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Meeting the needs of a diverse learner
Diverse learners can perform well academically because they exhibit the characteristics necessary for excellence. They have positive attitudes towards learning, are obedient, have excellent social skills and perform excellently in other areas of the school curriculum such as sports. However, they may have difficulties applying these characteristics to obtaining better grades or performing excellently. Teachers must find ways of meeting the needs of their students, especially those that exhibit learning difficulties. There are several strategies that teachers can use to help students learn how to write and read, hence performing well academically.
Five strategies that will help Mike in reading
Effective reading requires Mike to do the following:
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Encouraging learners to participate in rhymes, group stories, poems and songs- this strategy is helpful for Mike who has very good social skills and likes stories
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Listening to poems, songs and stories- Mike is polite and respectful and hence, he will be able to listen carefully
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Encouraging learners to know book conventions-, this suits Mike who has difficulty in memorization and sequencing and in addition, he has a tutor to assist him at home.
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Influence learners ability to use sound-letter cues- Mike has a processing disorder affecting memory
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Teachers should encourage learners to read broadly- this works well for Mike who gives his best academically
In addition to these strategies, there are reading processes that enhance effective reading. These processes complement the strategies and are classified into before, during and after reading groups.
Before reading, teachers should:
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Help students recognize the purpose of reading a text. This may include reading to find out events in a story or obtaining specific information.
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Once the learner has set a reading purpose, they should preview the text they are about to read. Previewing includes looking at the texts title, captions, pictures, headings, graphics and bold-faced prints. This helps learners familiarize themselves with the text, that way; they are capable of reading smoothly as they expect differences in the text layout.
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Readers should activate any background knowledge they have regarding the text they are about to read.
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They should predict the happenings in the story or the contents of the story.
During reading
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Learners should check one cue using another cue. This is possible by checking how words look and sound, and checking if they make sense.
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Rereading text is also important. When learners encounter problems during reading, they should go back to the beginning of the paragraph or sentence and read again (Jacobs 67).
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Predicting and confirming is an essential strategy of effective reading. As they read the text, readers should maintain their attention to the purpose of reading, checking if the text confirms the purpose. Additionally, if they encounter difficult words, readers can skip, continue reading then go back to the word once they have finished reading the sentence. They may make out word meanings using other texts in the sentence.
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Readers can also connect their background knowledge of the text to its content.
After reading
Teachers should encourage learners to summarize and retell the happenings of the story. If the text was nonfiction, readers should review the presented information. In summary, the reading process included pre-reading, reading and after reading processes. Pre-reading involves making connections, activation of prior knowledge and setting a reading purpose. Reading strategies include shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading, friend reading and reading aloud. The processes involved in this stage are cue checking, rereading, prediction and confirmation, and connecting the text to their background information. The after reading process included retelling, summarizing or reviewing the text.
Apart from reading, tutors must equip themselves with strategies to help learners write well.
Five writing strategies
Prewriting Stage
Learners should brainstorm and obtain sufficient information about their writing topic. Writing an outline helps avoid confusion and writing without a flow. The strategies involved in prewriting include:
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Identifying the text audience
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Identifying a writing purpose
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Gathering as well as organizing ideas
This suits Mike who has a moderate learning disability and enjoys writing stories.
Drafting
Once they have done this, learners get into stage two of writing. This involves drafting their materials. Learners should write rough drafts of their writings before producing fine copies. When drafting their copies, learners should focus on content rather than writing mechanics. In this strategy, Mike has supportive parents to help, a tutor and also he gives his best academically.
Revision
Stage three of writing is revision. At this stage, learners should reread their compositions, Share them in groups and actively participate in discussions while making substantive changes to their compositions. These changes may include adding words, substituting sentences, deleting paragraphs and moving phrases. Mike likes to read, has good social skills and has a processing disorder affecting memory.
Editing
The fourth stage is editing, which includes:
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Proofreading the written text
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Identifying and correcting mechanical errors
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Liaising with their teachers for final editing
This suits Mike who has a moderate learning disability has an impact on spelling and has difficulty remembering to capitalize, indent and space.
Publishing
The last step at writing is publishing and sharing the written information (Tompkins, p. 59). This strategy suits Mike who likes writing stories.
Games in the affective domain
The use of video games to assess students level of knowledge, in this strategy Mike gives his best effort academically.
Use of math games- Mike has a processing disorder that affects memory
The use of Board games-This strategy helps Mike whose parents are supportive of schoolwork.
Five instructional materials and strategies for tutoring sessions
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Use of pictures- This strategy helps Mike in memorization.
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Word cards- This suits Mike who has a spelling and memorization impact.
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Use of sound-letter cues- Mike has difficulty with memorization.
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Use of videotapes- this strategy suits Mike who has difficulty remembering.
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Storytelling- Mike enjoys writing stories.
Effective teaching requires pre-planning and the development of instructional strategies to guide the process. Establishing instructional strategy covers captivating all the gathering information and producing means of presenting the instructions to learners. Instructional strategies comprise four mechanisms; clustering and content sequences, learning components, selection of a delivery system as well as student groupings. Content sequencing refers to how a teacher plans to teach and group content.
Teachers can group content in terms of learners age level, the complexity of the material, type of learning or the time required for the learning events. The second element of an instructional strategy is describing learning components, which includes learning domains, learning conditions and events instructional events (Eisenberg, Carrie and Kathleen, p. 39).
The learning process includes attention, rehearsal, selective perception, retrieval, semantic encoding, feedback response, and a control process. The third element of the instructional strategy is student groupings. The fourth element is a delivery system, which includes classroom delivery, lecture, correspondence, web-based, videotape, computer-based or video conference.
Works Cited
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Eisenberg, Michael, Carrie A. Lowe, and Kathleen L. Spitzer. Information literacy:Â essential skills for the information age. 2nd ed. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, 2004. Print.
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Jacobs, Heidi Hayes. Curriculum 21: essential education for a changing world. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2010. Print.
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Tompkins, Gail E. Literacy for the 21st century: a balanced approach. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Merrill, 2001. Print.
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