34th TESOL Conference

Athens, 30-31/3/2013

Hellenic American Union

Contents of speech

How we recognize students with the most common types of learning difficulties (Dyslexia, ADHD, Borderline Mental Retardation, Asperger Syndrome)

A kind of informal assessment (especially for younger students) based on the principles of Special Education

How can our lessons be accessible to all kinds of students and what is the purpose of a differentiated instruction.

Sample lessons and discussion:

1) Phonemic Awareness - We all tend to forget its systematic teaching because we assume that pronunciation is automatically acquired by all kinds of students.

2) Deficits in memory skills and general difficulties especially when it comes to learning new vocabulary.

Dyslexia signs in classroomChildren diagnosed with dyslexia-at school age- have multiple and profound difficulties.

Please remember that we may not be able to determine if a child has dyslexia. We usually

detect early signs that suggest further assessment by a health professional in order to

actually diagnose the disorder. Some of these signs are:

The child appears bright, highly intelligent and articulate but unable to read, write,

or spell at grade level. This is diagnosed when the child goes to the first grade of the

Greek primary school.

They have difficulty separating sounds in words and blending sounds to make words.

Most of the times, teachers tend to label dyslexic students “lazy”, “dumb”,

“careless”, “immature” and so on. Please, think of that next time you say so!

The dyslexic students feel dumb, have poor self-esteem, hide or cover up

weaknesses with ingenious compensatory strategies and get easily frustrated and

emotional about reading or testing, especially at school.

They seem to "zone out" or daydream, get lost easily or lose track of time (especially

in tests).

They face difficulty sustaining attention.

They learn best through hands-on experience, demonstrations, experimentation,

observation and visual aids (flashcards).

They confuse letters, numbers, words, sequences.

Their reading or writing shows repetitions, additions, transpositions, omissions,

substitutions and reversals in letters, numbers and/or words.

They seem, at first, to have difficulty with vision, yet eye exams don't reveal a

problem.

They read and reread with little comprehension or even they have difficulty

remembering or understanding what they hear.

They have trouble with writing or copying. Their pencil grip is unusual, their

handwriting varies or is illegible at times.

They often confuse left/right, over/under.

They have difficulty telling time, managing it, learning sequenced information or

tasks, or being on time.

They can be class clowns, trouble-makers or too quiet.

When talking or writing they may use the wrong word or a similar word. Dyslexic

students may know what they want to say but have trouble finding the actual words

to express their thoughts. They are also slow to add new vocabulary words.

They have poor memory skills and complete assigned work more slowly than

expected. At times they cannot even complete it.

ADHD signs in classroomThe behavior of ADHD children is classified into three major groups according to the type of

their behavior; Hyperactivity-Impulsivity ADHD, Inattention ADHD and Combined ADHD.

More specifically, in class students may…

Have difficulty in establishing friendships with the fellow classmates

Have difficulty in communicating with the teachers

Lose their self-esteem

Become over sensitive and/or exhibit short tempers

Ignore necessary rules

Disturb or hurt their classmates deliberately

Have difficulty concentrating during the lesson, focusing and sustaining attention

Have unrelated thoughts

Have poor performance depending on the difficulty of the task given

May have better attention to enjoyed activities

Have difficulty planning, organizing, and completing tasks on time

Have problems learning new things

Seem unable to sit still (e.g. squirming in his/her seat, roaming around the room,

tapping pencil, wiggling feet, and touching everything)

Appear restless and fidgety

Often try to do more than one thing at once

Blurt out an answer before the whole question has been asked. They may also act

and speak without thinking

Avoid or strongly dislike tasks (such as homework or games) that require sustained

mental effort

Lose important things or items needed for tasks and activities, such as toys, school

assignments, pencils, books

Borderline Mental Retardation signs in classroom

There are many different signs of intellectual disability in children. Signs may appear during

infancy, or they may not be noticeable until a child reaches school age. It often depends on

the severity of the disability. Some of the most common signs of intellectual disability are:

Difficulty in remembering things

Inability to connect actions with consequences and difficulty learning social rules

Behavior problems such as explosive tantrums

Difficulty with problem-solving or logical thinking

Delays in oral language development

Deficits in memory skills

Lack of social inhibitors

Inability to meet educational demands at school

Lack of curiosity

Children with borderline mental retardation learn more slowly than a typical child. Children

may take longer to learn language and develop social skills. Learning will take them longer,

require more repetition and skills may need to be adapted to their learning level.

Nevertheless, virtually every child is able to learn, develop and become a participating

member of our class.

Asperger Syndrome signs in classroomAsperger’s Syndrome, a neurobiological disorder on the Autism Spectrum, is one of the

fastest growing disabilities.

Having a student with Asperger syndrome in class can be extremely challenging. It demands

lots of patience and knowledge of the child’s deficiencies in order to treat him/her properly.

More specifically, in class, students may:

Have concrete, literal thinking

Have difficulty differentiating relevant and irrelevant information

Have difficulty engaging in reciprocal conversation

Have difficulty generalizing and applying learned knowledge and skills across

different situations, settings, and people

Have difficulty interpreting others’ nonverbal communication cues

Have difficulty with fine-motor skills, such as handwriting

Show literal interpretation of others’ words

Have narrowly defined interests

Have poor problem-solving and organizational skills

Have the tendency to speak bluntly without regard for impact of words on others

Have academic difficulties

Have poor concentration

Have poor organizational skills

Their vocabulary is usually great but their comprehension is poor

Very often we encounter students with learning difficulties who have been taught the

language for some years, yet they cannot even read words correctly. This is the time when

we begin thinking that something went wrong during their Phonemic Awareness

instruction. And now, a question of major importance to me. Do we really spend enough

time on Phonemic Awareness or we just assume that our students will automatically make

their associations? For example, the student has seen and heard the word “play” a lot of

times. Are we sure that when it comes to reading the words “say”, “pray”, “delay” they

will read them correctly? How many of you believe that?

What do we think or do when we realize that our instruction was poor or even

nonexistent? What do we do? How we go on with these students?

According to numerous studies conducted in England and the States, the key to learning a

language is Phonemic Awareness. Unfortunately, none of the books we use in our

classrooms systematically teach digraphs, blends, how we segment words, isolate,

identify, categorize, delete phonemes, how we substitute sounds and so on. This is a

major gap we are obliged to bridge and something that I have sworn to bridge through my

own book in order to help other teachers as well or through my teaching to help my SEN

students and not only them.

Now, we are going to see samples of exercises that can be given either as exercises

throughout our lessons or can be a kind of informal assessment when we first meet a

student or if we want to assess him at the end of the year.

Phoneme Isolation Exercise

Instruction: Does the /l/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word /lemon/? Beginning Middle End

(This exercise can be given orally or in written form if there is great difficulty.)

a) Does the /c/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word /cat/? Beginning Middle End

b) Does the /r/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word / jar/? Beginning Middle End

c) Does the /a/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word /hat/? Beginning Middle End

d) Does the /n/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word /fan/? Beginning Middle End

e) Does the /p/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word /pat/? Beginning Middle End

f) Does the /p/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word /nap/? Beginning Middle End

g) Does the /t/ sound come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word / tiger/? Beginning Middle End

Phoneme Identification Exercise

Instruction: We pronounce the words, students listen to them carefully and then they

write the sounds/ phonemes in the boxes provided below.

These boxes are called Elkonin Boxes.

Variation of this exercise

Instruction: What sound is the same in the words “cap”, “car” and “cat”?

Phoneme Categorization Exercise

Instruction: I will pronounce some words and you must tell me the word that doesn’t belong

in the specific group of words.

sat pan sad

small tall sell

cap mad man

bug pin pan

book cook zoo

lady day Monday

cap nap sit

drink blink brake

Phoneme Blending Exercise

Put the number 1 in the box with the picture that has the sounds … /l/, /e/, /m/, /o/, /n/

Put the number 2 in the box with the picture that has the sounds…/z/, /e/, /b/, /r/, /a/

Put the number 3 in the box with the picture that has the sounds…/c/, /a/, /t/

Put the number 4 in the box with the picture that has the sounds…/d/, /o/, /g/

Put the number 5 in the box with the picture that has the sounds…/n/, /e/, /s/, /t/

Put the number 6 in the box with the picture that has the sounds… /h/, /a/, /t/

Put the number 7 in the box with the picture that has sounds… /f/, /i/, /sh/

Put the number 8 in the box with the picture that has sounds… /c/, /a/, /r/

CORRESPONDING PICTURE CORRESPONDING PICTURE

___ ___

___ ___

___ ___

___ ___

And now, what happens if a child is ready to read, write, faces learning difficulties and also

has severe memory deficits? What do you think? And do we all know what vocabulary is?

Vocabulary refers to the words we must understand to communicate effectively. Most

often, some teachers think that vocabulary is just a matter of the student’s everyday

dictation and the grades he obtained!

Let me show you some methods that have helped me throughout my lessons.

First and foremost, we should not forget that students with LD are greatly helped by the

use of pictures. By using the picture-association technique students are easily able to

access words and their as they discover their meaning. For example, look at the following

pictures. Can the student infer the double meaning of the word “help” here?

Also, have your students look at the word to be learned. Tell them they must first make an

association or connection with that word. Since we know from medical research that our

brains actually learn and recall through pictures and associations, it is very important that

students create this connection first.

You can also have students make flashcards and highlight the difficult spots on the word.

Then try to teach words by spelling patterns teach "cake," "bake," "take," etc. in one

lesson. Hang words from the ceiling during study time or posting them on the board or

wall as constant visual cues. If possible provide a tactile/kinesthetic aid for spelling. For

example, use these flashcards and have your students step on them in order to write the

words correctly.

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