Betty

__ Culturally Responsive Instruction __

__ Chapter 3 __ As a educator, we should respect our __students__ differences. Respecting their different cultures, social groups and __learning__ styles. Cultures, social groups and learning styles all drive the behaviors of individuals. If educators respect the cultures, social groups and learning styles of our individual __students__ then we can keep an open mind. Thus, helping us and our __students__ learn. As stated in chapter 3, cultural responsive instruction should take into consideration the cognitive, linguistic, and social assets of an individual student. There are five components of cultural responsive instruction. This instruction is needed for all students because students come from all over the world. This is essential for a teacher who has multiple students in her class with cultural differences because it will help the teacher adapt instruction including all students. Not only will the students be learning about different cultures, they are being exposed to it as well. “Awareness of cultural differences provides merely the scaffolding for __building__ collaborative relationships.”(kalyanpur & Harry, 1999, p.118) (88) This instruction is put in place to facilitate the academic achievement of students from diverse, racial cultural and social-class groups. As I mentioned previously, teaching students about their classmates cultures broaden their horizons and help them keep an open mind about one another. This is essential in helping them build friendly relationships with each other, enabling them to create bonds, friendships and respect between each other. In my class room I would be sure to implement this type of instruction, helping myself and my students. Learning about different cultures and teaching others about different cultures is always interesting. Special education students can benefit from this type of instruction. Culturally response instruction plays a big role in special educations because not only does the instruction address the needs of Minority & international students it also addresses the needs of students with disabilities. Students can learn about special needs and the different types of disabilities in which Is the same as learning about different cultures. In doing this students will learn about special needs and respect and except their classmates who are considered special need students.

Shawna Reynolds
 * Viewers Comments:

I __agree__ with you 100% Betty. All students are different in background, learning __style__, and culture. The teacher in the classroom should obtain the skill to include lessons on cultures of the world into their lessons. It may help students understand one another better, as well as help the teacher understand their students better. Also, by using culturally responsive instruction in a classroom with students with __disabilities__, the students and the teacher have an experience. Each person in that class room will learn more and more about a disability they didn't know to much on. That is all what teaching is about. Teaching students things they may not have a full awareness or a proper understanding on. Teaching students of all different cultures and disabilities about cultures and disabilities, only makes them more educated and understand better. I also __agree__ with how the students will __earn__ respect for the student who may have a disability because they now grasp what that student needs to go through and what the disability does to the fellow classmate. I like your response Betty! || Chapter 5 Understanding Students With Learning Disabilities Chapter five provided useful information about students with disabilities. There are two things that stood out amongst the information. The text provided readers with information about reading to children with and without disabilities because it it needed. "There are connections between genetic and environment causes because parents who experience problems with reading are likely to read less to their children during their children's early years." ( Pg 131) When children are young and as they grow it is essential to read to them. They need to be read to regularly so that they may be able to pick up words, process them and then formulate sentences. If the parents of children with disabilities have trouble reading themselves then they really wont have the __Motivation__ to read to their own children. This is an unfortunate situation because reading is very important. Parents wil have to work extra hard, practice new and differenciated instruction to guide their children with rreading and reading with their children brings them one step closer to success. Reading is a top priority and very essential to learning. It should be one thing that parents should practice with their children whether, their child has a disability or not. As I read on through thet chapter I came across two ways an learning disability can be identified. We learned in class that a student needs to fit into one of the learning disability categories and for them to recive special education it needs tohave a negative impact on their learning. The Descrepancy model and The response to intervention ( RTI) are two ways a learning disability can be identified. __The discrepancy model__ is used to measure the difference between a students intellectual ability and his/her achievements. The wechsler intelligence test for children would be used in this model. This test would be given to sample a students performance related to reasoning, memory, learning comprehension, and ability to learn academic skills. There are a couple of problems with this model because this model provides a __probability__ that the students achievements is significantly inconsistant for his or her ability. In other words it is not completely accurate. On the other hand __The response to intervention__ also known as RTI is used as an alternative to documenting a severe discrepancy between intellectual disability and achievement thus, using the model to see if a child responds to scientific research based intervention. What happens to the student if the teacher under this model encounters difficulty with providing appropriate intervention? What else can they turn to? This is where I believe the __discrepancy model__ comes in to play. Both the Discrepancy model and the RTI model can work hand in hand. If the student can take an "IQ" test and then receive a response to intervention I think that the students, parents as well as the educators can be successful. These models need to be used together in order to receive the most accurate measurement. Betty, You raise a number of interesting issues. I am going to comment on two. As reading difficulties are a primary marker for many students with learning disabilities, early intervention at school and home support for reading are both very important. Unfortunately, not all families are prepared to support student's reading at home, either because reading is difficult for them because they themselves have a reading disability, as you mention, or for other reasons, such as language difference, stress of other life demands, or not knowing ways they can support their child's literacy learning. That's where teachers can support families by introducing them to resources and strategies they can use with their child or the child can use on their own.
 * Comments: ||

I would also like to comment briefly on your remarks regarding the eligibility model for students with specific learning disabilities (sld). There are pluses and minuses on both sides and you mentioned a few of these in your commentary. In NJ, we allow districts to make a choice. Most are still using the discrepancy model, even with its drawbacks, but in addition, most are using some form of classroom based assessment to support these findings. In addition, some other districts are using a form of RTI, but still retaining formal assessment as part of the data for determination of sld. Thank you for starting the conversation on both of these issues. Regards, Dr. OReilly Professor Oreilly, I remember watching a short video on special education. It was based on the guiding of students at home with disabilities.The parents as well as the students would meet up with a teacher and the whole family sat and read together. They did many things together with the teacher, So if the parent had difficulty reading they were learning from the sessions they were attenting with their child. This is very essential and helpful to the parent at home because not only is their child receiving the help they need the parent is also recieving the help they need to help their own child. Betty B Johnson

Some districts have parent liaisons who provide training directly to parents on ways they can help their children at home. It is unusual above preschool level for assistance to be brought directly into the home. Some districts run family literacy and/or math programs in which families of students with and without disabilities can come with their child and other siblings to school to learn ways to enhance reading and/or math skills. This is a very effective approach as teachers can model and support families to work successfully with their children. Again, most of these programs are offered at elementary schools, though older students could benefit as well. Dr, OReilly

Chapter 8 ** " Understanding students with attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder." ** **"There are a number of classroom ecological variables that can benefit students with AD/HD, including arranging students seats to take, distractibility into account, posting daily schedules and arranging the classroom to facilitate smooth transitions. " Supplementary aids and services involve modifications to aspects of the classroom environment " pg 222 This piece of specific information given in this chapter is essential for the success of both the educator and the learner. Students with AD/HD have various traits in which enables educators to use a variety of accommodations for them. Some of them have trouble staying in their seats for long periods of time and some of them have behavioral problems. This is where the designing of a classroom, changing the way information is posted, and praising appropriate behavior is all a must. With this educators can "run" their classrooms smoothy because their students with disabilities are taken care if ahead of time. Their needs are met before hand therefor, both the students and educators can succeed. Box 8.3 on pg 223 shows perfect examples of this. I would use these tactics in my classroom because I will have students in my classroom who will need accommodations of the sort. I am a witness that these accommodations actually work because many of the 1st graders in my classroom have AD/HD. The students who have behavioral problems sit closest to me so I can keep a watchful eye over them. The students who have to constantly stand out of their seats sit closest to the door because they are usually going back and forth to the bathroom. **  **Another bit of information that stuck out to me in chapter 8 was the "Cognitive behavioral therapies". The purpose of these strategies is to modify behavior and thinking patterns. Using cognitive behavior strategies are less task specific and may be more focused on self-talk to modify thoughts and feeling as well as actions. For example, a students would speak to themselves saying " I need to concentrate on this and not let other thoughts disrupt my thinking" pg 228. This works well for students with disabilities and students without. For I do this when I feel like i'm getting off track or in need of positive reinforcement. It is as i'm pushing my own self. This task helps me feel better about myself even after I feel like I made a negative decision or if I need something to help me feel confident. If I find myself slacking i'll say something like " Betty you need to get it together" to break my cycle of slacking. It usually helps me a ton because if no one else is around to help me stop slacking then I have control to do so. Students with disabilities can use this to their advantage when they are struggling with tasks at hand. For example students with disabilities who have organizational trouble can speak out loudly to themselves; sometimes things have to be spoken out loud in order to be understood. **

=**Viewers comments:**= **Betty, I was chuckling as I read your comments about cognitive behavioral therapies. You might want to review what Lindsey had to say about this topic also. Self talk can be a very effective strategy to help regulate and motivate student behavior. As you note, this is a strategy that many of us use, including myself. For students with disabilities who are unaware of "self talk" - sharing this idea may be very helpful to them. To introduce the idea, you might think about discussing this with the whole class. You might begin by sharing your own experiences with "Self-talk" and how it has benefited you. You might then ask others to share if they use "self-talk" and how it has benefited them. Making students with disabilities aware that this is a helpful strategy for others, as well as providing specific ideas of when and how to use the strategy, may be the encouragement they need to try it for themselves. For some students, deliberate individual instruction may be needed to construct their own "self-talk statements" and plan how and when to use them. That's where your special education partners can be most helpful. Good commentary. Dr. OReilly**

**Hi Betty, I'm elated to read that you can get first grad students with AD/HD to sit for any length of time. The student's that were in the class that I observed though 2nd graders, did anything but sit still. They showed some interest because I was the new person in the classroom but as soon as they went past the 3 min marker they were off on their own. Giving them redirection, tasks for the walker, speaking parts for the one who like to blurt out anything were all tried to no avail. They just changed the dynamics of the classroom I'll say in a more challenging way.**

Chapter 9 ** Understanding students with intellectual disability **  ** Using effective instructional strategies **  ==Preschool and __early education__ students benefit from prelinguistic milieu teaching to elicit communication and language from them. The goal of this strategy is to help students with speech delays while they are younger. " It teaches children of intellectual disability who do not speak to make frequent, clear request or comments with gestures or sounds while looking at the person whom they are communicating". Pg 255 This strategy indeed stood out to me. It stood out to me because I had never heard of it before it is entirely new to me. I have a friend whose child suffered from speech delays. She was refereed to multiple doctors and they would just keep on reminding her that by the age of three he would be talking. They reassured her nothing was seriously wrong with him, but she was determined to get her child speaking. She practices something similar to this instruction to her child and it made improvements. In no time her child was speaking. The doctors made it known that he was not speaking because he was in fact shy and that he would grow out of it. This strategy would have been a good starter for him. This strategy introduces that the first step to the instruction is to " Follow the child's lead" because in fact " They focus best on things in which they are interested" pg. 255 There are seven steps to this instructional strategy and I noticed that each step is the same in a sense to help the speech of the child, but different in differentiation. They each touch on different aspects of the instruction. For example step two states " Prompt the child to initiate" and step three says " vocally imitate the child's resultant vocalizations". Each step is essential for the end result of the instruction to have had any impact on the child at all. It is similar to what parents do already because when a baby says their first word or babbles out a sound that sounds like a word ( Da Da for Daddy) the parents automatically repeat what it is that they think the child is trying to say. If the child says the word enough eventually they will start to use the word that their parents have been translating all the while, building language.==

Betty, You are right many parents naturally follow a child's lead, teach a child to imitate first sounds and then words, and extend or recast a child's initial efforts into expanded speech. This sequence is helpful for many families as well as educators to give a systematic approach to generating speech that is not evolving naturally. I like this one too. Dr. OReilly

Hi Betty, To comment on Chapter 9, I like the idea of following the child's lead because they focus best on things in which they are interested. In taking the education courses, we have come to see where the child's interest has sparked very meaningful lessons and instruction. In building language, as with most things, it starts at home. The examples of the first words and/or babbles assumes meaning when they are vocally imitated by their parents. I also believes that encourages them to begin to form and attempt to speak new words thus adding/building their vocabulary. ~Danielle Cofield

Key aspects of PBS: Responsibility, respect, and caring , are rules that schools under this intervention live by. They implement these “rules” throughout the school so that the students know what is expected of them. I thought it was interesting that these schools implement these same rules for the cafeteria, hallways and outside of the class room. If all schools implemented this intervention I believe that negative behavior would definitely be less challenging. This intervention is based on” teaching a student something before you expect them to be able to do it.” therefore creating a PBS relies mainly on modeling. It is essential for this intervention because students learn from others and if they observe another student acting negatively then the next student will feel like it is ok for them to act that way, but if the behavior is more positive then that outcome is different and wanted. This behavior intervention plan is great because it works for both students with and without disabilities. Behavior can definitely affect a students learning and also the teachers teaching and is one thing essential in student and teacher success. Not only did the students have to change their behavior, but the teachers had to also change their behavior in a way so that they may interact with the students in order to become more positive. Implementing this in my own class room would be a big help. Modeling positive behavior is always a must. Every teacher wants their students to behave and just having classroom rules on the wall in the corner is not enough. Maybe I could use Respect, Responsible and Caring to implement my class room rules, modeling how I would want my students to behave inside and outside the classroom. Modeling negative behavior in the presence of my students and then having them correct my negative behavior would be essential.