My case load is any special needs student with an IEP in the eighth grade in our district. Levels and labels vary greatly. Presently I am working on a masters in educational technology. My goal is to find software and assistive technology that will improve skills and allow my students to become more academically independent. I have seen reference to teaching reading through the Internet. Has anyone tried this? All of my students love any computer time they are allowed; and as you all know, making our students computer literate can only improve their futures. Does anyone have any favorites in software or assistive devices? Thank you for any suggestions or comments.
Re: Technology with 8th Grade Special Needs Students
WYNN sounds like an ideal solution for some of your students in terms of providing them with more academic independence. WYNN helps students who struggle with reading and writing to work with standard classroom curriculum. It allows textbooks to be scanned into the computer, then read allowed. The text can be modified to address visual processing or attention difficulties a student might have. It also includes tools for studying, writing, and accessing the Internet. Visit www.freedomscientific.com/wynn for more information.
I’m a reading specialist with most of my second M.Ed. in INstructional technology; my teaching background is middle & high schoolers w/ LD. (My website is at www.resourceroom.net)
Teaching reading simply is not that easy. There is some software that is very good as a supplement — and there is a lot of software that is mostly fluff. There’s also a lot of good practice for reading in many forms, including software and things to read on the Internet— but to practice a skill you either have to pick it up pretty easily on your own, or you have to be taught it. Special needs kids have *special* needs — usually they need more rather than less work with a real person. There are things like “NetCards” — cards with references to good web pages on a topic of interest, and some guided lessons to get the kids reading those pages for the answers to questions. The kid has to be able to read those pages first, and you have to have a way to keep ‘em from becoming wild surfers and wandering off task (there are ways though). There are scads and scads of online lessons of all sorts, mostly put up b y well-meaning teachers and the quality varies greatly… and since most special needs kids need a more systematic and structured approach, it would be a mistake to hope to find a bunch of fragments that would go together and end up with a kid making progress.
Software is also an area where you get what you pay for, for the most part. It really does take a lot of time and work and skill and knowledge to put together a half-decent educational software program. Sunburst and Tom Snyder have lots of good stuff. Lexia Learning has very good software for teaching reading, though it doesn’t stand alone (however, a kid *can* do a fair amount totally independently, so you can be working with someone else). Simon Sounds it Out and Simon Spells from Don JOhnston are good but geared to younger kids. (Lexia Learning has a “Strategies for Older Students” program that’s very good.)