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Autism and Reading Comprehension. Joseph Porter
Читать онлайн.Название Autism and Reading Comprehension
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781941765371
Автор произведения Joseph Porter
Жанр Медицина
Издательство Ingram
The children (after much praise over their observation/conversation skills) now leave the conversation area and return to their desks. Have them take out a pencil (and only a pencil!), and distribute the students’ graphic organizers, printed from http://fhautism.com/arc.html. Your students now have their own graphic organizers that match the ones on the chart paper.
Have them write their name on the top of the paper (or their initials, or just the first letter—whatever they can do). The first step of their seatwork is to copy the words from the circle-in-circle chart onto their own circle-in-circle chart. If they don’t write all the words, it’s okay. Especially in the beginning, it’s more important that they become familiar with the process of using these graphic organizers to arrange words into sentences.
Once they’ve done their best to copy the words, move to the second graphic organizer, the branch chart.
Write “The Cat” on the top line and “can,” “has,” and “likes” on the three spaces on the second row. Have students do the same on their version of the branch chart.
Now it’s time to fill in the rest of the branch chart. You will do this together. The time for free floating conversation is over. It’s time for the first question: “What can the cat do?”
We stay on this topic until the first “can” column is filled with the appropriate three items. I found that this combination of graphic organizers worked particularly well together with my kids because the information is right there in front of them. When someone inevitably answers that first question with “milk,” for example, you can form that question back for him or her to hear: “The cat can milk? Does that sentence sound right to us? Let’s think again—what can he do? Let’s look back in the circle and find something the cat can do.”
Everything stays on a concrete, visual level, which works great for these kids. It’s hard to veer very far off course.
Continue in this vein, first asking the students, “What else can the cat do?” until you’ve transferred all three answers to that question, found within the larger circle of the circle-in- circle chart, to the branch chart.
When all three blank spaces in the “can” column have been successfully filled in, move on to the next column. Say, “Okay class, what does the cat have?”
If someone answers, “jump,” you can ask, “The cat has jump? Does that sound right to us? Why don’t we look inside the big circle to see if we can find something that sounds better than that sentence? How about ‘The cat has four legs.’ Does that sound better to us?”
Every time you transfer a word from the circle-in-circle chart to the branch chart, take your students through the formation of the sentence. As you say each word of the sentence, point to the corresponding word on the branch chart. This way, they can become familiar with the way we use the chart to form the sentence.
Once the “has” column has been successfully filled in, move on to the “likes” column. I have experimented with erasing the words from the circle-in-circle chart as they were transferred to the branch chart, but I felt this robbed my students of some of the exercise’s more important challenges. It’s best if they think and observe throughout. If there’s just one word left inside the circle at the end of the lesson, you’ve taken away a potential learning moment for them. However, this is an individual call. If your class is more challenged by this exercise, then make the lesson more manageable. It’s more important for your students to succeed.
Once all three columns of the branch chart have been successfully filled in, you can choose to take a “reward-time” mini break. Go around and admire your students’ work, giving them a sticker, a gold star, or whatever reward you’ve established in your classroom. You could even take a stretch break. I found this not to be a good idea with my kids, but if you have a group that can stay focused, this would be a logical place to take a short break. The connection still needs to be maintained between the graphic organizers and the sentences we’re about to build, so really, no more than fifteen to twenty seconds. This is all up to you, though. You know your kids better than anyone.
Once you’re all refocused, distribute the handouts that are lined on the bottom for sentences and blank on the top for illustrations (printed from http://fhautism.com/arc. html). They now have on their desks this new, blank sheet of paper, along with the filled- in graphic organizers. Some kids might become a little overwhelmed with all of this paper and information in front of them, but it’s important that the graphic organizers stay on their desks for the sentence-building phase.
Tell the children it’s time to make the first sentence. The first time, model it for them, using the branch chart as you do so. Point to the words on the branch chart as you slowly say them, forming your first sentence. Show the students the physical relationship between the words on the chart and how they go together to form a spoken sentence. This will help them read the chart and form the sentences using the chart themselves.
Say, “Let’s make a sentence from the first column, using the word ‘can.’ ‘The cat can jump.’”
After the sentence is spoken, write it on the chart paper.
Then, have students write the same sentence on the first line of their papers.
Ask the class if someone can now make a sentence from the second column, using the word “has.” Making only one sentence from each column eventually will give the kids a feeling of authorial autonomy—they choose which sentence they want to form. They can choose any of the three words to make a sentence. Once a sentence is formed from the second column, write it on the chart paper, and have the students copy that sentence onto their papers.
Finally, have someone form a sentence from the third column.
You should now have written three sentences:
1. The cat can jump.
2. The cat has a tail.
3. The cat likes milk.
Now it’s time for the final part of the sentence-building exercise—the illustration. This is a key component to further connecting the students to their writing. We want them to understand that these are not just jumbles of random words scribbled on a piece of paper. They have meaning, and the illustration helps engender a deeper understanding of this connection. Toward that end, the illustration must reflect the information in the sentence. It’s okay to be a bit strict here, mostly because it’s a drawing—not words—and the pressure decreases at this point. For example, if I see an illustration of a cat not drinking from a bowl of milk—or a cat missing a tail—it’s easy for me to correct the students and guide them in the right direction.
Get the free PDF of the lined paper at at http://fhautism.com/arc.html.
You should now have three full sentences and beautiful drawings to illustrate the words. This marks the halfway point of The Cat lessons. The second half of The Cat lessons is structured the same way, except you’ll begin a new worksheet and work with new sentences. Just like the ones I’ve described thus far, there will be four variations of the worksheet and then a sentence-building exercise, using the same graphic organizers and lined paper.
Don’t forget about the off days; the supplemental activities are crucial for keeping the kids interested in the topics. It is also a much-needed break, and it helps students associate the topics—and reading in general—to good feelings. The lessons will be challenging and sometimes frustrating for them, but I hope they will become fun. The supplemental activities aren’t anti-lessons; they are integral aspects of the curriculum that can make or break the program’s effectiveness.
Having tried lots of different writing and sentence-building techniques and graphic organizers, I found this combination