Tuesday 5 January 2010

Special educational needs

Teachers—Special Education

http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos070.htm




Commonsense methods for children with special educational needs: strategies ... By Peter S. Westwood

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9XSWmO2FGz4C&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=nature+of+special+education+needs&source=bl&ots=m6FvJCg6Rr&sig=AzkljqmGO7-47sEurm0lQ5o9ovk&hl=en&ei=OctCS7b_JZO60gTI7dCSBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CC0Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=nature%20of%20special%20education%20needs&f=false



Special Educational Needs and School Improvement
Practical Strategies for Raising Standards
By Jean Gross, Angela White



http://www.routledge.com/9781843120117

Let's Talk About It:
Building Language and Literacy Skills



http://www.pbs.org/wholechild/parents/talk.html


Let's Talk About It:
Building Language and Literacy Skills



Bilingualism
In today's world, speaking more than one language is a definite asset. At the same time, in order to get along in our society, children must be able to speak, read, and write English well. But speaking English doesn't mean children have to give up speaking their first language. There is no finer way to honor children's ethnic or cultural background than by welcoming and encouraging the use of their home language or dialect in other settings, including preschool.

Gaining a sense of belonging at school helps children become good learners. Even when teachers don't speak your child's language, you can help them to learn a few essential words or phrases, beginning with the correct pronunciation of your child's name and your family's names. Help teachers learn about your family's culture and heritage. Share songs and stories in your native language as well as cultural customs.

Emergent Literacy
Gaining literacy-the ability to read and write with ease-is an essential part of language learning. To achieve literacy, children must first acquire many basic concepts and strategies, including an awareness of the sounds that make up language, an ability to rhyme syllables and words, and a familiarity with print materials. By playing language games with your children (asking them to make rhymes or to think of words that begin with the same sound), you can help them get ready to read.

One of the most important things you can do to foster children's literacy skills is to read aloud to them every day and to encourage other caregivers and teachers to do the same. Chat about the story as you read together, bearing in mind that the talk surrounding the story is as important as the story. As children turn the pages, ask them to point to things that interest them. When they pretend to read, children are making progress toward reading.

Provide young children with plenty of opportunities to experiment with writing, including scribbling and drawing, but resist the impulse to pressure them to write correctly. You can also write down children's own stories and help them dictate and decorate letters to other children or adults. You can also encourage kids to add written materials, such as signs, phone books, or menus, to their pretend play.


Find more tips on encouraging your child's emerging literacy.


Implementing the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in schools and Early Years settings

http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/sen/




Implications for Special Education on Teaching Math





What Teachers Need to Be More Effective

An important key to improving math education in the United States is improving the mathematical skills of teachers through professional development, Ball asserted. A person can hardly teach others a topic they do not understand well themselves.

“It’s worth doing some math practice themselves before teaching,” she noted. Teachers of math need knowledge of the math curriculum plus several additional layers of knowledge, including common content knowledge, specialized content knowledge, knowledge of content and students, and knowledge of content and teaching and curriculum. They need both subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge.

Ball concluded that content knowledge is crucial to teaching effectiveness, and the mathematical knowledge needed for teaching is both specialized and more than the common content knowledge known by any well educated adult. She said it is possible and important to assess this kind of content knowledge in mathematics.

Ball says that to understand the role of content knowledge in student performance, we must measure teachers’ content knowledge. Doing so would also provide useful information for designing professional development opportunities for teachers to expand their content knowledge as well as facilitate the evaluation of professional development and teacher education outcomes.

Strategies to Help Students

Of particular interest to Ball was the importance of fractions in elementary students’ learning. She demonstrated some of the kinds of work with fractions students are capable of doing and discussed the level of mathematical knowledge teachers must have.

Ball said teachers need to be able to use multiple types of representations for fractions and be able to help their students see how they are similar and how they connect. Different types of representations can help students understand different aspects of fractions. For example, a number line can help pupils understand pi. Visual tools such as three colored boxes within a group of four boxes to represent 3/4 or fraction points marked on a ruler can help students visualize and comprehend fractions.

Teachers should also examine textbook math definitions and restate them in multiple ways to ensure the concepts make sense to all of their students.

Additionally, teachers need to understand and be able to explain to their students why mathematical rules work the way they do, for instance, why we obtain an accurate answer when multiplying two numbers with decimals by moving the decimal point.

Students also need to learn to “talk mathematically,” Ball asserted. They need to be able to describe and explain math to justify their answers. Helping students learn to do this may require quite a bit of effort by the teacher, but it is especially crucial for learners with exceptionalities.

“Teachers need to have a lot of flexibility to see things not only from their own perspective, but also from the perspectives of various students – especially when helping students who are struggling,” Ball said. “They need to be able to access a number of pedagogical techniques.”

Read the Math Panel’s full report here: http://www.soe.umich.edu/downloads/MathPanelFinalReport.pdf

Find more information about Ball and her work here: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~dball/


http://www.cec.sped.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=10148

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