Learning Disabilities in Literacy - Coursework Example

LЕАRNING DISАBILITIЕS IN LITЕRАСY University name Student name Student id Course Date Part 1: Reviewing and evaluating MLOTP Model MLOTP is the multiple levels of text processing. This is a model that do address issues facing students and teachers in diverse and complex classroom situations. It reflects multidisciplinary nature facing literacy that does generate discussions concerning the teaching of literacy that does exist among the educators in the process of helping learners in learning (Schnotz, 1993). The theoretical frameworks developed in the theory include teachers being given the necessary support to develop balanced programs for reading. The aspects of the model can include: Word level: readers are said to encounter the unfamiliar words that are used in different actions in the process of identifying them. These unfamiliar words encountered are said to directly match text word with the stored cluster knowledge in the letter. Words are segmented into functional unities; letter clusters converted to blend and sound (Smith, 1979). The learners are said to make an analogy with the words they already know. Besides, the word meanings occurring are used within the context that they are used. Sentence level knowledge: the readers know different grammatical forms and various uses of grammar in linking words. They know the structures of written sentences. The readers know the propositions in a sentence how the linking of the words in the sentence are linked to make meanings (Clay, 1993). Also, conventions of the sentences like punctuation are known by readers. Conceptual level knowledge: the moment the readers encounter paragraph in the process of reading they do not comprehend at the conceptual level immediately. They can anticipate, predict, backtrack, work across sentences and read ahead in the process of linking concepts. They can form images when they fail to comprehend sentence sequence. Besides, they may consolidate the meaning of the sentence sequence. Topic level knowledge: learners are aware of the ideas that are linked with the topics. When one knows, the topic of a sentence can be in a position to anticipate the ideas that are likely to be mentioned. When some ideas are expected to occur in a certain topic they can be linked easily with the topic (Carrell, 1984). The ideas that cannot be expected in the topic can know if the reader is aware of the ideas that should form part of the sentence. Reading compression and dispositional knowledge: readers are aware that various texts are normally written for different reasons to convey values, attitudes, and feelings. Besides, readers are considered to be aware that values, feeling, and attitudes are conveyed in various ways using texts. Control strategies and self-management: readers will have to establish the reasons for reading texts, and planning how they will read the texts. They will monitor their way of reading and decide when to self-correct or even re-read. Readers do us the existing knowledge concerning texts to enhance their understanding. Self-questions and review can be used to assess whether the reading goals are achieved while ensuring that review is done consolidate what readers have read. Lastly, the readers can be in a position to organize the information that is gained from the readings aiming at achieving the reasons for reading. Oral language knowledge: the students are said to understand the meaning of words and the way the words are said and sound at the word level. They also understand how they can link sentences with ideas at the sentence level. The students can be in a position to understand how themes can be linked with ideas at the conceptual level (Kintsch, 1988). They can also understand the way a theme can be communicated in description or narrative at the theme level. Lastly, at the pragmatic level, the students can understand the values and attitudes of the author towards the main ideas being presented. Experimental knowledge: the moment the students are reading, they can use visual imagery knowledge and experiences. Besides, they can be in a position to use motor knowledge and action with sufficient knowledge of symbols. Other literacy models Kintsch text comprehension Kintsch suggested that metacognitive and cognitive strategies need to be implemented in case of the readers who struggle to read. These strategies need to be applied especially the moment the reader faces unfriendly texts with difficult vocabulary or even poorly written texts. The utilization of these strategies is essential to ensure that the readers can be in a position to compensate for a prior lack of knowledge concerning the text. There is a need for balance between language comprehension strategy and reading skills to support the learning of students (Kintsch & Van, 1978). The model of Kintsch draws a distinction between learning from text and reading for understanding. The reader who reads to ensure understanding can be in a position to answer comprehensive questions like the ones found at the end of the reading. This level of understanding help in assessing whether the reader can be in a position to tell what he or she read. A reader who has read a text for understanding is in a position to remember the information communicated by the writer of the text. Text comprehension indicates that comprehension has text base surface that has learning focus where it can be situational focus such as novel situation application. The main challenge that is being presented in this theory entails struggling readers that do lack prior knowledge and word level skills necessary in the learning process. Kintsch indicates the gap that does exist between what the text presents and what the reader knows. Sticht Audread model The Audread model entails language development that points that children living in a literate society learn to think before learning how to communicate and perceive thoughts using oral language. The children learn communicating using written language like graphic representations. This model stresses on the benefits of ensuring that the learning is relevant to the learners’ experience (Sticht, 1975). Learning new information can be enhanced by ensuring that the learner can be in a position to relate the new knowledge with the knowledge he or she had already known. Audread model is based on the interaction of components such as knowledge base, processing skills like learning strategies, language and problem solving. Vellutino et al (2007) model This theory entails exploring the relationship that does exist between the speech of the students and the learning to read. According to this theory, learning is considered parasitic upon speech where this idea has been dominating the field for quite sometimes. Reading difficulties are considered the major challenge in language development. The educators need to be able to identify the learning difficulties facing the learners. According to this theory, some learners can even be unable to read and comprehend just because they have not been taught the strategies that can be employed to assist in comprehending a text. Some learners might also have failed to form the cognitive support necessary in reading a text for understanding or might have a natural memory capacity that cannot allow them to remember what they have just read. Gough and Turner (1986) model Gough and Turner were suggesting that simple view concerning reading with an aim of making it clear about the role played by decoding during reading. Some educators are said to fail to realize the benefits of decoding skills in the process of achieving reading comprehension. Decoding is mainly a focus of the instructions given to the students in the process of understanding the unfamiliar word. Educators need to learn on how to work towards ensuring that the students have sound knowledge concerning comprehension skills. Specific difficulties of the learners need to be addressed to ensure that the learners are in a better position to enhance their understanding. Freebody (1990) model Freebody believed that effective readers should use four roles in the process of comprehending a text. The four roles include code breaker role, text user role, text analyst role and text participant role. Code breaker role ensures that students can be in a position to decode the symbols used in text hence enabling them to read properly. Text participant role makes the students utilize their personal experiences in the process of interacting with the text. Text user role is crucial in ensuring that the learner can be able to know the purpose of the text. Lastly, text analysis role involves critical thinking in the process of analysis the text to answer some questions about the text. Part 2: Develop assessment battery Comprehensive assessment tasks I can use various assessment tasks in the process of assessing reading abilities of the students facing some difficulties. These set of assessment tasks can include: Phonemic awareness: this task involves assessing the abilities of the students to identify and hear sounds of spoken words. I can be in a position to assess the reading abilities of the students hence identifying the challenges faced by the students. Phonics: this involves assessing the ability of the students to get the differences that do exist between sounds of words spoken and letters in writing. Fluency: I can assess the reading abilities of the students by assessing their capacity to accurately read texts quickly. Students who are fluent in reading are likely to be in a position to read for meaning. Vocabulary: the students that do not have reading difficulties need to be in a position to effectively communicate. This can entail the ability to understand the various vocabularies used in a text. Comprehension: the ability of the students to understand the text after reading can be used in the process of assessing the difficulties in learning. The students who cannot be in a position to read and understand have reading difficulties. Justifications Cognitive complexity: the reading difficulties of the students can be easily identified through frequent reading as an assessment of the reading abilities of the students. This can assist educators in coming up with a framework necessary for enhancing the understanding of the students. The students who are not making progress in learning can be easily identified, and the necessary steps were taken. MLOTP model has proved to be essential in the identification of the reading challenges facing various students (Mayer, 1984). The educators have been then put in a better position to come up with the necessary recommendations that can enhance student learning capabilities. The use of reader-based approach in the process of addressing the reading difficulties can be critical in eliminating reading difficulties. Contemporary tests: I can use contemporary tests to ensure that there is a proper engagement that can make readers improve their understanding of texts. This involves coming up with contemporary techniques that can assist in interpretation and analysis of the text meaning. Contemporary tests can be done by integrating semantic cues, syntactic cues and gramophonic cues found in the text. This test employs the MLOTP model to ensure that the relationship between graphic code and spoken sounds can be understood. The knowledge obtained can be crucial in functioning of different kinds of literacy (Teichert, 1996). The contemporary test ensures that the difficulties among the students are diagnosed and properly understood. This can involve enhancing the knowledge concerning written text, metacognitive and oral language. Managing reading: I can come up with reading strategies that are necessary for framing the necessary steps that are essential for identifying the reading difficulties of the students. This can entail planning how the students need to read texts to assist in identifying the various areas that challenge the various students. The strategies adopted can be geared towards monitoring the reading of the students with an aim of coming up with ways of initiating the corrective measures. The measures can involve deciding how to use the knowledge they have in the process of monitoring the progress of the readers (Tang, 1992). The reading can be monitored to ensure that the set objectives are achieved. Besides, the control strategies can involve coming up with organized information concerning how the students need to organize their reading habits to enhance their understanding. Knowledge evaluation: evaluating the knowledge of the students can be crucial in assessing their understanding capabilities. The necessary plans for ensuring that the students learning abilities are improved can be easily taken depending on the findings of the evaluation. The specific areas that students face literacy difficulties can be realized in a way that is easier. The relevant educators can then implement the necessary policies that can assist in enhancing the understanding of the students. Besides, the teaching procedures can be amended depending on the results of the evaluation to ensure that the understanding of the students is given priority in the teaching process. As a result, relevant teaching procedures can be implemented to assist learners in improving their understanding. Professional teaching: with professionalism in teaching the abilities of different students can be identified. The identification of the abilities of the students can be crucial in ensuring that the necessary strategies are taken in the process of enhancing the understanding of the learners. The teachers can be in a position to work towards enhancing the understanding of the learners by applying their knowledge in the process of developing the knowledge learners. This because ensures the professionalism of the teachers can be critical in identifying the best way of solving the difficulties facing students. MLOTP model can be crucial in ensuring that the teachers are in a better position to promote the understanding of the learners. Discussions According to my interpretation of the findings, schools need to target the literacy difficulties among learners at early stages. Recognizing the literacy difficulties at early stages is crucial in ensuring that the best solutions can be identified as early as possible hence making the children able to improve their learning at early stages. This can be important ways of ensuring that there is a significant way of decreasing literacy difficulties facing the learners. The early literacy of the students can be influenced by environmental factors, physical factors, and emotional factors. The formulation of the strategies aimed at enhancing the learning abilities of the learners needs to consider the areas that individual student faces literacy difficulties. This is crucial as different students have various literacy difficulties hence applying same strategies in solving the difficulties can fail to achieve the set objectives (Gardner, 1992). Monitoring the learning progress can be critical in the full implementation of the set strategies for eliminating the literacy difficulties. This is because the areas that the process of enhancing learning among the students can properly control to ensure any deviations from the planned results can be corrected at early stages. Part 3: Implementing effective intervention The area that reading difficulty has manifested itself is reading comprehension. Learners face difficulties in understanding texts after reading as they find it challenging to apply the ideas they have after reading. Besides, the application of the ideas in a practical situation can be a challenge to the students. The comprehension difficulties can be assessed by asking the student to retell the story after reading to consider whether the student has understood the text or not. Learners can be in a position to read texts aloud and accurately but fail to understand the meaning of the text. Also, some students may be unable to read the text but have the ability to understand what they read. The comprehension difficulties can be associated with the lack of the necessary oral language that is required to assist in comprehending a text (Alderson, 1984). This can occur because the student might lack the knowledge of the oral language that is necessary for understanding a text. For instance, the students might lack the ability of understanding meanings of sentences, grammar, and necessary vocabulary, meanings of topic or even lack the ability to link sentences. Besides, the learner might be having the oral language that is necessary but fails to understand as the might not be motivated to read. Intervention programs Getting knowledge ready Stimulating the existing knowledge of the students about the oral language can assist in enhancing understanding. The teachers can ensure that before the start of the reading activities, the students are stimulated to apply the knowledge that they already have on a certain topic using oral language. The readers can be then in a better position to decide the topics that are possible in a text with an aim of linking what they already know to assist in their understanding of the text. This might involve saying the possible phrase and words that are lily to be found in the text and the possible questions that they might be required to answer at the end after reading the text. The learners can then discuss these ideas to assist in understanding the text (Tang, 1992). This can be crucial in assisting in understanding their oral language of the text before even starting to read the text in depth. This intervention program can be crucial in assisting learners to be in a better position to understand texts after reading them. Paraphrasing and visualizing texts The learner can work through text while reading silently or loudly from one sentence to the other while visualizing and paraphrasing it. This can entail working out for the meaning of the new words to assist in understanding the sentences and linking the sentences make meaning. Visualizing what the student reads can assist in forming the expectations concerning what is likely to be said in the text. The discourse meaning of the sentences can be obtained by linking the sentences together hence helping in grasping the meaning of the entire paragraph. This can be done for each paragraph where after reading several paragraphs the reader can link the paragraphs to obtain the meaning of the text in a sequential manner (Knight, 1994). The students can then link the paragraphs with the topic of the text to help in understanding the entire meaning of the whole text. The students facing comprehension difficulties need to be taught this through scaffolding their thinking before starting to read a text to guarantee their understanding. Reviewing and consolidating Reviewing and consolidating what the learners have already read can be critical in addressing the comprehension difficulties. This can entail identifying the actions used by the students while reading a text. Their emotional response of the students when reading a text need to be established to identify the best ways that can be sued to assist the students in understanding the texts after reading. The students can be taught the on how to link the oral language learned through reading with an aim of linking the oral language with what the student already knows hence assisting in the process of extending their verbal knowledge. The teacher can scaffold the learners to give the new ideas learned, questions they can be in a position to answer, the new vocabulary and what the already know concerning the topic (Ekstrom, 1976). As a result, the students who are considered underachievers can be able to benefit from the program by assisting in adding to what the students already know. This helps the students in the process of increasing their knowledge concerning oral language and better reading techniques. Therefore, they can be able to enhance their knowledge in oral language as the read various texts. Comprehension of the outcomes The comprehension of the outcomes is crucial in the process of ensuring that the students make the necessary interpretation of the texts guarantee proper understanding of the texts read. The understanding of the students determines the way the students make interpretation of the texts after reading (Davis & Bistodeau, 1993). Understanding a text can assist the students in re-telling their impression, draw the conclusion concerning the text, answer the questions concerning the text, and apply what is taught in the text. These are some of the expected outcomes of comprehending text after thorough reading. Adding to students oral language knowledge The teacher needs to ensure that the additional knowledge is added to the existing knowledge of the students concerning oral language. The students can be engaged in the comprehension activities with an aim of ensuring that the students can be in a better position to learn more concerning the topic of the text. The students need to assess what they have gained after reading and ensure that they add the new knowledge to their existing knowledge concerning oral language (Van, 1983). The knowledge addition can be concerning the vocabulary where the students can be in a position to identify the new words contained in the text. This can entail spelling the words, and suggest synonyms and images for the new words identified. The students can also be in a position to understand the meaning of sentences where the students need to identify the new ideas that they have learned and various ways of communicating the ideas. The text structure concerning the various genre as communicated from the text need to be identified by the students after reading the text. After the program, the students need to be in a position to understand how the text topics can be linked with the ideas communicated in the text. This can entail understanding the reasons as to why the writer decided to write the text (Anderson & Pearson, 1984). The text purpose and interpretation of the text from different viewpoints need to be made understood by the learners. Also, the students need to be able to know the best tactics of reading texts where they can apply the best strategies for reading gained after the program to ensure that they are in a position to apply the reading strategies in the future. Five session plan 1. Literacy processing session. I will start the program by coming up with the proper explanations of the literacy processing to establish the need for intervention and the different areas that have been facing literacy difficulties. This will be focusing on ensuring that such reading difficulties can be eliminated in the future. 2. Acquisition of the knowledge session. I can guarantee that the strategies to be employed in the process of acquiring knowledge are in place to ensure that the students can acquire the necessary oral language knowledge. The primary focus of this plan in the future is to ensure that the student has the required knowledge concerning oral language. 3. Learning disabilities establishment session. Establishing the comprehension difficulties can be curial in establishing the specific areas that the student faces difficulties. This plan seeks to establish the possible ways of avoiding such difficulties in the future. 4. Assessment procedures session. This is the necessary procedures for reporting the comprehension difficulties. This focuses on establishing the best procedures that need to be followed in the future to address the comprehension difficulties among learners. 5. Designing and implementing session. This involves designing the strategies and implementing them to achieve the set objectives. This session is mainly focused on reducing the comprehension difficulties among learners in the future. Integrating RTI approach Response to intervention entails identifying and supporting the students with their learning needs. It starts with quality instructions and screening of the children in a classroom to identify their reading difficulties. After identifying the struggling learners, interventions are provided to assist the students in improving their learning rate. Integrating this approach can be crucial in identifying the comprehension difficulties among the student to help in coming up with the intervention programs that can enhance learning rate of the learners (Anderson & Pearson, 1984). The learning progress of the students can be monitored closely to assess the performance level and learning rate of each student. I can then apply the RTI approach in creating an integrated system of intervention that can act as the guide to enhance the comprehension difficulties among the students. Ensuring effective interventions I will make sure that the features of effective intervention are incorporated using my intervention approach by employing the use of three strategies that can ensure that the evidence-based findings can be utilized. These strategies can include: 1. Examining the procedures used in the analysis and evaluation process of the comprehension difficulties among the learners. This will be aimed at establishing that the necessary procedures are in place to ensure that the intervention approach can achieve the set objectives with efficacy, effectiveness and in a friendly way. 2. Learning the research procedures used in the evaluation of the comprehension difficulties. This can entail a proper understanding of the criteria used in the process of identifying the student with the comprehension difficulties. The knowledge of the procedures can be curial n ensuring that the necessary procedures are in place to guarantee accuracy in identification of the comprehension difficulties among the student. 3. Examining the staff development procedures and enhancement of knowledge among the staff. This can be geared towards ensuring that the teachers have the necessary procedures that can guarantee that the teachers have the necessary skills that can assist in solving the comprehensive difficulties facing the learners. Involving the parents and teaching colleagues I will encourage the teaching colleagues to work towards ensuring that they apply the necessary practices that can be crucial in assisting the students to improve their understanding. This can be possible by training my colleagues on the practices that can be employed in the process of diagnosing the comprehension difficulties that do face the learners. I can involve the colleagues in the process of coming up with the new strategies that can assist in enhancing the understanding of the learners (Corbett & Smith, 1984). This can be crucial in giving them a chance to make their contributions towards the best way of improving the learning of the students. The fact that I involve the colleague in the strategy formulation process can automatically make them motivated to ensure that the strategies formulated are successfully implemented. The parents can be involved in the intervention program by training them how they can be in a position to identify the reading difficulties of their children at early stages. This can be critical in making the parents identify the areas that their children do face difficulties in comprehending texts (Corbett & Smith, 1984). As a result, they can begin assisting their children as early as possible hence helping in getting the best solution that can assist in eliminating the comprehending difficulties of their children. References Alderson, J. C. (1984). Reading in a foreign language: A reading problem or a language problem? In J. C. Anderson, R. C., & Pearson, P. D. (1984). A schema-theoretic view of basic processes in reading comprehension. In P. D. Pearson, R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, & P. 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In L. Resnick & P. Weaver (Eds.), Theory and Practice of Early Reading< , Volume 1. Hillsdale , NJ: Erlbaum. Tang, G. (1992). The effect of graphic representation of knowledge structures on ESL reading comprehension. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 14, 177-195. Teichert, H. U. (1996). A comparative study using illustrations, brainstorming, and questions as advance organizers in intermediate college German conversation classes. The Modern Language Journal, 80(4), 509-517. Van Dijk, T. A., & Kintsch, W. (1983). Strategies of discourse comprehension. New York: Academic Press. http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/functional-context.html http://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/english/proflearn/Pages/velsreading56.aspx Read More