Jeanne Shay Schumm

Broken Promises: Reading Instruction in the Resource Room

Reading instruction and grouping practices provided for students with learning disabilities (LD) by special education teachers in the resource room were examined. Fourteen special education teachers representing 13 schools were observed three times over the course of 1 year and interviewed in the beginning and end of the school year. Results indicated that teachers primarily provided whole group reading instruction to relatively large groups of students (5 to 19), and little differentiated instruction or materials were provided despite the wide range (3 to 5 grade levels) of reading abilities represented. Most teachers identified whole language as their primary approach to reading, and little instruction that addressed word recognition or comprehension was observed.

Responsible Inclusion for Students with Learning Disabilities

The purpose of this article is to contrast responsible with irresponsible inclusion practices for students with learning disabilities. Guidelines for responsible inclusion are that the student and family are considered first, teachers choose to participate in inclusion classrooms, adequate resources are provided for inclusion classrooms, models are developed and implemented at the school-based level, a continuum of services is maintained, the service delivery model is evaluated continuously, and ongoing professional development is provided.

Social Outcomes for Students With and Without Learning Disabilities in Inclusive Classrooms

Social outcomes of students who participated in two different educational settings designed to provide special services for students with learning disabilities (LD) placed full-time within the general education classroom were examined. Participants were 185 thirdthrough sixth-grade students: 59 students with LD, 72 low to average achieving, and 54 high achieving. There was an overall educational setting effect, with students on the consultation/collaborative teaching setting demonstrating more positive outcomes than students in the co-teaching setting on friendship quality and peer acceptance. Students with LD in the consultation/collaborative teaching setting also demonstrated moderate increases in the number of reciprocal friendships from fall to spring. Discussion addresses the positive social outcomes for students with LD and high-achieving students in the consultation/collaborative teaching setting, and the importance of monitoring student progress in all settings.

A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT TO ENHANCE READING AND WRITING INSTRUCTION IN INCLUSION CLASSROOMS

A year-long researcher-teacher professional development group with a next-year followup was conducted with seven general education teachers from two elementary schools in a large urban school district in the southeastern United States. The two schools had recently restructured their special education program to include students with LD in the general education class full-time. Teachers were taught four reading and writing practices (one during each nine-week grading block). All but two of the teachers partially or completely implemented the practices during the nine-week period. Sustained implementation during the school year was maintained by four of the seven teachers, and three of the seven teachers continued high implementation of the instructional practices during the next school year. The components of successful professional development programs are discussed and implications for teacher education are offered.

The ABCDEs of Co-Teaching.

Flamingo Elementary School in Miami. For the past 3 years she has co-taught language arts and social studies for part of the school day with Joyce Duryea, a special education teacher. For both teachers, the idea of working coUaboratively with another teacher was not part of their original plan for teaching. Joyce said: When I was preparing to be a special education teacher it never occurred to me that I would need to know how to co-teach in a general education classroom. I always thought I would have my group of students with special needs and that is the way it would be.

Meaningful Professional Development in Accommodating Students with Disabilities Lessons Learned

The purpose of this article is to describe lessons learned from a series of professional development programs with inservice teachers (elementary through high school) designed to promote improvement of practices for instructing students with high-incidence disabilities in general education settings. initial professional development programs (n = 4) focused on exploring possibilities for effective formats and content. subsequent programs (n = 3) built on lessons learned and developed an intensive collaboration between university and school-based researchers in elementary classroom settings. pros and cons of each program are discussed as well as future directions for research.

Which Motoric Condition Is Most Effective for Teaching Spelling to Students With and Without Learning Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of three motoric conditions (writing, tracing, and computer keyboarding) on the spelling performance of 24 third- and fourth-grade students without learning disabilities (NLD) (15 males, 9 females) and 24 third- and fourth-grade students with learning disabilities (LD) (16 males, 8 females). This study applied empirically based procedures for teaching spelling, examined student performance over time, and incorporated student interviews concerning their preference for motoric condition. For number of words spelled and proportion of bi-grams (correct letter sequences) used correctly, significant differences were found between the LD and NLD groups, both at posttest and follow-up, with the NLD students learning to spell more words and apply more correct bi-grams than the students with LD. There was no significant effect for condition for either words spelled or bi-grams, indicating that students did not learn significantly more words in the writing, tracing, or computer condition. There was also a significant time effect indicating that the accuracy of both groups decreased over time from posttest to follow-up for both words and bi-grams. Interviews revealed that students in both groups preferred the computer condition; however, they believed that they learned best in the writing and tracing conditions.

Early Spelling Acquisition: Does Writing Really Beat the Computer?

This research evaluated the efficacy of handwriting, letter tiles, and computer-based instruction on the early spelling acquisition of normal achieving (NLD) and learning disabled (LD) elementary students. The study replicated and extended the Cunningham and Stanovich (1990) study. Forty-eight primary-grade students (24 non-learning disabled; 24 learning disabled) received spelling training under three experimental conditions that involved different types of instructional activity: writing, sorting letter tiles, or typing on the computer. Results indicated no significant differences between the LD and NLD groups on words spelled correctly for any of the three conditions. Since the number of spelling words learned was low across conditions and groups, the number of correctly learned bigrams was examined. No within-group differences emerged for condition (writing, tile, computer); however, significant differences between the groups were found on number of bigrams learned for writing, tile, and computer, with the NLD group outperforming the LD group on all three conditions. Statistically significant time effects for bigrams were also noted for all three conditions. Unlike the Cunningham and Stanovich (1990) study, results did not replicate the superiority of the handwriting condition for the NLD group, nor was the handwriting condition found to be significantly more effective for the LD group.

Exploring effects of the keyword method on limited English proficient students' vocabulary recall and comprehension

Abstract This study examined effects of the keyword (English and Spanish) method in comparison with the rehearsal method on the vocabulary learning of fifth‐grade students with Limited English Proficiency (LEP). Following an intervention program, sixty 5th‐graders with LEP took a vocabulary recall test and a sentence completion test over two time intervals: immediate and one‐week delayed. Multivariate repeated measures were implemented employing test (vocabulary recall and sentence completion) and time (immediate and delayed) as within‐subject factors, and group (keyword Spanish, keyword English, and rehearsal) as a between‐subject factor. Significant main effects were observed for time and test as well as for the interaction of test and group. No statistically significant effects occurred for the interaction of time and group, the interaction of time and test, or the interaction of time, test, and group. Scheffé post hoc tests revealed that students in both keyword groups outperformed their counterparts in the rehearsal group in vocabulary recall tests and sentence completion tests over time. There were no significant differences between the two keyword groups for these tests. In a post‐intervention survey, the majority of students in the two keyword groups reported that they enjoyed using the keyword method and planned to use it in the future. Findings are discussed in light of limitations, directions for future research, and instructional implications.

Guidelines for Adapting Content Area Textbooks Keeping Teachers and Students Content

Textbook adaptations are often necessary in working with mainstreamed special education students