Working with Learners with Specific Learning Difficulties - Case Study Example

Running head: Working with learners with specific learning difficulties Working with learners with specific learning difficulties By Part A According to Experts, dyslexia is a learning disability that affects language processing. Dyslexia does not only affect reading and spelling, but also in many cases results in difficulty in remembering lists or instructions and can occur at any stage in life. As Wadlington has said, "Dyslexia is not due to inadequate intelligence, lack of motivation, poor instruction, vision or hearing problems, cultural disadvantages, or other extrinsic factors" (Wadlington, 2005a, p. 5) which is evident from Jenny's case, despite her motivation and will, she is unable to achieve desired success. Her acknowledgement of being unable to write depicts her motivation and strength of being positive. We can see in Jenny's case, she is an active participant of a social group and likes to create activities for people of all ages. The main obstruction in making the desired progress is her inability to express her views in written form due to which she has decided to take regular classes, those she thinks she had missed in her school life. Perhaps this way she wants to compensate the void in her career life. Before examining those indicators that point towards Jenny's learning difficulties, let us highlight some of her childhood features. Apart from difficulty in spelling, her script indicates that in her childhood she has learned to read through the use of contextual strategies rather than phonological systems this is because she cannot utilise context as successfully in spelling as in reading. This has caused some difficulty; as she has to rely on her own knowledge of phonic rules, letter strings and word rules. Additionally, she has to be aware of the initial sounds of the word from memory, which has also caused her many difficulties in moving around groups and attending meetings. "Dyslexia is characterized by problems with single word decoding, usually due to poor phonological processing. Problems with phonemic awareness are often the first symptom of later reading difficulties. In addition to problems with reading, individuals with dyslexia can have difficulties with spelling and writing. Sometimes, there are also problems with understanding spoken language, word recall, or expressing oneself orally. Because language-processing skills are needed in all academic areas, dyslexia can affect content area subjects as well". (Wadlington, 2005b, p. 18) One of the common issues of suffering from dyslexia is that it is easy to slip into discussing it largely as a reading problem. One reason for this is that the term 'dyslexia' has often been used in conjunction with other terms such as 'reading disabled', 'reading delayed' and 'specific learning disability (reading)'. Another reason is that research on dyslexia often compares dyslexic adults to ordinary readers and consider other forms of reading delay. Allied to this there is a large body of research on the reading process that research on dyslexia can draw on and relate to. "Given that reading difficulties are for most dyslexic adults the first obvious educational problem that they present with, the focus on reading is understandable. But whereas most dyslexic adults do eventually learn to read the majority have long term spelling difficulties. The difficulties that developmental dyslexics experience in writing and spelling are often at least as severe, if not worse than their difficulties at reading.' (Miles, 1983, p. 31) In addition to writing and spelling difficulties Jenny can also have difficulties with some specific aspects of numeric terms such as remembering numbers and multiplication tables. "According to several cognitive psychologists identifying the processing deficits underlying dyslexia makes it possible to get a more coherent picture of the types of learning problems that may be encountered. In Jenny's case it could be argued that despite suffering so much from Dyslexia her working memory skills are fine, which is evident from her script. McLoughlin et al. (1994) in considering adults with dyslexia argue that their fundamental difficulty should be seen as one of poor working or short-term memory. The advantage of this approach is that it is then possible to understand and anticipate the kind of tasks that will give them difficulties and to plan effective ways of compensating for these difficulties". (Riddick, 1996a, p. 25) The main problems which tends to be the main hindrance in Jenny's writing skills are: Remembering spellings - 80% Sentence punctuation - 40% Handwriting - 75% Organizing and sequencing ideas - 85% Jenny experience difficulty memorizing the sequence of movements due to which she is unable to write properly. These movements make up the writing of each letter. This may lead to uneven handwriting, and, if severe, may be described as 'dysgraphia'. She may also find it hard to remember which way round certain letters go (like b/d, 9/p, p/q. c, z, j, g, and others). In order to rectify her writing technique, she must develop her short-term memory. As she is unable to write competently, she cannot coincide the act of thinking and writing together. This might help her: "Try to separate thinking from writing correctly: use word-processor. This will allow one to type away happily - using two fingers is quite satisfactory - not worrying about any spelling mistakes one make, and come back later (e.g. the next day or in the evening) to sort out the spellings and punctuation. Use the built-in spelling checker and the right-hand button on the mouse to find the correct spelling when a word is underlined in red as being incorrectly spelt. In this way the two operations will become separated". (2006a) Another way to develop spelling is to use cursive handwriting and another latest and effective method is to use word processor when doing any written work. A useful technique for Jenny is to jot down each and every plan as part of the story on sticky notes or cards. After the meeting she can put the notes in sequence, giving an essay plan, which might look like this: Introduction - decision making. Steps taken in implementing the decision Follow the steps in an orderly manner Evaluating alternatives Conclusion - Task achieved Script Error as written by Learner Type of error (see error key below) A B C D E 1 Remember Rember 1 2 First Furst 1 3 School Schule 1 4 Even Evn 1 5 Though Thugh 1 6 Thirty Thrty 1 7 Brought Drott 1 8 Handed Hanbed 1 9 Teacher Tescher 1 10 Seemed Seemeed 1 11 One Wone 1 12 Suddenly sundly 1 13 Frightened frightenened 1 14 Looked Lukked 1 15 Soon Soone 1 16 Became Becume 1 17 A I 1 18 Operations opratshions 1 19 Painful Painfull 1 20 Again Agine 1 21 Know Kno 1 22 Any an 1 23 Qualifications Cwalficashons 1 24 Family Fambely 1 25 Sure Shure 1 Error Key A logical phonetic alternative and looks like an acceptable English spelling i.e. follows English spelling conventions e.g. spair/spare; tipe/type; prisition/precision B Visual-sequential (two-letters within a word misordered: trail/trial; avoid/avoid where the confusion is visual rather than sound-based C Shows lack of awareness of spelling rules or acceptable letter combinations baby for babies; pequler for peculiar; glod for glowed D Sounds are misheard or missing or missequenced, sreet for street; divleved for delivered; cappalled for collapsed; theer for three E Motor: Handwriting/repetition/telescoping, rember or rememember for remember; substituting one word for another/omitting letter unintentionally Part B Before discussing the evaluation of mind mapping with Jenny, I would like to highlight her views about her life and work before and after. According to Jenny, she is intelligent enough to take bold decisions in her work but could not manage her thoughts sophisticatedly. Her thoughts are all jumbled up, and is unable to concentrate on a single idea. She has recently done mind mapping on a passage, after which I found that she is quite well in drawing. After drawing a circle in the centre of the page she was confirmed about the main theme to discuss. Later she mentioned points about herself in each circle, and linked all the points via arrows to the main circle. She presented each idea beautifully in each circle, but with spelling errors. Her introduction was not much clear but contained the following points: An attention grabber The main topic i.e., "Jenny in Dyslexia" Cause of the main topic i.e., "Reason for suffering from Dyslexia" The most important thing was that she did not forget to use the signpost words like however, therefore, although etc. The conclusion was a bit weak as it lacked the summing up of points; she expressed the summary about herself but in confusion. She did revision in the end and was successful in finding 40% of the mistakes made. Later she did the correction. Teacher evaluation of mind mapping exercise Were the learning outcomes achieved Yes, with some revisions done by the student herself, especially focussing on spelling mistakes. The main success of this exercise is due to the knowledge of the student about the mind mapping design. Were resources used effectively Yes, since the teacher was giving extra time after school. Before attempting this exercise the student was taught about the semantics of mind mapping tool by using computer software and classroom white board. Variety of activities / appropriate pace Yes, before attempting this difficult exercise in which Jenny has to describe about herself, the teacher taught her the rules of mind mapping by using very short and easy exercises. Did learning checks demonstrate that learning had taken place Yes, every time the student attempted an exercise the teacher noted down the accuracy level with respect to time, concept of the topic given and spellings. Were learning needs addressed Yes, as it was clearly acknowledged that the student is dyslexic and have problems in memorizing complex concepts, so mind-mapping exercise was used to broke down the complex concepts into smaller chunks so that it might be able for the student to memorize and retain it for a longer period of time. General comments The student seems to overcome her disability with a little help at first for one year and then by herself within the next two years. Part C Most of dyslexic students feel varying degree of problems while reading, skimming or scanning a paragraph containing words with similar homophones. They also feel problem to remember big words containing more than one syllable. Also dyslexic students possessing above vocabulary problems find difficulty in remembering passages. In order to increase the efficiency of a dyslexic student to read and memorize a passage properly, the teacher must write the passage in bigger fonts on the board preferably like 'comic sans' and make the student to read the passage. The teacher should write all the words, which have same homophones like 'whole' or 'hole' and words with more than one syllable like 'examination', so that it may help student in reading with correct pronunciation. For making a student to memorize the passage, the teacher must write key words separately out of the passage like 'examination', 'communities', 'abandoned', 'whole', 'gathered', etc. When the student has achieved this, the teacher may either proceed to another passage for the same skill if the teacher thinks that the student needs practice on a wider range of examples. "For some students, 60 items in 60 seconds is not a sufficient level of fluency. For them, the teacher may create drills with more items. For example, 90 items in 60 seconds increases the student's speed from 1 item/second to 1.5 items/second. At monthly intervals, repeat the fluency probe on the same book, using different passages. Try to use passages with approximately the same format, for example, limited or no dialogue. Document progress in the number of words read correctly per minute and share the information with the student. If the progress is noticeable then point out the differences and share it with the student". (Nancy & Lynn, 2005a, p. 491) Teacher evaluation of lesson Were the learning outcomes achieved Yes, at first the student was not able to cope up with the passage at a normal pace but by applying various techniques, the student understands and memorizes the passage. Were resources used effectively Yes, since the teacher was giving extra learning support to the dyslexic student in extra time after school, so the classroom at its white board was used efficiently. Variety of activities / appropriate pace Yes, due to the difficulty faced by the student in understanding the passage thoroughly, the teacher separate all the words with same homophones and with more than one syllable. This enabled the student to distinguish between the words with similar homophones and also helped to pronounce big words correctly. This also helped the student to memorize the passage. Did learning checks demonstrate that learning had taken place Yes, a chart was made to know the learning pace of the student and all the progress was documented to future review. Were learning needs addressed Yes, as it was clearly acknowledged that the student is dyslexic and have problems in reading and memorizing, so along with the variety of techniques used, the student is made to read the passage many times and after every time he was being questioned about the passage, in order to know the learning pace. General comments The student seems to overcome her disability with a little help at first for two years and then by herself within the next two years. References McLoughlin, D., Fitzgibbon, G. and Young, V., 1994. "Adult Dyslexia: Assessment, Counselling and Training". London: Whurr. Miles, T.R. and Miles, E., 1983. "Help for Dyslexic Children". London: Methuen. Nancy Mather & Lynn E. Jaffe, 2002. "Woodcock Johnson III: Reports, Recommendations and Strategies". Riddick Barbara, 1996. "Living with Dyslexia: The Social and Emotional Consequences of Specific Learning Difficulties": Routledge: London. Wadlington M. Elizabeth & Wadlington L. Patrick. 2005. "What Educators Really Believe about Dyslexia". Journal Title: Reading Improvement. Volume: 42. Issue: 1. COPYRIGHT 2005 Project Innovation (Alabama); 2006a, < http://www.dyslexia-college.com/essay.html > Read More