Using the Nonverbal Approach to Promote Literacy

Link: http://web.utk.edu/~mbc/KnoxCountyNRAPresentation.pdf

 

I came across this Power Point presentation a few weeks back and have since found a couple of research studies on the "Nonverbal Approach to Reading (NRA)".  When I attended the "Literacy and AAC" course put on by Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver in May, they spoke of the goal of reading instruction being that of "reading silently (in your head) with comprehension".  Seems logical but for students who do not talk what does this mean?  From everything that I've read what it means is that we need to be explicit about teaching them to read silently in there head.  We need to actually talk to them in the teaching process about what they are hearing in their heads while reading. 

 



 

I'm excited to begin trying this NRA method with a few of my students after Christmas.  I am using a modified approach to Patricia Cunningham's "Systematic Sequential Phonics They Use: For Beginning Readers of All Ages" with three of my students and have now created NRA Power Points to go with the word wall words that are introduced with this program.  One of the research articles that I read talked about including a motoric prompt to go along with steps of the NRA approach as they were then able to tell when students transferred the skill and were using the approach with other words.  I'm excited to add in this NRA piece.

Interactive to Independent Literacy: A Model for Designing Literacy Goals for Children with Atypical Communication

Article Link: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10573560490429050

 

I knew immediately that this article was to like this article when I read the quote that it opened with: "Researchers and professionals need to work actively to reverse the forces at work in our culture that lead to the ostracism of children who are different." 

 

Over the past year and a half, my views about literacy instruction for the students that I have on my caseload have changed quite a bit.  I have been fortunate enough to take workshops and/or courses form Linda Burkhart (PODD Communication), Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver (Literacy in AAC Course) and Caroline Musslewhite (Literacy Workshop and Communication Circle Workshop).  I have also participated, along with two different teachers from the school I work at, in the Literacy for All project last year and this year.

 

It is not that I didn't believe in literacy instruction for "my" students so much as I was thinking of literacy as a series of lock step skills that needed to be mastered.  Sadly, a drill based approach to literacy still seems to be a reality for many with disabilities even against that fact that so many classrooms have moved to approaches that are much more comprehensive and interactive.  The functions of literacy skills seem go quickly get lost in this approach and these students are then faced with the added challenge of low motivation on top of the challenges presented by their disabilities. Without the context of what one is doing, it is hard to stay motivated to to do it. 

"For all children to bcome members of their literate communities, we must consider reading and writing not as end products but rather as socially communicative practices that begin to emerge early in childhood as other communicative abilities do. Both oral and written language are thus viewed as primarily communicative practice, and an intervention to achieve that end is best viewed as situated practice."

This article goes on to present a model for five level literacy instruction that is influenced by the Social Interaction Model, the Participation Model and the Situated Pragmatics Model along with possible goals for each of the five levels. 

 

It reflects the path that we have started down with the students that I have on my caseload over the past couple of years.  It is not always an easy path as it is slow and the focus is on interactions and the process rather than individually produced products.  The model is based on interaction to create understanding in the emergent stage and only moving on to conventional literacy when there is a deeper understanding.  The reality is that we can push students in to the emergent stage long before understanding and get the paper products that some would equate to learning so much quicker. 

What is the benefit of this approach?  How much research has been done?

It's all still so new and when it's about students with complex communication needs it is sometimes hard to measure these things.  Sometimes we need to just assume that these students will develop literacy skills in much the same way as others but they will require more time and because of limitations, they will also require others to be more deligent of keeping it all going.  I believe in the end the benefit will be motivation.  The article itself speaks to the benefit being that focusing this way also focuses in communication and interaction and these two things result in an increased quality of life for anyone. 

 

What I know is that making this shift has resulted in increased levels of interaction and engagement both with others and with literacy skills.  I know that I am imagining going places with letter by letter generative reading and writing that I had never imagined before with some of my students.  I know that I can see a deeper link between communication and litearcy and have found new ways to teach both in the crossover between the two.  I know that these skills we are working on are more authentically transferable then what we had worked on in the past. 

 

Finding this article was exciting for me because it framed so much of the learning journey about literacy and communication that I've been on (and will continue to be on) over these past couple of years. 

Literacy for All Pilot Project Update

Way back at the beginning of the year, I posted about the "Literacy for All" pilot project that our school was going to a part of for the 2011-12 school year.  The project involved bringing educators from across the province of Alberta together to examine literacy learning for students with significant disabilities. In this past year we have met face to face, met online, participated in a online community, and used and examined the resources "MeVille to WeVille" and "Children with Disabilities: Reading and Writing the Four Blocks Way".  The project was built upon the premise that ALL students can learn literacy.  Being part of this project has given me the opportunity to further explore what it means when we say that we are going to teach literacy skills to students with significant disabilities and ultimately culminated in a desire to learn more.  It is evident that there is much that we can do by way of teaching literacy to students in this population and I'm excited to take what I've learned this year and continue to expand on it in years to come.

As the project wraps up, a wiki has been created to share information about literacy learning for students with significant disabilities.  My understanding is that the wiki will continue to be updated.  Check it out at http://abliteracyforall.wikispaces.com/.

Literacy in Augmentative and Alternative Communication

This past week I traveled to Toronto for a "Literacy in AAC" course that was delivered by Karen Erikson and David Koppenhaver (the authors of the book "Children with Disabilities: Reading and Writing the Four-Blocks Way").  The focus of the course was on developing literacy skills in students who have complex communication needs. 

I do believe in literacy learning for all students but this course challenged me to further redefine what "literacy learning" is for the students that I teach.  I have been moving towards an understanding of generative reading and writing over the past couple of years but coming to understand that and actually having a plan of action around how to make that happen are two different things.  I came out of this course feeling like there is now an action plan and that plan is rooted in ensuring that the students that I am responsible for have a comprehensive literacy program that includes interactions related to each of the four blocks of literacy during the course of their days.  For the elementary and junior high students that I have this will mean using curriculum overlapping as they will be in inclusive settings for a large portion of their day.  For the elements that are more important to do directly, we will do a pull out intervention time to work on this.  For the high school students that I have I am looking at creating a literacy class that is equivalent in time to a five-credit course as well as finding another time in the day for students to do self-selected reading.

With some of my students we will be starting at the beginning and for others we will be building on the emergent skills that they already have.  Being part of the Alberta Education "Literacy for All" Pilot project this year has put us in a situation where we have built some of the foundation that we can build on with this new information.  

I would have a hard time summarizing all that I have learned so am hoping to do it over time in reference to what we learn as we implement different aspects.  Where we start is to rethink the need for exploration and interaction without limits related to reading and writing for all of the students that I teach.  So that means using alternate pencils to "write" in the same way that preschool students "write" (i.e. scribble a bunch of letter like figures) without correcting or trying to direct - but rather just naming letters and exposing the student to purposes for writing.  A couple neat suggestions around finding purposes for writing included using remnant books (which I have tried using in the past to create opportunities for communication) where everyone in the students life adds pictures and items to the book related to some thing that happened in their life.  Whomever adds the picture and item also adds a sticky note with a brief description of what it is about.  Then when it is time to write, the student picks which item in his/her writing book that he/she wants to write about and then he/she writes using an alternate pencil.  Here is where what we would have traditionally done needs to be rethought.  Instead of showing the student how to use the alternate pencil to write the words that you want to write about the the thing that he/she has picked to write about, you allow the student to just write - put down whatever letters he or she says he/she wants to put down when writing and you talk to them about their writing - in the same way that you would look at your toddlers picture with scribbles under it and know that is his/her writing at that time.  They did say that it is okay to to pull out one letter and write a word related to the topic but to not do it in a way that corrects and to not take away or direct their writing at this point.  As students are exposed to a comprehensive literacy program, their writing evolves as a result of the interaction of the components of the program.  A second idea was to put "captions" on pictures - again not correcting or directing but allowing for exploration and interaction.  It is a bit of a shift.  I'm excited to get started.  

This is obviously only a small piece.  As I start to figure out how to take all of this stuff that is spinning around in my head and put it in to action I am sure I will be writing more.  

COACH3: Choosing Outcomes & Accommodations for Children: A Guide to Educatoinal Planning for Students with Disabilities

Planning for the 2012-13 school year is in full swing as we are looking to move all of the students that I have on my caseload to their age appropriate schools this fall.  I will continue to oversee their programs at each of the three schools.  There is still a lot in the air around what things will look like exactly (we have ideas but because they are new we will need to be flexible and responsive to situations and students).

One of the shifts we are trying to make is for the starting point to be what the individualized goals are for these students and then to build their individual programs, including where each aspect of those programs will be delivered, based on that.  This is really the way it should be done but somehow we have gotten caught up in putting them in to a program based on a diagnosis or perception and then building a program that ensures they fit in to the program as it exists.  It was never intentional. I think we just sometimes get stuck in things because they seem to be more efficient.  But really we should be looking for efficient and effective and sometimes that means sacrificing a little bit of the efficient.

Here is where the COACH3 model comes in.  Where are starting with planning individual programs for next year is to work through the COACH3 (Giangreco, Coloninger & Iverson) with parents so that we can discover what the learning priorities they have for their children are. It will be interesting to know if they match with what I think they are.  It will also be helpful as we continue to plan for what their programs will look like next year in their new settings. 

The family interview and figuring out what the priority learning outcomes in that meeting is just the first part of the process.  The next thing we do is look at supplemental outcomes based on what other team members feel is important and then look at the general supports that will be in place.  This information is then used to create annual goals, short term objectives and a program-at-a-glance.  Ultimately all of this is used to create the student's IEP.

I'm excited to try the model as I looked long and hard at both this one and "The Beyond Access Model".  In the end I decided on this because it is a little bit more laid out and right now we kind of need that.  As we continue to move forward we will continue to evaluate what the best tool to plan for programming for these students is.

Inclusive Education

What About the Other Kids?

Raymond's Room: Ending the Segregation of People with Disablities by Dale Dileo

There are so many people in this world who are passionate about ending segregation of people based on disabilities.  It is always wonderful to read stories of people who dedicate their lives to this very worthy cause.

The book starts with a story of the author working in an institution and the horrid conditions that one of the people there lived under.  It describes Raymond's room and how he was viewed as being so dangerous that he needed to be locked away in a room living in conditions that we cannot imagine.  Dale Dileo moved from this experience to dedicating his life to changing "institutional thinking".  He has seen much progress but the book challenges readers to recognize that although much progress has been made, there is still a lot of "institutional thinking" in the world.

A few parts of the book that really resonated with me include:

Group Mindset: I like the approach to thinking not only about institutionalization but also institutional thinking.  When we group people together based on a disability label we do many things.  The book pointed out a couple that we need to be very aware of.  First, other people will notice what is common to the group of people - so they notice the disability as opposed to noticing the person.  For people to be seen as individuals they need to stand as individuals.  If we put someone with the disability in the middle of people without disabilities, people again notice what is common to everyone - which is that they are human.  The second point that is made about group mindset is that when there is a group of people there is far less social interaction with others then when people are on their own.  Expectations change when there is a group.  Getting rid of institutions is not enough.  We also need to get rid of institutional thinking. 

Pre-requisite Skills: I really liked the analogy made in this book about being required to have a certain set of skills before a person with a disability is allowed to do something in the real world. People with disabilities are expected to learn skills in simulated environments while others are given the opportunity to learn these same things in the middle of real life situations.  Perhaps what hit home with me the most was when the author spoke of the time when we move away from home for the first time.  Did we really have all the pre-requisite skills needed for living on our own?  I know I didn't.  I phoned home to find out how to do my laundry.  I had to learn to budget by getting to the end of the month and realizing there was more month left than there was money.  I learned that I had to pay my bills on time when I lost phone access because I didn't stay on top of things.  I gained skills through the experience and through the need.  This is tied in to the concept of "dignity of risk" and something that all people have the right to.

Real Jobs: This is one that is near and dear to my heart as it is important to me that Mikey (my son) eventually have a real job rather than work work in a sheltered environment or spend his days in a "day program".  One key point from this section was related to thinking about the context of a job.  There is one story about a man who has the "behaviours" of swearing and spitting and they are worried about placing him in a job.  He ends up getting a job at a shipping dock and succeeds there partially because many of the other people who work there spit and swear.  In this context, it is not a "behaviour".  The other thing I found important in this section was the discussion around the need to fit in to the social fabric of a work environment and how someone who is supporting the employment of a person with a disability should focus on helping them to fit in rather than breaking down the tasks in the work environment.  Once a person fits in to the work environment, those around them tell them the tricks of the trade.  I like this approach as it mirrors what I feel is the most important first step with my students.  We need to get them looking to and interacting with other students to figure out what to do next as opposed to relying on adults for that.

Lots of other great things in the book. Well worth the read and lots that motivates and inspires related to ending of institutional thinking.  I think it also helps frame the idea of looking at individual needs and desires when planning.  This means there may be some things that are done individually - but that is not the same as "in isolation".

Great Article: The Importance of Taking a Strength Based Perspective by Mary Beth Hewitt

As my role moves from being in my own classroom to supporting my students in other classrooms I am finding that I need to step back and analyze things that I do and believe in so that it can be projected in to my students new environments.  In a self-contained classroom it is easy to take a strength based approach because we do not have some of the same pressures that exist in a classroom full of 30 students who all need to get through the same curriculum in the same amount of time.  It is making me stop and think. I found this great article on the CPI website and wanted to pass it on.

Link to Article: The Importance of Taking a Strength Based Perspective by Mary Beth Hewitt

For some reason the article is cut off at the end and the "Eight Behaviours of the Strengths Based Teacher" table is not included.  It's a great table that lists the eight behaviours as well as examples of framing things from a flaw and strength focus.  The 8 behaviours are:

1. Focus on what the student can do.
2. Make realistic appraisals and avoid the use of overgeneralizations.
3. Look for and give credit for evidence of progress. Don't minimize or discount the positive.
4. Positively reframe behaviour.
5. Look for the "silver lining" in the students behaviour and start there.
6. Work with the factors that you can control.
7. Look at the whole picture.  It is as important to focus on factors that are present when the misbehaviour does not occur as when it does.
8. Be aware of the labels that you use and the projections that you make.

Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman

Although this is a business book there is much in here that applies to education on all levels - at the administration to teacher level but also at the teacher to student level.  It's a great read and examines what it is about some leaders that make others better and smarter.  It speaks to the need to step back and let others grow rather than stepping in and managing.  It is based in the idea of "growth mindset" that seems to come up again and again in the things that I'm reading.  It is based in the idea that we are always asked to do more with less... which means we need to find ways to leverage the assets that exist because we can't add anymore.  It is about letting people live their passion which means that work will not be work.  It is about growing other people's intelligence by engaging it.  It sometimes goes against what we want to do as teachers - as we want to impart wisdom or help or make things easier by laying the path.  It is worth the time it takes to read.

The book speaks to two types of leaders: Multipliers and Diminishers and the five disciplines that each have.  These are continuums that we move along.

1. The Empire Builder (Diminisher) to The Talent Manager (Multiplier)
2. The Tyrant (Diminisher) to The Liberator (Multiplier)
3. The Know-It-All (Diminisher) to The Challenger (Multiplier)
4. The Decision Maker (Diminsher) to The Debate Maker (Multiplier)
5. The Micro-Manager (Diminisher) to The Inventor (Multiplier)

The book does talk about the fact that although multipliers make people feel good about themselves they are not "push-overs" as they demand a lot from those around them.

The book also talks about the "accidental diminisher" which is what I found most valuable as it is an opportunity to step back and look at the things that might be done as a way of "helping" but in the end it is a way of stopping progress/movement.  This is a particular challenge for me as I move from teaching in a self contained classroom to having to "hand over" my students to general education classrooms.  Staying too involved and helping too much can take on diminisher effects.  We aren't looking to just move what we did in the self contained classroom to the general education classroom which means that the disciplines of a multiplier take on an even larger significance. 

As the book moved through each of the disciplines it becomes evident that we are all going to have areas of strength and areas of weakness.  The suggestion at the end of the book in regards to moving towards being more of a diminisher was to find which discipline is your largest strength and to grow that at the same time as ensuring your biggest discipline is neutralized.  Don't focus on bringing you lowest area up to the top as you will probably not be strong in all five areas - you just want to ensure that one area doesn't do harm.

Strength Based

Let's start with a link to an amazing video of Scott James at his 2009 X-Factor Audition on this one...  www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j7c4HNX3TU

Alberta Education through it's Action in Inclusion movement is looking to move from a "deficit based model" to a "strength based model" for serving students with "special needs".

People talk about 'starting with the positives' but strength based means not only starting with the positives but also ending with the positives.  When Scott James got to the point of not leaving his house they could have focused on ways to get him out of the house - social skill lessons or a behaviour support plan to reinforce leaving the house or addressing his sensory challenges by giving him tools to help him cope.  Instead they looked to what he could do and what he loved - singing - and they grew that.  They found him a teacher/mentor and he found himself a goal to shoot towards and in the end he left the house not because of any intervention but because grown his strength had grown his person.

When we build on our strengths it ends up neutralizing or eliminating the things that are challenging to us.

Everybody is a Genius

Five Things that Resonated With Me at the Linda Burkhart P.O.D.D. Workshop This Week

I had the amazing experience of not only attending a workshop delivered by Linda Burkhart this week but also of being able to do a morning long consultation with her related to one of my students.  It was an amazing learning experience and I'm excited to start using P.O.D.D. communication books with my students.  I could see within minutes of her working with the student we did the consultation around how having this method of communication is going to open up a whole new world for this student.  I'm sure that I will be writing more about this as we go through the process of figuring out how to use this tool with our students.  Right now I'm just very excited.

There is much to say and think about but I think I will start with a "Friday Five" and just go with five things that resonated with me during this learning experience...

1. "Input before Output": In order for students to learn we need to provide the input before the output and sometimes we need to provide the input for a very long time.  When we are teaching students to use an alternative communication system we need to talk to them using that system.  Traditionally we have been providing intervention based on what we expect a child to understand but a child can only know what we have presented to him/her so it becomes a catch 22.  Bottom line is what a child will do is dependent on what we given and show them.  The caution here is that when we test children to find out what they are capable of we are testing what they have been exposed to but we are not testing what they are capable of.  We need to be careful not take the test results and set things up in a way that doesn't allow us to explore what they are capable of.  It's logical... but we don't necessarily do it.  I know there are places where I need to be far more cognizant of this.
2. Independence vs Autonomy: At one point during the workshop Linda talked about the difference between "independence" and "autonomy".  Independence means being able to do something alone while autonomy is about having the freedom to determine one's own direction.  You can be autonomous without being independent.  You can be independent without having autonomy.  Bottom line for me is that autonomy is a far more important goal than independence for my students.  It is also a far more important goal for my own personal development as there are times that I need to be interdependent as opposed to independent to achieve my goals.  I have been focusing on autonomy but defining the difference and making it more explicit helps to focus what my job is.
3. Assume Competence: This is something that I believe deeply in - yet at the same time I find myself getting knocked down a peg or two often on this one.  I see again and again how my ableist views can come in play on an unconscious level regularly.  Seeing my student so quickly pick up the process needed to communicate with a P.O.D.D. book made me realize that I need to diligent in this area.  I can see what he is capable of goes way beyond what I've been assuming.  We really have no idea what our students are capable of and we can so easily limit what they are exposed to by making the wrong assumptions.
4. Scaffolding Process: This P.O.D.D. system is such a perfect example of the scaffolding process and I found myself thinking about it a lot as we went through this workshop.  What we do and set up around a child affects how a child grows and develops.  If we can meet them just a bit above where they are and challenge them forward they will respond.  These books are amazing in that the idea is that we model receptive language above the expressive language the child is using.  This is done naturally if we communicate with our voices... but without us modeling the communication system a student is using we are not doing the same thing for them. 
5. Understanding of How Language Works (Pragmatic Branch Starters):  This was the key to understanding this whole system as it is based on pragmatic branch starters (the reasons we use language) and it gives the student autonomy around choosing which branch to start from.  From there some of the things we are doing are similar to what we have done in the past.  The difference is related to who decides what we talk about.  This system gives that responsibility to the student... which is exactly what I had been looking to do.

I'm very excited about this and can't wait to get started.  I'm sure I will be posting updates as we go along.  If you ever get a chance to hear Linda J. Burkhart speak I would recommend that you go.  Although she speaks mostly about students with multiple complex disabilities what she has to say is so applicable to all students.  She resonates respect for all people.  Truly amazing experience!