The Gift of Literacy: A Special Education Guide for Teachers and Parents

By Elaine Alvin

This manual is the result of many years’ experience gained while working in the field of Education. My work covered teaching at the Primary as well as the Secondary Levels. Many years were spent in the field of Special Education both as a Special Education Officer-In-Charge, within a large Secondary College, as well as a District Consultant. This manual is written with the hope that these shared experiences will benefit both Teachers and Parents.

This work covers most aspects of the area of Literacy. As part of my work involved diagnosing Learning Difficulties many students referred to me were actually underachieving Gifted and Talented. This led me into the World of the Under Achieving Gifted. This manual would also be relevant where English is taught as a Second Language.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: May 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798369491362

Elaine Alvin

ELAINE ALVIN QUALIFICATIONS Primary Teachers’ Certificate Special Teachers’ Certificate Bachelor of Special Education. Teacher of E.S.L Tutor – University Level CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS Special Education Papers presented at both State and National Conferences. Attendance at a World Conference for Gifted and Talented – The Phippines. Presented a Paper on Gifted and Talented at the World Conference - Germany

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Copyright © 2023 by Elaine Alvin.

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Rev. date: 05/15/2023

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Dedicated to a boy named Herbie, ‘who made it’!

CONTENTS

SECTION A

1     Setting the Scene

2     Parents as Partners

3     Basis for a Remedial Programme

4     Deviant Behaviour

5     Catering for Individual Differences in the Mainstream

6     Assessment of Learning Difficulties

7     Specific Areas - Spelling

8     The Reading Process

9     Creative Writing

SECTION B

PARENT – FIRST – Helper Second

SECTION C

GIFTEDNESS - UNDERACHIEVING

SETTING THE SCENE

- MAKING A CASE

Specific learning difficulties cover a group of children who do not fit into the normal category of handicapped children. They are usually slow to learn to

1. Read

2. Spell

3. Write

4. Mathematics

They may find learning a language difficult. They may have difficulties in the visual area, but they are not blind. They may not hear clearly, but they are not deaf. They may have difficulty in organising themselves and their work. The one thing they generally have is developmental difficulties. Here lies their problem as they need time and a relevant programme to bridge the gap.

Other areas of delayed learning may be . . .

1. Perception Problems – perceived difficulty in what is heard, discriminating or recording symbols, unable to make sense of stimuli presented visually.

2. Delayed Language Development

3. Emotional Problems

4. Hyperactivity

5. Attention Deficits

They can have multiple disorders and yet develop normally, when it comes to having other abilities, and this is what often complicates the situation. How often have I seen a child labelled as just being ‘lazy’? Classifying a child has limited value unless diagnosis is followed up with an appropriate programme.

Intelligence tests will provide an IQ score. A reading test will assess the child’s reading age. Diagnostic tests will assess the way a child learns and measures the level of pre-existing skills.

Appendix 1

Generally, the whole idea of remediation for this group of children is to keep the child in the classroom with the teacher receiving support from the special educational teacher or the visiting special consultant. If further testing is required, this may mean a referral to a speech therapist, hearing specialist, or a psychologist.

It has to be remembered that a school is a busy place, where anyone who has worked there will tell you that there is never enough time in a day. School curricula are usually packed, and teachers are fortunate if they have a teacher’s aide to assist them. Too often, because of the reasons given, the remediation programme is worked in isolation, when, in fact, the information gained from diagnostic testing belongs to all as the effect of learning difficulties is reflected across the curriculum.

Another factor is the importance of conveying information to the parents to give them the opportunity to understand their child’s difficulties and be able to reinforce the aims of the programme. In addition to this is to simply respect them as parents. After all, they are their child’s first teacher. Communication amongst all concerned with the child’s welfare is absolutely essential to the success of any programme.

Perhaps we could also incorporate a phrase that has appeared since the pandemic arrived—‘We are all in this together’. What is really being discussed here is the school’s ability to cater for individual differences, not for just one year but also as the child passes through the levels so reflecting the maturation process. For learning problems, there is ‘no quick fix’.

I found this process of communication often lacking, yet it is the very foundation for successful learning. To illustrate this point, as I moved around the school scene, I witnessed students at the secondary level entering year 7 having a reading age well below their chronological age. They were being given photocopies or novels to work on that required a reading age sometimes well above their chronological age. Essential information had not been passed on; there was no evidence that an exchange process between levels or schools existed.

As a result, time was not going to wait for these students, and one can only imagine what this situation does to one’s self-image. They play a catch-up game. This situation will continue to exist wherever the difference between secondary and primary schools remain that primary schools are skill-based whilst secondary schools are content-based. But one without the other does not lead to successful learning.

LABELLING – The Dangers of Attaching One

In my work as a special education consultant, I came across many situations where a child, who was failing at school, was labelled as simply ‘just being lazy’. Beware of this statement as this is just taking the easy way out and could sometimes be just a ‘cop out’. I was always grateful to the person who stated, very early in my years within this field, that we label jam jars, not children. How true this statement is as I found that very often once a label, such as ‘lazy’, was placed on a child, no further action was taken. The onus was then on the child to simply work harder to achieve.

Unfortunately, this diagnosis was often conveyed to the parents as well. In all the years I spent in the area of special education, I never found a child who simply underachieved because of laziness. The child’s behaviour may have reflected this. As commonly stated, ‘They look intelligent enough and appear to be quite capable’. When one was able to break down the veneer, delve more deeply into the situation, I often found that this child was under duress stress as a result of this misdiagnosis.

It is a very brave person who can confront the world and say, ‘Hi! Look at me, I’m failing at school, but I don’t really care’. Why would you want to be seen as failing in the eyes of your parents, siblings, and peer group, and not to mention, in many cases, those doting grandparents? The world of the underachiever can be a frightening world, a world of secrets, a lonely world, a world of pretending, and a world of heartache.

I feel quite authorised to make this statement as I spent many of my working hours counselling these students. Not everyone who enters this world relates, understands, and shows genuine empathy. Don’t even try to remediate unless these qualities are evident. Every administrator of remediation walks a fine line as there is a chance that they are dealing with a very brittle child, maybe someone who has been failing for many years. Most people do learn to read eventually, but can a damaged self-image mend, or does it leave a scar?

PARENTS AS PARTNERS

What a team when it works well! Much of my time was spent with the parents of the children who were referred to me. In fact, out of respect for the role the parents play in their child’s life, I never worked with a child until I had met the parent/s. Doing this gave the parents the opportunity to freely discuss the child and their problems, present and past. I found there was a wealth of information to be provided regarding the child’s development and experiences. I sincerely believe that to ignore this process, one does this at one’s peril.

It was also out of respect for the parent that the information gained should be shared and the model used should reflect a triangle with the child at the apex and the school and parents forming the base. For one reason or another, I found that communication channels often lacked transparency and consistency.

There were many times when I found myself consulting a distraught parent. Very often they had carried the burden for quite some time with no answers given. I also found that where a child had delayed learning, there was at times friction amongst siblings, just another problem for the parents to handle.

PARTNERSHIP

Environment

a. Home

b. Peers

c. School

d. Local community

1. Teachers and parents are generally working towards the