LEARNING TO READ: 1-ON-1 PULLOUTS? OR STAY IN THE CLASSROOM?

Posted June 6, 2016

In Down Syndrome Reading, Early Reading, Education, Inclusion, Reading in the classroom, Teaching Down syndrome

What is “best practice” now for our kids in inclusive classrooms? Stay in for reading instruction or get pulled out? Here’s valuable input…

In or Out?

One mother recently wrote me, “I observed a reading time session in my son’s 3rd grade class earlier this week: the kids were working at a pretty fast pace…is pulling him out for a 1-on-1 the best solution? Or is there a way to give him the support he needs while keeping him with his typically developing peers in a meaningful way?” Good question!

My advice, which echoes the evidence-based practices of Down Syndrome Education International (UK), is this: 1-on-1 pullouts are absolutely the fastest way for our children with Down syndrome to learn to read. DSEI recommends a classroom pullout of 40 minutes a day, 1-on-1 (aide to student), with the aide being previously trained in the necessary methodology. As for my practice, I teach only 1-on-1 with my students.

Okay, WHY?

Because our children (teens, adults) have different:

learning styles
learning strengths
learning weaknesses
behavioral challenges
focusing difficulties
attention spans
core interests (which engage attention)
auditory deficiencies
working memory problems

Those factors being a given, I tailor each of my reading sessions to just one student, who needs all the creativity and attention I can possibly muster. My whole objective is to engage him, to get more than just my foot in his door, to give knowledge in such a way that he can retain it, and to spark confidence and the love of reading in him. That’s it. And that can only be done more quickly with 1-on-1. It can be done slowly in an inclusion classroom, we hope, but there’s no guarantee that situation is going to help instead of discourage the young learner.

Making Classroom Work Friendly

Obviously, we also need to modify general education classroom material so our kids can keep pace with the core information taught in the classroom. For that, we need to learn ways to modify gen ed materials. I wish there was an internet pool of already-modified materials, and maybe one day there will be; but in the meantime, the job falls to parents and aides for the most part. It’s essential to modify those materials for clarity, simplicity, large print, and focusing on just a very few “minimum learning outcomes” (MLO), those few essential points that a child needs to understand from a lesson. Ask your child’s teacher what the MLOs are for any assignment, and go from there!

In next week’s blog, I’ll talk about modifying other classroom material. In the meantime, if you want a refresher on modifying trade books (trade books=really cool books your child already loves but can’t read), look here.

Cheers always,

Natalie Hale