Chapter 4 and 5

Reading these two chapters, I feel like it was all a review. It was all about the various approaches that are in Deaf Education. It compares the Auditory-Oral Approach vs. the Visual-Manual Approach.

In the Auditory-Oral Approach there are two different programs that is under that umbrella. They are Auditory-Verbal and Cued Speech.

• Auditory-Oral Approach main focus is on spoken language skills. The children that are in this program almost has a form of amplification and are taught to listen to themselves and how they produce speech. This way they can know when they are making speech errors and can self correct themselves.
• Auditory-Verbal Approach is different from the other oral approaches cause it focuses more on audition and less on visual aspect of speech reading.
• Cued Speech: It is a manual program but keep it separate from sign language. Cued speech is various hand shapes and movements that represent the different phonemes in that can be seen in the English language. Cued speech is paired up with speech, you really cant use it without spoken language cause it wouldn't make sense the

Visual-Manual Approach also is an umbrella terms with programs under it.

• Visual-Manual Approach is where Sign Language comes into play. It is a system that is manually coded in sign which helps to provided children that are D/HH with instruction
• Total Communication (TC): it a program that uses whatever the child is comfortable with. That means in one classroom you may have child who signs and another child who uses English. That means as a teacher you would use TC to help both children understand the concept that you are teaching. So you are signing and voicing at the same time
• Bilingual/Bicultural: It also uses both sign language (ASL) and English. However, its a program that believes that ASL is a language and for most children who are D/HH its their first language. So the program builds up their vocabulary in their natural language (ASL) and then teaches the child how to read and write in English.

Each child is different. In this field we are taught to have the child lead us in which language they will want to use. I think this is really important cause if I child natural language is ASL and you force them to speak, you are making them miss out on all the vocabulary that they might have access too if you accept their natural language and signed to them. For teachers to better serve our kids we really have to teach them in their natural language.

Weeks 4 and 5

Week 4 I was finally able to get to teach my first two lessons!!! My model teacher and I agreed that each week we would add a new student to my caseload until I am teaching all 8 students. Week 4, was the first week where I got my first kid! We focused on the skill of conversation and making clear complete sentences. The first day, we talked about princess, and describing a few photos that I brought in and the second day we worked on cooking food!! Who cooks at our home, what is our favorite food, if we can help mom in the kitchen, really anything that was food related. The student just loved my lessons!! I wasn't feeling well on the second day but the child was having fun and that is a great feeling to see the child actually having fun and enjoying her/himself!

Week 5, my teacher was sick again! I tell you I am having bad luck to teach 2 consecutive weeks! However, since I didn't want to loose any hours in observation, I went to observe another deaf educator in our area!! I enjoyed the two days that I was with her, the children were so much fun and fun of energy!!! I really enjoyed those days, now its back to making lessons for week 6! Hopefully, the snow and the sickness will stay far away!!

My midterm evaluation is in about 2 weeks. I would have 12 lessons under my belt if we don't have any more days off!! Wish me luck, I am already getting nervous about!

Social Studies Strategies

Social Studies I think it one of those subjects that is best taught with all hands on deck, learning and acting out how people lived and the big things that has happened in our countries. Here are so a few strategies to teach our little ones about what makes this country so great!

Timelines: I got this strategies from this website. http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson/lesson044.shtml. We all know that Social Studies can be boring cause it is just a list of dates. How boring!! Take the boring dates and the events and make it fun by having the children make their own timeline. Bring back craft time and have your children use whatever they want to as long as the dates are in order. This way, the dates might stick in the children's head. This strategy doesn't have to be altered for our children who are deaf or hard of hearing because it is a simple craft activity. Even children who are deaf or hard of hearing love to get messy and have fun!

Jigsaw: I got this strategy from this website: http://www.udel.edu/dssep/teaching_strategies/jigsaw_coop.htm. This strategies can be used for any age I believe. First select a topic then divide the student into groups of 3 or 4 depending on the size of your classroom. Then assign each group a piece of the "puzzle" or a small detail of the bigger topic. Then have the student be responsible for that information. They can look up more infuriation in their text book, they can make something that relates to their piece. Whatever that would help them to remember what they are learning, then after a certain amount of time have the students share their piece of the puzzle to the class. I think for an activity like this you can still make it work with children who are deaf or hard of hearing you just might have to take the pieces of the puzzle smaller so the student has more of an idea of what to do. You might actually have another step by step in what you want the child to do to find more information of the of that specific topic. You might have to actually teach the student what to do weeks before giving them this assignment. Even though you might have to break this step down further down for our students. I still think it might work out.

KWL: Know-Want-Learn

I got this strategy from: http://www.udel.edu/dssep/teaching_strategies/kwl.htm. This can be used for any subject I believe. K= Stands for KNOW, the student writes down anything that they know on that subject. W=stands for WANT, this is where the student writes down on anything that they want to know on that subject. L= stands for Learn, this is where the student write down on anything that they have learned. I think this is a good strategy for our students who are deaf, they might have trouble writing down what they already know or actually verbalize what they want to know. However, I think that you can talk to the student about the subject and pull what they know about it already. Then I think that after you teach the lesson you can make a writing subject and have them write what they learned. This might be altered again based on your child's level of writing! I think it is a great strategy cause it forces our students to think what they know and what they want to learn about that subject and what they were taught.

Concept Formation: I found this strategy on this website: http://www.udel.edu/dssep/teaching_strategies/concept_formation.htm. It talks about how the teacher should identify a concept then divide the board into 2 sections. One section is examples of that concept and the other section is examples of things that aren't related to that concept. Then you present both lists, and the students can guess what the concept is. I think having our students guess the concept might be hard but a better idea is to use the same idea to teach the concept. You teach the lesson by talking about things that are related to that concept and things that aren't related to that concept. It might help clearly separate two ideas.

Example of Concept Formation Activity

What is the Concept?

(+) obeying the law

(-) free speech

(+) paying taxes

(-) remain silent

(+) military service

(-) obtain a driver's license

(+) serving on a jury

The concept is CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY

Playdoh Geography: I got this strategy from http://ofcn.org/cyber.serv/academy/ace/soc/cecsst/cecsst221.html. I think its a great way to bring social studies to life. I mean who doesn't like play doh! This is an activity that the students can make a map out of their own states out of play doh! I think it is a great idea to use various colors of play doh to make various landscapes: Mountain, rivers, hills, ect... I would have a photo of a topical map so the students can see the what structures their state has and where those structures are located. I think it would be a great way to bring a lesson to life for all kids at any language level, age or grade level!

Week 2-3

Well, there's not a lot to report on week two and three! Week two I only had work for one day and then we got a blizzard dumped about 5 inches down so I went home to Springfield and visited the family. I missed them so much!! Then I came back on Sunday and on Monday I got the 24-hour flu and was home sick all day Monday and all day tuesday. Then on Wednesday, I went into work for only 2 hours because it was snowing all day again and they closed school at 9:30am and have been closed ever since. So, heres to hoping school will be open on Monday, Week 4! Thats when I start teaching my 1st lessons!!! One on tuesday and the other one on thursday!! Wish me luck!! We are working on communication!!

Evidence- Based Practice: Chapters 1-3

The first three chapters of this book was a mixture of an overview of what is to come in the book and the foundational issues that face deaf education.

Chapter 1: This chapter was an overview of what to come in the rest of the book. It is always nice to read what the author wants to talk about. It seems like it is easier to follow when the author does that. Anyways, what stood out to me in this chapter was on page 3 and 4, "Importantly, those references frequently consist of secondary sources (or worse, secondary sources that evidently did not read the primary source), theoretical or philosophical claims that have morphed into apparent "facts" and research of limited scope due to either small or non-comparable samples." This came as a shock to me sort of. When I read that I thought, that is so sad because we all know that the field of Deaf Education is a field that was very few sources to pull from and if most of those sources are secondary sources we can be pulling from wrong information and presenting it as facts to out clients! That just was a red flag in making sure all my sources are using good information before using them in our classes or giving them to our clients.

Chapter 2: This chapter discussed the deafness in other countries. I have always been interested in this subject. I don't know why but I remember taking classes for interpreting and having guest speakers who were deaf from various countries around the world showing us a few signs from their country; we had a guest speaker from Japan and Britain. It was interesting to see how they communicate in their sign language. Ever since then, I have always told myself that I want to be fluent in sign language in various countries. I think that would be so cool to learn British Sign Language! How many people know both ASL, Signed English and BSL?! LOL that dream never really took off. :)

Chapter 3: chapter 3 highlighted various types of research that can be done with students who are deaf or hard of hearing. This chapter was hard to keep straight I thought. All the research types sort of just ran together in my opinion.

Writing Strategies

This blog is dedicated to writing. I know writing is another one of those subjects that are hard to children to enjoy. Especially children who are deaf or hard of hearing because English can be a struggle for them anyway. Here are some strategies to help children enjoy the act of writing a little bit more.

Language Experiences: I got this strategies from the Kenya Deaf Resource Center. http://kenyadeafnet.org/content/view/159/348#2/ I think this is a great strategy to get children interested in what they are writing. It says go on a field trip with your classroom and then they next day have the children write about. Any teacher will know that students always have stories of what they did and what they saw when they come back from a field trip! Why not use that enthusiasm and make it a writing lesson. You can have the children draw a photo first to help them get what they are thinking down on paper if they have a harder time writing exactly whats in their head. I think this strategy doesn't need to be altered for children who are deaf or hard of hearing because it is what they saw and experienced. You can go back over the spelling, and the grammar the next day.

Dialogue Journals: I also got this strategy from the Kenya Deaf Resource Center. I thought it was a great way to model English to our student who are deaf. This journal is a written conversation between the teacher and the student. Every day the student writes a letter to the teacher about anything he or she wants. The teacher can have it be prompted by asking a question or it can be free write then at the end of the teacher the teacher collects the journal and responds to the entry by modeling correct language. Then the teacher can talk about a different writing topic a week and the student can try to model that topic in their journals. It might be hard for a student to come up with a topic by themselves, depending on the ability of the student. The teacher might have to model it a lot before the students get a good understanding of what is expected of them. I think that most of our student are capable of doing something like this. The writing level might vary for each student but I still think it is a great idea. It would really help the student in that mode of writing everyday.

Writer's Workshop: This too I got from the Kenya Deaf Resource Center but it sounds like the same idea the Dr. Wang showed us in her class, with the writing folder. The student keeps a folder that is separated into sections: write, revise, edit and publish. The students write about any topic and the work at the own pace. Each day you can have the students pull out their own writing folder and have them work on it for 10-15 mins a day. This way they can see the process of writing from beginning to end and at the end they can be proud of their work!

Writing for a purpose: I got this strategy from the Louisville Writing project. http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/922#Twelve. I think this is another great strategy because it gives the students a great opportunity a reason for writing. I know there are so many times where we have writing assignments but have no idea why we are writing them. I think this gives the students a reason to write. They can write a letter to anyone: an actor/actress that they like, their mom, another teacher, a scientist if you are learning about someone really special. Anyone really this way they can practice their best writing and hopefully can actually give it to someone. Hopefully this way the students will be eager to write their best and to be proud in what they wrote!

Shared Writing: This strategy I got from the teacher vision website: http://www.teachervision.fen.com/reading-and-language-arts/skill-builder/48883.html. I think most of us are familiar with shared writing. I think it is a great idea because it is still the child's idea but it is guided with the teacher. Both the teacher and the child sits next to each other and they both think up things that will go in the story or the piece of writing. However, the teacher acts as the scribe. This way the teacher knows what the child is saying and work with the child on their grammar. I think this is a great strategy for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. I think it gives them that one-on-one attention while working on something as important as writing.

Week: 1

First week is down and over. It was a great first week, it was all observations but it was getting know the children. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we see 3 kids. The children are so precious. I love just being there, it is so hard to sit back and observe I want to be there interacting with the children. One of our children, I was told that they take a long time to warm up. So, as we entered the classroom I was prepared for many behaviors and not wanting to work cause another person was in the room. To my surprise the child did just the opposite, the child asked who I was and wanted me to play with them. I was so excited it was then when I heard so many of my friends and family saying, "See, you know what you are doing. Those kids love you." It made me feel so happy, I felt like I could do this! There was another kids that I expected the same thing. My model teacher said that both her and the interpreter has been struggling just to get the behavior under control that there hasn't been a lot of teaching happening. So, I walked in expecting to feel overwhelmed by all the behaviors that I had to deal with once I started teaching. IT WAS THE OPPOSITE, the child sat down and pay attention to my teacher and was doing what they need to do. I was shocked, the teacher was shocked (the interrupter was there). My teacher left that session saying, "That child has never been that good before." I was so happy to hear that.

On Tuesday and Thursday, we see 5 more kids all from different cities and different schools. Those days are my longest because we start at 7:30am and then we drive to our 1st school which is an hour away, stay there for an hour , get back in the car drive another 45 minutes stay at that school through lunch, back in the car to return to back to our 1st school and stay there for another hour then drive back to the base. I don't get home until 4:00 but I am enjoying those kids too. They are a little bit more changeling in what they are targeting and in what they are able to do. So that's gonna take a little bit more focus and motivation but that all comes from practice right?!

It was a great week. I am starting my second week here, I am still observing but comes the third week I'll be teaching... Wish me luck!