Language by hand

Pondering on a course I teach

2011-01-07T13:59:00.001+13:00

Course: Fundamentals of inquiry. For stage one students occupational therapy students , first semester.
Reason for review: Feedback on survey form was less than 80% in some areas. In reviewing students assignments, lecturers felt that the students understanding was at a superficial level. Plus it was boring to teach!
Development ideas:Core reading with study questions of cloze question handouts to help structure students ability to filter out the information required.
Hands on mini research task that helped highlight the difference between qualitative and quantitative research and assist with understanding concepts around, rigor, ethics, validity, reliability etc
Move APA referencing tasks and library searching tasks to the end of the semester.
Re-structure the assessments from 100% to 75 % end assignment 20% moodle quizzes, 5% workbook tasks.
Re-do exe packages taking out any repeated information. Re structure the learning to mirror new order of content.
Record your developing ideas about the practicalities of your proposed design of your course:
Need to find readings that either fit within one book and make it a require text for students to buy. Unable to complete this task in time for this information to be forwarded onto the supplier for the schools text books. Alternative is to use a series of chapters out of differing books to make sure that copyright is not breeched. Reading level needs to be a straight forward as possible. This course is more about understanding the research process that really doing research so this needs to be kept in mind when looking for readings. This is only a 50 hour paper so the time it is going to take students to read these chapters needs to be considered. In the past limited research text book readings have been provided. Readings need to be sourced, and pdf and ready for students to download by start of semester.
One of the elements of this course is about being able to gain information from popular and research literature. It assumes that the students are mindful readers with sound reading strategies. Since it is the first semester in their first year I feel that it is an fair assumption that not all students will have these skills. Therefore the task will also provide secondary knowledge about how to be a skillful reader. These skills will be explicated stated and embedded into the tasks. This will include such statements as. “ Get an overview of this article, reading all the bolded headings first “. List these heading down on a page. These headings will provide the base for you study notes” etc.

A handout to accompany the readings will be provided. These handouts will have the secondary skills set out on them as well as cloze statements to help guide the reader into filtering what information is important to obtain for this course. These handouts will turn into a, portfolio of evidence of the work done, which will be checked off each week. 5 % of the total marks will be given towards the successful completion of the handout/ work book tasks. These would need to be marked in class to save marking time for the lecturer. This will need to be built into the design of the course. Completing a mini research task will be recorded on the handouts as well.
Handouts/ work book of evidence need to be written and available for students at the start of the semester. These could be posted each week for the students to access, however this would however affect the students printing costs. If lecturers provided the copies this would affect schools printing costs.
APA- this could be assessed both through online quizzes as well as workbook task.
Library tours and databases, this is usually done with support for library staff need to make sure that changing the time frame to later on in the semester is possible for library staff.
Moodle quizzes could help retest the information taken from the readings, workbook tasks and exe packages. Moodle quizzes take time to set up, also quite limited to true/ false, multichoice and matching type tasks. These will be quite a different format than the workbook cloze type tasks. Quizzes will need to be set up at a specific time to enable students across both campuses to access them at the same time.
Exe packages need to be redone. Using the references sourced as the core readings, and to follow content order . As there is a face to face class each week. Possible exe packages will be decreased, and replaced by the workbook and core reading tasks. If exe packages are going to be redone, time to redevelop them is required. Need to add to the students learning, not be repetitive, but assists those who need this more interactive type of learning task. Thinking that instead of exe packages may use moodle lessons instead.

New assignment guidleines will need to be written to reflect the three assessment methods.
How am I going to provide an appropriate balance of face to face learning / flexible learning / assessment.
The flexible learning aspect of this course will be the core readings and workbook/handout task. Face to face tasks will still be one class of 1.30 minutes each week. In these times small group work and connecting with others and the teacher will be an important aspect.
This course is going to have three assessments. Moodel quizzes will be marked directly , so will take no time from the lecturer once set up, work book tasks marked in class time, so no added time load. End of the semester assignment will need to be simplified, as many of the tasks would have already been assessed at a superficial level so the assignment will need to have an applied nature to it, but be smaller than in previous years due to the weighting of %75.
Existing learning activities reviewed.
Current exe packages require better referencing. And need to be stream lined and match the new layout of the content of the course and learning tasks provided. These will probably need to be totally redone. There is currently quite a lot of repetition but this clutters the learner. The voice overs are good, and will possibly keep some of these.
The library modules and the APA modules are still useful. Want to keep active modeling on referencing during class and include a referencing task each week on the quiz and workbook tasks so that the students get lots of repetition, on intext referencing and end text referencing.
Last year used a lot of the students reviewing paper journals, this was useful for them to actually thumb a real journal, and choose a article of interest to them. Want to keep this part. But formalize the task onto the work book handout. For example if they have learnt about rigour this week, then they would read and article and list the ways rigour was demonstrated in the article.
The overall end of semester assignment is still a valuable learning and assessment task. The assignment will need to be made smaller, re written but general intent the same.
The in class tutorials are all out of date, and will need to be totally re written to reflect the core readings and the new layout of the content. This will need to be done in plenty of time for the co-lecturer to have input. They need to be more interactive and less being talked at, small group work built in. There needs to a review of the core readings information, a hands on taks eg the jelly bean task, and then the students designing an element of their own research. Then there workbook reviewed. This will provided a clearer structure to the class.

Proposed learning objects, media and activities are describes and explained how they will be used.
In addition to the core readings, the work book tasks, the moodle lesson and the online quizzes, the students will be taken through a small research study around the experience of eating jelly beans. As a class they will be part of research about eating jelly beans in class. This will be modeled by the lecturer. Then the class will break into pairs and then create there own very simple research task as well. This will be recorded on their work book and will help move the learning from facts to experience.
Reflection on resourcing , including any new technologies, staffing and training.
Other learning media will be internet access during class, hence computer suite time will need to be booked, especially for learning data base searching and web page creditability tasks.
All these ideas will take time to put in place so work will need to occur over the school holidays. A plan of the content, assignment guidleines approved, quizzes created and moderate, reading sources, and pdf, and workbook produced. Five weeks of online resources created, and five weeks of tutorial plans in place at the start of the year. The rest will have to be created while teaching for example, week six is create during week ones teaching.
My skills at moodle lesson plans, voice over’s for exe packages will also need to be improved.

A new direction

2009-07-01T21:48:00.003+12:00

Welcome to my blog. For those visitors who have come to this blog via a CHYPOT link, good on you for taking the technology jump. Hope you enjoy the links. Rita

George 'Shore Assessment'

2008-11-11T12:38:00.002+13:00

Hi - this blurb is taken from Georges Assignment. It is mostly the conclusion about the usefulness of using the SHORE Handwriting Screening for early development (Shore, 2003)

Referrals from the MOH (Paediatricians etc.) highlight delays in the developmental components of handwriting i.e. fine motor skills, motor planning difficulties, muscle tone, bilateral integration etc..

In order to manage a large number of referrals for handwriting difficulties or delayed pre-writing skills, a handwriting screen is used initially. One of the handwriting screening tools available to the OT in the CDT is the SHORE Handwriting Screening for Early Handwriting Development (SHS), published by Leanne Shore in 2003.

The purpose of this screen is to identify pre-writing and handwriting difficulties in children 3-9 years of age. It prompts identifications of difficulties in the underlying components of handwriting including postural control, hand control, letter/number formation, pre-writing skills and bilateral skills. It allows the examiner to identify whether or not further assessments are necessary and whether or not intervention or adaptations are required.

Conclusion
The purpose of this assignment was to investigate the validity/effectiveness of the SHS as a screening tool for early handwriting development, to identify the need for further assessment, and to identify intervention and/or adaptations required following the screen.

Roger et al., (2003) noted that, as in the case of the SHS, no one assessment addresses all areas of skills, the clinician must determine the missing task and environmental contexts in order to identify the battery of assessments and observations needed in a comprehensive evaluation of motor and functional skills.

As discussed in the assignment, the SHS demonstrates strengths as a screening tool for early handwriting development including the following:
• It uses tasks used by other standardised assessments like the MHT, ETCH, VMI, TOLH, DRHP and CHES.
• The developmental handwriting milestones used in the SHS is supported by over 30 research articles by researchers of handwriting development including Amundson, Weil, Reisman etc.
• Although the visual samples of typical handwriting development offered in the manual, were obtained from typically developing children in the USA, the sample group was diverse with males and females from several racial orientations. Therefore representing some aspect of the children seen by the OT’s in the CDT.
• The SHS score sheet is easy to follow, quick to administer and score. It provides useful information to guide further assessment and intervention required following the screen.
• The SHS displays elements of both the most commonly used methods of evaluation of handwriting, as described by Rosenblum, Weiss and Parush, 2003, namely, a global-holistic evaluation and an analytical evaluation.
• The SHS evaluates components of handwriting researched and found to have an influence on handwriting like postural control, copying, in-hand manipulation and pencil grip.
• As discussed, the SHS facilitates the use of the three most well recognised OT approaches noted by Ideishi, (2003) using a guided score sheet including contextual approach, bottom-up approach and is supported by the professions move towards being more top-down focused in using functional tasks used by children.
• The SHS demonstrates limitations as a handwriting assessment tool in light of the following:
• It is an American based assessment and therefore references are mostly related to USA studies and age norms based on typically developing children in the USA.
• It is not a standardised test therefore it does not provide objective measures and quantitative scores; makes monitoring a child’s progress more difficult, impair clear communication with other professionals and cannot be used successfully for research to advance the field.
• It does not incorporate the link between understanding print (awareness of letters) and ability to write strongly or clearly as it does not prompt reading of copied stimuli – it only prompts the examiner to mark if the child responds spontaneously.

• A tasks/component not used in SHS is writing from memory, alphabet writing and composition.
In light of the above it can be concluded that at the least, SHS is a valid screen for early handwriting assessment. It can be used effectively to identify possible handwriting difficulties and it indicates the need for further assessment if required. It guides the examiner to identify intervention and/or adaptations required following the screen.
It is recommended that in combination with SHS, further emphasis should be made on assessing the relationship of handwriting and understanding print.

Literacy and handwriting

2008-10-16T13:44:00.003+13:00

This is from Nikki- She created her own framework to fit with the contextual needs of her work setting.

“The Bank Framework” consists of three stages and is based on the contextual approach and systems theory (Ideshi, 2003; Shumway-Cook & Woolacott 1995). It focuses firstly on establishing a child’s understanding of text, secondly considers the environmental influences affecting the child’s handwriting and then thirdly focuses on the intervention strategies of verbal guidance, based on aspects of the Cognitive Orientation to daily Occupational Performance model (Co-op), and multisensory approach .

1. Establishing Knowledge of Text.

Occupational Therapists in schools often work with children who have cognitive impairments in addition to their physical impairment. Cognitive impairments, as much as physical impairments can have considerable effect on handwriting performance. (Jongman et al., 2003). Handwriting is more than just a visual motor task and involves the understanding of a number of literacy concepts to enable meaningful learning (Clay, 1991). Studies by Graham, Harris, MacArthur & Fink (2002) and Hammerschmidt & Sudsawad (2004) found teacher’s theoretical perspectives were valuable for understanding effective writing instruction. Occupational Therapists should consider these as well as focusing on the sensorimotor aspects of handwriting.

Jongman (et al., 2003) and Clay (1991) suggest that in order for a child to write and form letters they need to have some basic concepts of text. That is; they understand messages can be written and that you ‘construct’ the message in speech, that the letters and words form a left to right sequence, there are spaces between letters/words and that the visual forms of their writing attempts have correlation with their oral message. As found by Clay (1970), 2% of 6½ year olds still confused print and pictures as the source of a story. The Ministry of Education Literacy document also suggests children need some basic phonemic knowledge to understand that spoken sounds have letters to represent them (MoE, 2003).

Establishing a child’s understanding of text can effectively be done through liaising with the teacher and observing the child in a writing task. “What the child writes is a rough indicator of how he views printed language” (Clay, 1991, p.97

Cursive or printing - what shall it be?

2008-09-21T14:47:00.003+12:00

This following blurb is from Colleen's assignment

......Addy presents the use of cursive style of writing as being an important aspect of development of speed and fluency. This viewpoint is represented by the New Zealand Department of Education (1985) supplement on teaching handwriting in which they state that the use of ligatures to join letters will increase the speed of writing but that a full cursive style was not necessary to do so. Ziviani and Watson-Will also concluded that cursive writing produced faster output in students (Summers & Cattaro, 2003) In contrast, various authors have disputed this as fact. Graham, Weintraub and Berninger (1998) found that a mixed style of cursive and manuscript was found to be the fastest (Summers & Cattaro, 2003) In their own study of university students, Summers and Cattaro found that no difference was found between writing style and amount of output in an exam situation and supported findings of Graham et al that a mixed style proved to be the fastest.

In my own practice with older students I have suggested learning cursive, mostly I have used Handwriting without Tears (Olsen) programe. My reasoning behind this being that often the children coming to see me have been battling with poor handwriting and inefficient method of writing for years. A new way of writing offers an opportunity to start learning new habits (I especially like HWT for this as the letter style starts from the bottom, and therefore is quite different from how we form printing). However, they will be slower to start off with as they are learning a new habit, and it will take more effort. I do not imagine the students ending up with a handwriting that looks like HWT - however I aim for them to blend towards developing there own mixed style. Therefore I often trade out some of the letters to match more closely to the NZ system , the letters s and f being two examples.

I also feel that cursive writing encourages chunking segments of letters together and as mentioned in a earlier post this can help with increasing speed, and awareness of segments within words.

Rita

Occupational Performance Coaching

2008-09-08T21:32:00.003+12:00

Hi - I have just come back from the NZAOT conference and was really inspired by Fi Graham's talk on Occupational Performance Coaching. Fi is in the middle of developing this intervention approach. In this approach the therapist works with the parent ( I feel it has potential to be applied with teachers) and assists them to enable their own child. This was interesting to me as often I have parents ring up and talk to me over the phone about their child's handwriting difficulties and together we develop a plan forward. Many parts of this plan share the same domains described in the OPC.
The OPC has three enabling domains, these include 1) Emotional support 2) Information Exchange 3) Structured Process.
Emotional Support includes, Listen, Empathise Reframe, Respect and Encourage
Information Exchange includes, performance analysis, typical development, health conditions and impairment, teaching and learning strategies, enabling tricks and community resources and entitlements.
Structures process includes, set goals, explore options, plan actions carry out plan, check performance.
I feel that many of these three domains are used in the telephone conversations I have with parents, and therefore are excited to see them described in the OPC intervention approach. Fi has one article published currently with more on the way. For those interested, Graham, F,. Rodger, S. & Ziviani, J. (2008). Coaching parents to enable childrens particpation: An approach for working with parents and their children. Austrailian Occuaptional Therapy Journal doi:10.1111/j.1440-1630.2008.00736.x

Take Care Rita

Spelling and Handwriting

2008-08-24T21:40:00.003+12:00

Hi - I have just recently come across an OT Joy Allcock who is now a consultant in teaching spelling. She has a a series called Scrutiny on Spelling and Switched on to Spelling. www.spelling.co.nz

Joy has some really interesting links connecting to articles about learning and literacy.

Hope you are all well. Rita

Handwriting Speed

2008-08-16T15:47:00.002+12:00

Handwriting speed. I have just tried to assist my son with increasing his handwriting speed - although I wouldn't have put him as slow with writing he has requested that he wants to write faster- to beat one of the girls in his class that he often competes with.

Therefore he has the motivation to work on this issue. What I did next was write out the "lazy dog jumps over" sentence, and asked him to copy it as fast as possible but still tidy enough that I or his teacher would growl at him. His first attempt he wrote 10 letters in 15 seconds. I then re-wrote the sentence so that he would have a tidy model to copy from and encouraged him to do it again. We did this several times however after the third try I created different sentences so that it was still novel. However this time I asked him if he knew how to spell a word to only look at it once from the model, and write it down. If it was a harder word that he didn't know I showed him how to break the word into segments , scanning the word, copying three letters down and then re-looking at the word. My thinking being that copying words in chunks would be quicker than copying a word letter by letter.

By the end of six practices he has increased to 17 letters per fifteen seconds. An improvement of seven letters with the quality of his writing still being tidy. During the practices he did drop in his rate of writing, we noted that this was when he wrote larger, or when he looked away. Therefore his strategies to be a faster writer include writing with small (normal size) letters, to spell from memory if he knows the word, and to break the words down into chunks if it is a word he doesn't know how to spell. That and just increasing his awareness that actively trying to write faster and staying focused on the task assists in speed of writing.

This was a few hours ago that we did this task. I think I will get him to copy a novel sentence again and see if he has stayed stable in his ability.

Rita

Handwriting program for a 6 year old

2008-08-01T09:14:00.003+12:00

Hi- This is a request about a little boy who is almost six years of age, who can write 12 out of 26 letters when he uses his strong interest of Harry Potter, (eg writing Harry & Malfoy) however when writing the alphabet from memory he he can only really write 10 letters, and of these they are mixed between capital and lower case. The letters are not written in correct sequence. It was also noted that this boy has difficulties with attention and overall gross motor skills, immature drawing and social skills.
This boy will not get ongoing GSE help, probably will only get about four visits from a therapist, there is however a RTLB to work in with, mum is supportive, however no teacher aide.

Following is what I recommended off the top of my head to the therapist who requested some assistance. Next week I will resubmitt this posting and add my reasoing behind each suggestion.
Hi, Hmmmmmm, your 6 year old boy. Needs a structured program. Try and use the teachers program first if she has one, however if your feel that it is a bit hap hazard. Suggest her using a commercial one for her class. Possibly if you show her a range she and you could discuss them....pull the RTLB in as well see what she uses with kids.........and choose one that mets her way of teaching.

You could create a handwriting program, but for the amount of time you have, finding a commercial one is probably easier. Go to the education resource shop and see what you can find. Since you are only at the school for a short while, supplying some sort of program that is all there for them may work best. If the teacher does already use a structured program like jolly phonics or whatever, use this as a base.......then get mum doing the same pages for homework at night with one on one feedback, modeling and coaching. For each letter the boy learns, get him to name it eg H is for Harry G is for ghosts, then from there on the mum and teacher could use that word to cue his memory ...I need you to write me a "h" like in harry. ....or "it starts with the same letter as ghost starts with , what letter is that"?

Use a reward system, working with good effort and attention with mum at night equals = something important to him, eg mum reading some of Harry Potter or watching ten minutes of Harry Potter........or after five nights of really trying hard with handwriting -watching the DVD of Harry. Use the whole sticker chart motivation thing......

Another way of approaching handwriting is through spelling. At six he needs to learn some basic spelling words. So handwriting and spelling could be done together. His handwriting could be copying spelling words, learning the letter names within a word and how to spell them. Work through the first core reading words, and use these as his spelling words. Let me know if you need a list.

He could learn three words a week, focusing on one word each night, then Thursday night review all of the words. Writing the word out with mums hand over hand support if needed ten times, saying the letters as he writes them (block practice) Learning letters through words would help give him something more concrete to pin his memory onto. At the end of learning the spelling word he could use it in a sentence about Harry Potter in which mum writes down, and he reads back to her. eg spelling word is 'is'. The boy may come up with the sentence. Harry is making a spell with his wand. His mum writes it down. They then read it together pointing to each word as they read. Mum then asks the boy to circle the word is. The boy circles the word is, and then mum says how do you spell is. With mums support the boys says I S. Randomly during the next day the teacher asks the boy to spell his word, or to say the letters within the word. The teacher is aware of the word as mum has written it on his hand. If the boy needs to look at his hand during the spelling and reading of the word that is ok. As they move through the day they encourage the boy to spell it verbally or in writing without looking at the model on his hand. That night mum teaches a new word, then reviews the old word and then finishes the session with the new word.

Time his concentration for handwriting tasks. If it is a minute get mom to do the handwriting page, one minute at a time then go do something else like play with lego of hand skills activities, and then come back and do another minutes work, with the plan to build up his sustained concentration for 5 minutes.

Attention, try and work out what distracts him the most during tasks. Modify the environment, seating place etc. Does the teacher move closer to him when she is giving directions, standing closer to someone can help increase there attention. Attention is a skill that can be influenced by teaching the skill of attention, Find out his understanding about this task of attending. Explicitly teach him what to do, eg stop look and listen. What did the teacher say to do? Can you tell it back to me, if you haven't heard what the teacher said, what else can we do to work out what we need to do?
Reinforcing attending skills may be something the RTLB can follow up with?

As he is a bit socially challenged, it is highly likely that he doesn't work life out by watching others. He needs someone to spell it out for him. Set routines and rules are probably or possibly helpful for this boy. Consider visual schedule type of supports?

Hand skills.........
A very simple hand skills task is coloring on the wall, holding a small coin in his fourth and fifth fingers, while holding the paper still with his stabilizing hand. Do this at eye level hight. Us a small piece of tape in the center of the paper to hold it to the wall, This helps encourage the child to hold the paper as it moves if they don't stabilize with the other hand. Colouring in Harry Potter pictures, can get some off internet. .

See what the RTLB is working on, work in with her. As he is almost six he may be able to get reading recovery - if there school does this, they also work on writing skills.

Plant sprayer in the bath at bath time is another easy one, kids love it.

An obvious suggestions, but have you had his eyes tested?
Rita

Canchild hwt protocol

2008-07-27T12:06:00.003+12:00

Hi everyone.

I think the protocol is great and I will recommend it as a reading next time the 'Language by Hand ' paper is run. However I was disappointed by this statement under the heading of Behavioural Observations page 6. " The impact of attention to task and motivation on handwriting performance has received considerable attention and is beyond the scope of this assessment tool". I was disappointed as they did not lead the reader to be able to follow this line of inquiry.

My thinking about this being.......
Attention is vital to learning as without attending to the task at hand, sensory information does not enter the working memory, and without moving into the working memory knowledge can not then undergo the next step of further processing to then get stored in long term memory.

As many of the children I work with have difficulty with the actual recall of letter shapes, names and sounds, thus connects back to this skill of attending, and memory, more knowledge of these areas could or should be included in a handwriting protocol.

I feel that by increasing my understanding about attention, working memory and storage into long term memory, and then communicating this understanding either through discussions / collaboration with those key workers of the child I'm working with or the child themselves improvement not only to the task of handwriting will occur but also the larger occupation of the child's ability to learn. I also feel that this knowledge affects how I structure my program, therefore improving the effectiveness of handwriting intervention I provide.

Therefore, the task of learning not being included in more detail within the protocol, continues to make this protocol be more motor based rather than literacy and learning based. For New Zealand this emphasis as we discussed in the Language by Hand ' paper is important to the teachers who teach the children we see, especially in these early years of schooling.

Remember to leave a comment........Rita

Check this blog out!

2008-07-23T14:30:00.004+12:00

Hey Everyone

This blog is amazing!
Occupational Therapy for Kids - Handwriting
"Designed by a school based occupational therapist, this blog provides activities that promote increased handwriting skill and performance. Solutions may come from a variety of sources including personal experiences, books or coursework"

http://otforkids-handwriting.blogspot.com/

Great resourse i thought
Oh and these blogs below are from it's links list - also valuable!

http://otforkids-autism.blogspot.com/
http://otforkids-sensory.blogspot.com/
http://otforkids-finemotor.blogspot.com/

Jess

P.S Does everyone like the new template???? got sick of black - hope thats ok. I hear black is hard to read anyways

This is really cool!

2008-06-28T15:40:00.001+12:00

Make your own worksheets and then print them off!!

http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/

Jess

Merrolee's Blog

2008-06-25T18:27:00.000+12:00

Hey check out Merrolee's Blog! Its alot more developed than ours but ours will get there :)
The link is listed..

Jess

2008-06-24T09:06:00.000+12:00

Hi everyone - just added another element to the page called "Useful links/blogs/web pages to check out"
Thought we could get a list going so we can all have a good share interesting sites we find that others might want to check out

Jess

Handwriting assesment protocol

2008-06-23T21:14:00.000+12:00

The Can Child website (www.canchild.ca) has a new handwriting assessment protocol which is free to download. Just look in the area for service providers and researchers – it is at the top of the list of announcements on the right side of the page.

moderate contract

2008-06-23T10:04:00.000+12:00

has anyone heard what is happening in terms of if the budget has allowed more children onto the contract and whether moderate contract will accept ASD children? So glad i finally got on to this site. has anyone posted their assignments yet?

2008-06-21T14:41:00.000+12:00

Hi - I sometimes get people writing to me asking for ideas for there practice this is one conversation I have had. I thought I'd post it, and then we could discuss it together. For today I'll just post it, then I come back later in a day or two and reflect on what I said and my reasoning behind it.

This first bit is what some on emailed me......
I have another one of those children I need you help with this 6 year old won't make it onto our case load he has a diagnosis of ADHD.???. he is a neat kid..one of those children born at 26 weeks so always been behind.. great family and classroom teacher they have some teacher aide time for him.. he is a classic in that he can't focus very long very superficial thinking not really able to perservere and consolidate his learning .. you can see he wants to try and get on with it very directable back onto task but so distractable......... He does not yet know all the alphabet but can copy the leters not too bad he is one of those kids who no doubt is spending all his time just thinking how to draw the letter and can't move no spelling/expressing ideas.. I don't think he has a big cognitive delay but his learning is very affected by his inability to sustain attention.. So what can I suggest i don't just want to say he doesn't meet our criteria and do nothing...

This boy like dinosaurs & tanks wondered if I could some how link a topic such as this that he really likes to his hand writing. Any idea where you can get resources with the alphabet if there is such a thing eg.. Army tank shaped letters of the alphabet?? any quick ideas you have would be great.

Then this is what I answered....
Hi - off the top of my head, I'm thinking that giving him and the key people in his life some knowledge around attention , how it develops and how it is so important to memory would be information that they could then apply through out his learning career. In particular the use of chunking and using association.
Then find out which letters he doesn't know and only target these within handwriting, TA time. Go for three at a time, anything that is a tall letter call a dinasour letter, anything that is short like e or n call a tank letter, then come up something important to him that could be used for letters that go under the line. Then encourage someone to do a search on clip art to find a shape of a dinasaour tank etc. Then the TA could either shrink the pictures and he writes inside them for example he has a worksheet with a line of tanks a line of dinosaurs etc, blocked practice, starting dots could be inside the spaces, tracing moving to independent forming etc. Then a line of tank , dinosaurs, etc. With the teaching asking him questions like " dinosaurs are tall, today we learnt three letters which letter was tall ? Is h tall ? What is tallest a dinosaur or a tank? Where would h fit best as a tank letter or a dinosaurs letter? This way you would assist his memory by chunking letters into three groups dinosaurs tanks and submarines (?). Finish the lesson with him writing a basic sight word that used some of these letters. e.g he. Get him to sight read the word he and move on learning to spell it. Get the TA to write the word on his hand, through out the day mum and dad and the teacher ask him to read the word to them and to say what the letters are. Varying the question, either the letters or reading so that he truely has to think of the answer not just rote learn without processing it. The next day encourage the child through prompting questions to tell as much about the lesson as he can remember. Get him to practice accessing his memory.

Rita

Note this moving between tanks and dinosaurs and letters takes divided attention and may be a challenge, however it is a skill he needs to learn.........

How could we use this blog?

2008-06-20T14:18:00.000+12:00

Hi everyone

Ive been giving some thought to how we could use the blog other than just to keep in contact.
I think i would be useful to post questions regarding practice or reflect on practice that is more than "in action reflection". In action refection is what we think about when we are puzzling over what to do, and it is also useful to reflect on why we did something in practice and how we could do it different next time. Having a blog helpful when you can puzzle over or query ideas to do with simple or complex problems - it can really expland you thinking and get other peoples input along the way.

Does everyone think it would be helpful to post questions to get other peoples point of view on a scenario or case study? It would not only help you to get a broader set of ideas, but it would help others to think about what they would do in that situation.

Just an idea

Jess

Assignments

2008-06-17T17:38:00.000+12:00

Hi - well my part of the paper is done I have marked all the assignments and have sent them off for moderation. Overall the scores were high, more A's than usual for a postgrad paper, however I may have been a tad bais in my marking!!! This is all I'll write for now as I'm still learning my way around the blog experience. Rita

George

2008-06-16T10:53:00.001+12:00

Hi Jess :)

Looks like it is working :)

Welcome everyone

2008-06-11T18:24:00.000+12:00

Hey Guys

Set this up initially to see what you think of using a blog - i realise not everyone will be interested - however for those who are - choice!!

So how does everyone feel now the course is over?? Im a bit lost - having handed in 4 assignments!! but i have another one in 2nd semester..Anyone else doing the AMPS course??

What things from the course have been useful for practice??

Jess