Does anyone have any information about hands on materials I can use to help lead a faculty in-service? I was speaking with one of our Dean’s and he would like the instructors to “experience” what it would be like to be a Learning disabled child. For example what would a student w/ ADD/ADHD go through, what would it look like while reading for a student with dyslexia, someone with visual perception problems. If anyone has any suggestions for hands-on activities I would Greatly appreciate it!!!!!!
I watched the preview of the video “F.A.T. City” by LaVoie (spelling wrong on name) and found it very, very informative. Perhaps you could show the video or do some exercises from it? There is also a follow up video called, I beleive, Beyond F.A.T. City. I’ve not seen it but have heard bery good things about it.
In the clip I watch, Mr. LaVoie is giving a seminar to a group of teachers. He is leading them in an exercise. He starts a story about two boys who decide to spend a summer day down by the sea. As he points to seminar participants they each have to add a sentaince to the story. Each sentaince needs to naturaly follow the one before. Before long, they have a lovely story about the boys swimming, watching sail boats and eating an snack before returning home. Then they do the same exercise, only this time, the participants must not use any words that contain the letter “e.” Its very difficult this time. The sentainces are short, choppy, and don’t always follow all that well. It takes more time. It gets harder as he starts to rush them. Some participants spend so much energy concentrating on not using “e” that they completely lose track of the story. His point is that it takes a lot of energy to keep on task AND work around a disability. That they *could* do it given support and time.
Another quick project that my child’s homeroom teacher did once was to give the kids (6th graders) a timed math test. I think they had like a minute. There were 15 problems or so BUT the kicker was that at the top of the sheet there were instructions that one should multiply when they saw the minus symbol, add when they saw the multiply sign, etc. Most of the kids did pretty poorly and didn’t finish as they had to keep refering back to the instructions. The kids kept saying it was unfair. The teacher said that’s what its like to have an LD, you are smart but work is hard. My LD child was pretty impressed by the test.
I assume you plan on posting this same question in the teachers’ forums?
Barb