Kathleen M. McCoy

Effects of Corrective Feedback on Word Accuracy and Reading Comprehension of Readers with Learning Disabilities

This study examined reading comprehension and word recognition effects of corrective feedback during oral reading on the performance of readers with learning disabilities. In a repeated measures design, students with learning disabilities read under three treatment conditions: corrective feedback on every oral reading error, correction on meaning change errors only, and no feedback regardless of errors. Corrective feedback on oral reading errors had a significant positive effect on both word recognition accuracy and reading comprehension. Results are discussed in relation to theory and practice.

Considering the Context: Differences between the Environments of Beginning Special Educators who Stay and those who Leave

Rural schools and other traditionally hard-to-staff schools continue to struggle with the recruitment and retention of qualified special education teachers. Beginning special educators are two and one half times more likely to leave their positions than their general education counterparts. The study reported here extends the literature base on teacher retention by exploring factors that contribute to the professional growth and job satisfaction of a particular group of beginning special educators in a variety of settings, including rural, urban, and suburban districts, both elementary and secondary school level settings, and resource or more self-contained settings. The studys findings hold implications for individuals responsible for teacher development and the administration of school funds and resources.

Evaluating Inservice Training in Mainstreaming for Elementary Teachers.

zona. &dquo;The times-, are a changing&dquo; is a refrain that could most aptly be applied to current educational programs. Since the passage of P.L. 94-142, the practice of educating the handicapped in the regular ciassroom has increased dramatically. Reflecti~~g this change, regular classroom teachers have expressed a need for inservice training that focuses on the design and implementation, of educational programs for handicapped students (Flynn, Gacka, & Sundian, 1973’1. . , While a number of inservice training programs have been described in the literature (Cegelka & Tawney, 1975; 1977; Hesse, 1977; Reynolds, 1979g Know!ton, & Clark, 1979),: a major facing planners of inservice preparation programs has been how to evaluate

Semantic Mapping as a Communication Tool in Classrooms for the Seriously Emotionally Handicapped.

Special education teachers working with seriously emotionally handicapped adolescents often are faced with the task of dealing with a students thoughts and feelings in response to a crisis situation. This situation requires that positive teacher-student relationships have been established. The purpose of this article is to describe how the technique of semantic mapping can be used to (a) help seriously emotionally handicapped adolescents organize and disclose their thoughts and feelings in stress-engendering situations; (b) structure teacher-student interaction by providing a format; and (c) enable the teacher to collect specific notes for later consultation with staff. A case study is presented illustrating this procedure and implications for further use of this technique to facilitate teacher-student communication are discussed.

Teacher Ratings of Teaching Behaviors Derived from the Research Literature.

In spite of the rapidly increasing body of research within the past 20 years concerning the effects on pupil achievement of certain teaching skills, there is considerable skepticism regarding the impact of this research on classroom practice. This skepticism is frequently based on the assumption that teachers are unaware of and indifferent to the research literature. A questionnaire study was conducted among 141 elementary and junior high special education teachers to evaluate the degree of their agreement with the findings of research conducted primarily in regular classrooms. Results of the study showed special education teachers to be in agreement with classroom research on teaching skills. Teacher behaviors positively correlated with pupil achievement were rated significantly higher than behaviors negatively correlated with achievement. The predominant influence on teacher ratings was the district in which the teacher was employed. Possible explanations of this effect are discussed. Student grade level and type of class (resource, self-contained) also affected teacher ratings, but only as joint effects with district. There were several significant differences between groups of teachers on individual items. Teacher age or years of teaching experience did not affect ratings. Results of this study have several implications for the role of IHEs in preservice and inservice education.

Image and Perceptual Representation of Words in Learning Disabled and Normal Children

Results of the present study indicated that learning disabled and normal children (x age = 111.4 months) process letters in words in either perceptual or imaginal modes for the attribute letter height. A large processing time effect was noted for mode of representation with perceptual representations of letters processed more rapidly than imaginal representations. There was also a subject-type-by-processing mode interaction. The results indicate that LD and normal children do not differ in perceptual processing time; however, LD children have a smaller image capacity than normals. Correlational results also suggest that the imaginal mode is more independent of other modes for normals than for LDs.

Designing Effective Induction for Beginning Special Educators: Recommendations from a Review of the Literature

A methodical review of the literature revealed that, although similarities exist, the needs of beginning special educators differ significantly from those of the general population of beginning teachers in the following areas: procedural information, curriculum and instruction, classroom management, and collegial interactions. The article reminds the reader of the research base that defines effective induction and offers suggestions for applying information from the literature review to common components of induction programs. Support for beginning teachers will be most effective when the specific needs of special educators are incorporated into program designs.