Increasing awareness about screening and instructional interventions for students with dyslexia is a necessary component of P-12 teacher preparation. Disparities in reading achievement for students with disabilities, including those with dyslexia, is evidenced in lower literacy testing scores as well as lower high school graduation rates for those with documented disabilities when compared to typical developing peers. Preservice teachers, however, continue to struggle with understanding, identifying, and providing targeted literacy instruction to remediate reading challenges for students with dyslexia. Emerging data on the impact of the COVID-19 school closures on lags in student’s reading attainment, further solidifies the need for teacher preparation programs to prepare preservice teachers to implement best practices for supporting students with dyslexia. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to determine the impact of asynchronous online learning modules on preservice teacher’s knowledge of dyslexia. Results indicate that preservice teachers who learn via online sources such as podcasts, infographics, and educational games, statistically increase their knowledge of dyslexia and confidence to work with students. Recommendations for programmatic change and inclusion of online learning about dyslexia for teacher preparation programs are suggested.
A popular model of classroom writing instruction, writers' workshop, is composed of a minilesson, guided practice, independent work time, and a group share. In a workshop classroom, minilessons are used to teach specific skills and allow for guided practice. During independent work time, students spend 20-40 minutes writing while the teacher confers one-on-one with students or small groups for strategy instruction. The workshop concludes with a share segment to highlight student work and review teaching points.Writers' workshop not only enables students to develop their craft but also presents teachers with several challenges. Managing students and establishing classroom routines for independent work can be difficult for several reasons. Some students struggle with stamina or motivation and find it challenging to focus independently for 20-40 minutes. Students with learning disabilities often have difficulty with topic generation, drafting a sequence of story elements, and revising. Time constraints are especially challenging in classrooms because only one or perhaps two teachers are on hand to monitor multiple students.As a resource center teacher, I provided daily pullout writing support to groups of struggling writers that supported the writing curriculum. My students struggled in many areas, particularly with writing stamina, thereby requiring multiple check-ins during independent writing time. This proved especially challenging because spot-checks cut into my one-onone conferring time. To this end, I used a novel form of support with my fourth-grade students to facilitate autonomy during independent writing time.The student-support teachers in my school were asked to conduct a Chromebook feasibility pilot for three months. I chose to use Google Docs during writing because the comment and chat features allowed for synchronous and asynchronous conversations, a feature not found in Microsoft Word or a writer ' s notebook. After teaching the basic features of Google Docs, I modeled how to create and respond to comments on the document page. The school district had disabled the chat feature, so we were limited to comments.During individual and group work sessions, I set aside a block of conferring time to comment on docs while my students worked in groups, alone independently, or with an instructional aide. Because my students shared current pieces with me, I was able to see their writing in real time. I could make suggestions, immediately point out techniques to try, or have them reflect on areas of improvement. I was able to scan the room and see which students were flagging, pull up their docs, and provide brief interventions without interrupting the overall tone of the class.Writing with Google Docs is advantageous for students with disabilities for such reasons as no more misplaced writer ' s notebooks and increased engagement when using technology. However, the comment feature allowed me to maximize my teaching time with students. I found Google Docs to be an effective way to manage my writers' workshop and...
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