Book Review: Children With Disabilties Reading & Writing The Four Blocks Way

This is a Carson Dellosa book that I bought a year ago. I used a few things from this book, but plan on using more this year. This book covers how to teach self selected reading, guided reading, writing and working with words. This book gives really good examples for scheduling these in a regular classroom and special ed classroom. It gives wonderful inclusion ideas including using communication devices and alternative pencils. It has ideas for using other technology as well. It also gives clear examples of how to teach to children with moderate to severe disabilities and why each of these blocks are important for special needs students.

Predictable Chart Writing

When I first started teaching I struggled with teaching writing to low functioning students. Now I have lots of ideas and one of my favorites is predictable chart writing. The plan below carries me through the whole week and I can make it meaningful to my students by choosing a topic that the student can relate to in their world. Day 1: Pick a title such as My Favorite Sport or read a book with a repetitive phrase or desired theme. Get some chart paper and have students dictate their sentences to you and model as you write the sentences. Don't forget to program devices. Day 2: Reread sentences as a group or take turns chanting, clapping, counting words, tracking print, discussing our inner voice, word patterns or initial sounds and much more. You can practice lots of phonemic awareness skills here. Day 3: Write each sentence onto a sentence strip. Have the students read their own sentence. Next, cut up the sentences and mix them up so the students can practice arranging words into correct order to make a sentence. You can also cut into subject and predicates. I usually have students trade sentences to get more practice. Day 4: Have students "be the sentence". Give each student a word and have them line up in correct order. Program devices if needed. Day 5: Make a book with the cut up sentences. Have some pictures or drawing supplies and some construction paper available for students. Have the students glue their sentence onto construction paper and then they can draw a picture or glue a printed picture. Now you can make a book and put it in your classroom reading center. I have also done this for our field trips. My students love this activity. I got this idea from a workshop, but there is also a book with this same format with lots of ideas, Predictable Charts: Shared Writing For Kindergarten and First Grade. I just adapted it for specific kids as needed.

Teaching Sentence Writing

I have student who struggle with fine motor skills and this makes it difficult for them to write. I love using Pixwriter software. Pixwriter is software that allows you to build word banks with or without pictures. The student touches the word or picture and it puts the word on the screen. it allows students to work on capitalization and punctuation too. There are various options such has colored borders that can be used for nouns and verbs.It has the option of reading the sentence with various voice options or no voice. I like using it on the Smart Board. I build my word banks using words from our weekly story. I also have seen great improvement in my students when I dictate sentences to my beginning writers daily. I have a separate time to work on pencil skills. I use Pixwriter to get a composition grade. I can print it off and send home.

Unique Learning System

 I work with student who have moderate to severe disabilities. This past year I started using parts of Unique Learning System. The lessons are science or social studies based, but teaches all subjects.

Pros:

• Differentiated/leveled
• Provides suggested lesson plans
•  Provides progress monitoring
• Helps you relate to students life experiences
• Aligned to state standards

Cons:

• Expensive (my district purchased it)
• Requires lots of printing

They do have a free summer unit for you to try. Here is the link to the website

http://unique.n2y.com/

Here is the current list of topics for this year
http://unique.n2y.com/schedule.aspx