Reading Interventions to Support Students
Looking for the right intervention and the right app can be difficult with all the apps available. Students are highly motivated when learning is technologically based, so let me share with you ideas to increase reading and writing abilities by combining direct instruction, interventions, and technology.
Technology based learning for Reading Environments
Computer technologies may provide improved learning environments for many students. Much of the early research cited below documents the changes in classrooms and teacher and student habits that were generated by the introduction of computers into learning environments. AT and AMT have advanced exponentially in the past two decades, yet it is instructive to remind ourselves of the impact that they have engendered. Presented below are specific features and observed outcomes that support the use of technology as a positive learning for students with disabilities. Computer learning environments can offer learning experiences that do the following:
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Developing the Activities
To help determine learning goals, here is an example: Mrs. Dill indicated that one learning goal for her classroom was to focus on the reading comprehension strategy of visualization (Gambrell & Jawitz, 1993; Pressley, 1976). While designing the learning experience to address this literacy goal, Mrs. Dill selected a story from her basal reading series and then chose the pedagogical approach that would best teach the skill. Mrs. Dill designed a learning experience where students, while working in pairs, would be given note cards that included different portions of the whole-class text. After reading the text, Mrs. Dill wanted each pair to create a mental picture of its meaning and then illustrate what they were visualizing as they read the excerpt from the story. With that end goal in mind, the researchers located an iPad app called Doodle Buddy that students could use to draw their illustrations. As students finished their drawings, they exported them to the teacher’s computer, who created a visual presentation by displaying all of the drawings, using a projector, from the different portions of text that the students were about to read. Teachers considering using an iPad, or similar tablet, should begin as Harris and Hofer (2009) suggested, and as we did in this study, by:
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