Also this is my first year teaching, so any advice will be helpful!
Answers:
Sign the child up for audio books. This child will probably never learn to read. She should be given life skills classes so she can function in society. See about getting her a scanner.
from the second website
People with visual stress can use technology:
They may like to listen to the text, whether by recorded speech or TTS, often whilst reading visually.
Magnification may be useful although it will rarely be enough on its own, in contrast to partial sight.
Screenreaders – programs which read text out loud from the screen using TTS – are useful for visually impaired and dyslexic people alike. But the specific programs are different. A screen reader for blind people, like Jaws or Hal, needs to represent the very visual medium of Windows. So it must speak a lot of information about screen position and cursor movement as well as reading out the text.
A dyslexic person (as, to a degree, someone with partial sight) can see the cursor, icons and menus so just needs to hear the text and possibly the menus. Screenreaders and text to speech programs for dyslexia provide users with more control about what is spoken and what isn’t and often also combine many other useful features for dyslexia – OCR, word and sentence highlighting, spell checker, dictionaries, word prediction. Typical products are those from textHELP and Kurzweil.
TALK TO THE PARENTS ABOUT IT
Try talking to her parents and see if they can do some help at home with her. Try doing all you can do. GOOD LUCK
well at our school for people with those kinds of problem we have a special education department member come in and help the student indivdualy but i think you need to tlk to the pricipal about this or the school supintendant.
just know that she has a dis. maybe other people can help her. but it would be sooo cool if you could help her. people would respect you for that. be patient with her 2!
Talk to the counselor and your supervisor and tell them you need some strategies to work with when dealing with this student. You're going to have to try a bunch of strategies and use the ones that works the best! Don't freak out everything is going to be alright, just don't give up on this student! Sounds like others may already have. Whatever you do don't give this student the crutch of audio books, it's just one more thing they will have to unlearn if you do.
If you have to for the time being have someone read to them. Good luck!
Audio books, also you can buy a program like "natural voice reader" that will read text on the screen with a clear readable voice, encourage the student to get a program like that on his/her computer to help with reading/writing tasks.
Well your natural instinct is to teach her how to read but you know that isn't going to happen and it would be to the determent of the other kids.
Have her participate but when it is about reading give her a book with pictures. Find a book with a lot of pictures that are interesting. Encyclopedias would be good as she might start picking up some words.
You have to stick with teaching the other kids and go on.
Now i know this question is going out to teachers but I'm a sophomore in high school. I think that the best thing for teachers in general and especially you since its your first year, to start a friendship with your students especially since most of them have emotional disorders. But try to start and maintain a relationship with your students, and with this 16 yr. old girl take time after school to help her out and let her know that your doing it because your her friend not just because your her teacher.
I have had great results with Spell to Write and Read. This is a phonics based system. The lessons are fairly short and start at a very basic level. Really anything you can teach this student would be helpful.
First of all, I really don't think you should beat her as suggested above. Also, I am sure her parents are already aware of her problem and that is why she is in your school.
Talk to your supervisor, mentor, or principal. Look at the student's file. What is the educational plan for this student? What are the goals set for her?
Does she have an IEP?
Remember, your job is not to have reading War and Peace, but to move her forward in the educational process.
What did the 5 grade teacher do last year?
I am not a teacher but I did sleep in a Holiday Inn Express once.
Good luck
Are you looking for help on how to teach the child to read or how to teach the child other skills but her not reading is becoming a road-block? I can't understand your shock - I work with a 12 year old who barely talks and doesn't know the difference between letters, shapes and scribbles - and first must say that you need to calm down.
You work in special education - you must be aware that baby steps matter and that her education must be in line with the goals for her (hers and her family's). Is reading one of them? If so, work with her parents and the other teachers around you to develop a step by step plan. First find out where she's at... hopefully she can help with this by talking or signing... and develop baby steps from there. Does she need to learn to recognize the 26 letters of the alphabet and the punctuation marks we use? Does she know the different phonetic sounds - one of them, 24 of them? Does she understand how to link sounds together? Does she know that a space represents a new word? Can she see well enough to recognize a space mark? Does she understand the separation of paragraphs? Does she integrate sentences to understand whole concepts?
After you know where she's at you can determine where your job begins. And remember - some of the other answers mention this too - your job is not to teach her to read, it's to teach her which simply is moving her ahead educationally of where she's at now.
wow!!.shouldn't you tell the school. Speak to the administration, vice principal.any school staff member?
You schould accomodate some sort of teaching method or at least ask for an assitant.
If your student doesn't know how to read, the first step is to figure out why she can't read. I would see when the last evaluations were completed.
It is amazing that she has made it to the 11th grade without learning to read. I would suggest talking to the Case manager or supervisor to see what happened. Then I would look at developing a reading program that will support her reading and writing. I would check out Four Blocks of Literacy. Most associate this program with elementary students but it does have a middle school and high school piece. There are also software that supports reading like Read 180 http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/r... .
I would also look into UDL for learning: http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent...
I would start with highly motivating text for your student. Magazines, age and school appropriate songs, poetry and whatever else that she wants to read. If you get her motivated you will be able to tap into a desire.
In every IEP meeting there is suppose to be a wonderful questions asked, Is assistive technology being considered?” If a child is not able to read, this answer should be YES. Check with your school to see what their process is for the consideration process.
Assistive technology is "any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially or off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities." There are many tools that can support students with disabilities with reading. The most popular is books on tape however this only helps with auditory comprehension it does not teach reading. If you want to support her with reading check out products such as text to speech. There is a free text to speech program that you can try if: http://www.readplease.com/ . Using this product will allow the student to see the words, hear how they are pronounced and get the auditory comprehension.
If you would like to know more, you can email directly.
You're going to need help...it will not happen overnight...and if you could get her to improve one grade level that will be a big deal...the other kids will have to help you...differentiated instruction and grouping kids to help each other is one way to get these kids to learn and help each other because you can not be everywhere...modifying what she needs to know compared to what someone else may need to know may be another way to go...maybe you could tape the important notes for her and she could listen to them and than maybe one of her parents could copy them into her notebooks and then she could copy them each evening...I don't know how willing or capable the parents will be, but anything is worth a try... ask parents to get her a tutor... give her verbal assessments...if there's no time during the school day/ come to school early-make arrangements-show her you care...this girl needs someone to show her that she can read before she gives up and starts having babies and the cycle will never end...there are reasons why people come into our lives
Does this student have an IEP? If so, what are her accommodations? Does she plan on graduating? If she is on a diploma track and has accommodations then she can get by with having tests read/books on tape/recording lectures/etc. If her IEP does not have these accommodations, then she needs to have a case conference and get them. If she does not have an IEP she needs to be tested.
perhaps you could set up a scheduled program for teachering her to read? you would earn respect for trying and possibly help her with her future. try talking to a kindergarten-5th grade teachers at a local elementary school to get the materials you may need without having to pay for them.
-good luck
I have earned my degree in special education at the Ottawa University. What you are saying here, I can read through your thoughts. This not going to be easy for you. You must talk to your School special pedagogy supervisor and not take anything personal from what you fear of this student.
His learning capabilities are very very limited. As I know dyslexia is a big problem that can relate to household problems. And this you must not get involved into.
I hope you understand because it could and can get you involved in much deeper concerns that you do not want to.
SEE THE FOR MENTIONED SUPERVISOR
There's no one right anser here--partly it depends on the nature of the disability. Also, you may have a "system failure" to deal with (more later. . . .).
Talk to the school counsellor--and previous teachers--call the previous school if she's a transfer. Find out what they did and what problems they encountered--and what accomodations hse had. Talk to her parents. same questions.
Most importantly--ask all of these people--AND the studet--what seems to work best. Be willing to experiment--try new strategies.
Systemfailure: in this regard, there are two possibilities. One--this student can learn to read. In that case, the school has failed this student--and you may find previous teachers/counselllors defensive or unwilling to help as a result.
The other possibility is tha tthe disabiity is such that the student cannot read--due to dyslexia or a number of other possibilities. In that case, here's what you can do--without askng the school to spend a dime!
>There is a national "Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped"run by the Library of Congress. You can get details and contact information by going to their website:
http://www.loc.gov/nls/
Her parents will need to provide a doctor's statement and a small one-time fee (about $40) which provides lifetime registration. She is then eligible for the full range of services, which include (al of this is at ZEROcost):
>access via (pstage free) audiobooks (popular, ficiton, etc) from state libraries for the blind--including any fiction work she'll need for English
>free subscriptions to major magazines (including ones llike Newsweek and US News and World Report)
>full borrowing privileges to the National library of audio textbooks
>If a book for a class is not taped, she can provide a statement from a teacher/school and they will tape the book--though obviously they need a few weeks lead time.
Even if this student can learn to read, if there is any kind of an impairment toher reading, she would probably benefit--especially since this would enable her to do the work while playing catch-up on reading skills.
Good Luck! :)
From a parents point of view:
See if your school offers a life skills class - maybe the parents don't know about this option and it may be better suited.
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