

Question # 8: I am having difficulty agreeing with the answer to this question. I am a strong proponent of handwriting and the connection it has to learning. Although the writing process may be difficult and may require more effort on the part of some students, I think that it still plays a major part in processing information. I strongly believe that once students become dependent on the computer for writing, they will not want to go back to pencil and paper writing. But I do understand that for some students there is no option-they need to use the computer as their primary mode of writing, and I am all for that!

Question # 9: The answer to this question was somewhat surprising because it would make sense that highlighting the vowels in red would help students to see spelling patterns. But the key is the purpose of the word wall, which is to help children recognize the most frequent spelling patterns that they can use to read and spell hundreds of other words--I can see that how highlighting in red would defeat this purpose.

Week 2: Why Did We Write This Book? The authors purpose for writing this book was to provide all teachers, general and special ed, with an understanding of how children with disabilities learn and the specific areas in which they differ from their non-disabled peers. The authors also provide strategies and supports to all teachers in the form of an organized structure (the Four-Blocks Framework) and ways to teach students with disabilities, allowing them to participate in inclusive classrooms, and still meeting their leaning needs. The authors also stress that they wrote this book to increase teachers' awareness and use of a wide variety of technologies to assist students with disabilities to fully participate and succeed in inclusive classroom settings. The overall purpose for writing this book was to help teachers accomplish the goal of teaching **all** children to read and write.

Week 3: 10 AT Strategies in an Inclusive Classroom: 1) BIGmack 2) Timer 3) Electronic books 4) Word processing programs/talking word processing feature 5) Color-coding 6) Eye-Gaze and acrylic frames 7) Portable, color-coded Word Walls, fluorescent paper 8) Computer writing programs 9) Simple and multiple communication devices with voice output 10) Computer scanning, red and green button switches 11) Word prediction program 12) Adjustable easel 13) Pencil grip 14) Paper with raised lines 15) Picture representations of daily activities 16) Pictures added to tickets for centers

Week 4: Sample Four-Blocks Day in Special Education Classroom: After reflecting on the sample day in an ESE classroom it is apparent that the greatest benefit is that each individual student's needs are being meet and they are truly being given every opportunity to facilitate literacy using many different avenues. The students are provided many adapted resources and appropriate accommodations to assist their accessibility and their learning. The challenge that was most apparent was the time required to make the adaptations and provide the accommodations to the students. The teacher and staff have to really be organized, structured, motivated, disciplined and very lnowledgable about their students to effectively provided the stated educational environment!

Week 5: Self-Selecting Reading: Mini-lessons are important to the Self-Selected Reading process because they provide teachers a way to assist students with disabilities on how to find books of interests and facilitate strategies and technologies that will help them read and share what they read more independently. Week 6: Children Read and Conference with the Teacher : Teachers find technology to be indispensable for accomplishing the goal of having all students independently explore, select, and read a wide array of text. These technological resources help teachers to create accessible books that students with disabilities can utilize to facilitate reading: 1) BookWorm (AbleNet, Inc.: http://www.ablenet.com-useful tool for integrating children with severe disabilities into partner reading experiences with classmates and trade books 2) Edmark's Make A Story Web Site ( http://www.riverdeep.net/language_arts/edmark_lang_arts/MakeAStory?MakeAStory.html)-provides the option of animating illustrations or modify the story line 3) Starfall's Learn to Read Web Site (http://starfall.com)-collection of interactive texts on multiple levels of interest to young readers 4) Scholastic's interactive Clifford Storybook Web site (http://teacher.schlolastic.com/clifford1/index.htm) 5) Eduscape's Electronic Books and Online Reading (http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic93.htm)--electronic book sites 6) Internet Public Library's Kidspace (http://www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/)--electronic book sites 7) Read:Outloud Software (http://www.donjohnston.com)--text is read aloud when highlighted 8) Joe Rickerson's Accessible Book Collection (http://www.accessiblebookcollection.org)--book collections with hundreds of book titles 9) Benetech's Bookshare (http://www.bookshare.org)--a fee-based service offering access to digital texts for individuals with disabilities 10) My Own Bookshelf (SoftTouch, Inc. http://www.softtouch.com) software that can be used to create a variety of supports for independent reading by children who struggle
 * Selecting:** the process of helping students choice books that they would like to read during Self-Selected Reading--example: modeling reading of a random page in a book for interest and ease before choosing it to read
 * Reading:** promoting more independent reading in students who struggle--example: modeling how to use ReadPlease, to have the computer read aloud websites and digital texts of interest
 * Sharing:** communicating what they have read to others--example: modeling how to use Inspiration to remember and organize thoughts, and to use talking feature to share ideas about books

Week 7: Conference Variations:

Teacher conferencing is especially important for students with disabilities because it provided the teacher a one-on-one opportunity to spend time with the students and gain information and learn who the students are as readers. Conferencing: Week 8: Guided Reading/Purpose/Before Reading
 * Helps teachers to assist the students in finding books that are of interest to them and match abilities
 * Helps teachers to encourage and guide independent reading
 * Helps teacher to teach students how to answer and ask questions about their reading
 * Helps teachers to ascertain why some books are chosen over others-why they have favorite books and what makes them favorite
 * Helps teacher to ascertain which type of technology may assist students with their reading
 * Helps teachers to gather informal assessment information and obtains information to document progress

The four strategies that I chose from the reading are:
Week 9: Variations During Reading/Coaching Groups/ After Reading/Guided Reading Summary
 * 1) Making connections to personal experience; I think this is a very important strategy to use with student with disabilities. It gives them an opportunity to share a little about themselves, and it also allows classmates to get to know them better. The use of pictures and scrapbooks for students with communication barriers is a wonderful way to facilitate their sharing. The connection to the reading makes abstract concepts more tangible and real for the student.
 * 2) Developing vocabulary essential for comprehension; introducing new vocabulary before the reading allows the student an opportunity to become familiar with the new words. Using the words in context, rather then just memorizing the definitions, provides an effective way for the students to draw meaning and comprehension from the words.
 * 3) Setting purposes: having a purpose for reading in advance helps students to achieve cognitive clarity. When they are given a reason for reading, they tend to understand "why they are doing what they've asked to do, what they should be learning and why it matters!"
 * 4) Starting a graphic organizer: creating or developing graphic organizers before reading allows students to understand how they might organize the information they develop/acquire while reading. The visual representation helps promote background knowledge and it allows students to add new information as they read, and after they complete the reading.
 * Choral Reading: All children read the text at the same time. It works best with short texts, poetry, refrains and books with a lot of dialogue or conversation. Efficacy of this strategy requires the children to follow along in the text as they participate in the activity. Not appropriate for all children especially students using a communication device; they should be encouraged to read silently using "the voices in their heads."
 * Echo Reading: Teacher or another trained adult reads a line and the children read the line back. Children benefit greatly from hearing and copying the model of good reading. Powerpoint books work very well with this strategy, allowing children to see the text, hear the text, and echo the text in each slide
 * Shared Reading: Children and teacher share in repeated reading of the book. The teachers aim is to gradually give the children more and more control over the reading. This strategy works best with predictable books and when used in whole groups. Big books, charts, or multiple copies of text work best because they children are able to see the print.
 * Partner Reading: Children with disabilities are partnered with supportive partners that read more of the text than they can. This strategy takes careful planning to ensure that the partner learns to negotiate the reading task in a meaningful and mutually beneficial way. Children who are partners with children with disabilities should be given the freedom to work with the children as true partners rather than assume the role of teacher.

After Reading Strategies:
 * 1) Predictions: Allows children to read some of the text and make predictions of what will they will learn and what they think about the book. They can utilize a DRTA (Directd Reading Thinking Activity) which is a structured prediction format to document the predictions: it can be used to re-engage learners in reading for meaning. Once all reading is completed, students can discuss their predictions and how well they match what was actually learned or what actually happened to their predictions.
 * 2) Acting Out the Story: using the concepts of theater, and acting out what was read on a basic level, wearing name tags that indicate the roles instead of costumes and masks. The goal of this strategy is to support comprehension through very simple attempts to act out stories.
 * 3) KWL Charts: Utilized to help children access prior knowledge and make predictions when reading informational text. The children list, in the three columns, what they already know, what they want to know and what they learned. The KWL chart provides a reference point for children with attentional, learning, and intellectual disabilities. The KWL chart can be converted into personal books for students with disabilities.
 * 4) Graphic Organizers: Provides children with disabilities with a visual representation of the information learned from the reading to support memory, understanding, and communication. These graphic organizers can be templates, such as character webs, concept maps, and book comparisons. If the Inspiration/Kidspiration program is used to create the graphic organizers, the students can take it further in creating outlines and ultimately use the information outlines to incorporate into writing.

Week 10: Writing

 * Emergent Writing: For students with disabilities, emergent writing occurs up to 3rd grade. Emergent writing is beginning writing in which students write as they see the writing (referred to as unconventional writing), requiring some interpretation for the reader by the writer. The interpretation of the unconventional writing can occur orally or by using a picture to represent what is being conveyed. Emergent writing requires communication on the part of the child with the disability, which sometimes can be difficult depending on the type and severity of the disability.
 * The "Write Stuff": Using "things" that are favorable to students with disabilities to encourage them to write. This may be a favorite location, beverage, or kind of of music. This could be a pencil grip adaptation, or a technology such as Co-Writer, assisting students with predictive spelling. anything that reduces or removes barriers for writing can be considered the "write stuff" for students with disabilities.
 * Writing/Revising/Editing/Publishing is critical for students struggling to learn to read and write because it provides an opportunity for repetition of writing tools across tasks and text. Revision especially accomplishes a number of important instructional goals-allow the teacher to help children expand on their thoughts, explore their word choice, and practice the use of their writing technologies. It also enables the teacher to assist the student with expressing their intended message in order to increase communication.
 * Writing for Real Reasons allows children with disabilities, who have difficulty relating to new experiences and generalizing previous experiences, to use writing as tool to engage in writing activities that are useful in their life, such as email, instant messenger, online bulletin boards, social networking. This takes advantage of children's interests to demonstrate to them the immediate importance and value of writing.

Week 11: Writing Continued Week 12: Working with Words Week 13: Developing Whole Class Approach-Children's Books/Manufacturers