ASSIGNMENT 2 Bianca Torres 200900023 ADE Remedial Education Module: Learning Support Module code: LSUPYE1 • Previous learner needed corrective eye surgery. John received treatment and is no longer needing learner support. • I will be using a new learner for my final assessment but I am waiting for writing consent from “nicks” parents Analysis of the background information on a learner. When requesting a teacher to fill out the background of the learner, I felt that the teacher lacked the detailed knowledge of the learner’s academic progress as a whole. In most cases when working with a learner in Grade 4 or above, the students spend very little time with a specific teacher. They move around from class to class and their behaviour, attention, interest and engagement with the subject and teacher creates an inaccurate “analysis”. It is my belief that a copy of a learners profile and support forms be submitted from the previous grades. As an educator we needed to identify the learners who needed support and fill in the relevant documents such as your 450B and 450C ( if you are a school in Gauteng). These forms would be submitted to the head of academics and all the details regarding areas of concern, interventions used would be explained. If a therapist has this knowledge it would enable them to identify a pattern of difficulties and which strategies would work best. The role of the SNA and Diagnostic form in the Individualised Educational Plan. The SNA is the “Process of determining the additional support provision that is needed. The process is guided by the various sections of the SNA form.” (Department of Basic Education, 2014). In order for a barrier to be addressed, support to be given and learning to begin- it is important that the correct measures are put in place and that what has been tried before can be eliminated from the plan going forward. The SNA 1 form as summarised from the Policy on Screening, Identification, Assessment and support (Department of Basic Education, 2014) include 4 areas of assessment: 200900023 1 1- Areas of concern 2- The strengths and weakness of a learner. 3- An action plan to support the learner 4- If interventions are ineffective , the collaboration of the SBST. Without looking further, the above is all that is needed to create the first individual educational plan. This will be the planning in point number 3 of the SNA1 process. Practically educators are restricted by their lack of knowledge, time and resources when understanding how to assess the areas of concern and how to develop individual learning plans for each student while teaching twenty other students and keeping on track with the curriculum. Interventions and actions to address the learners additional support needs on the basis of: a. Whole school development intervention required Schools need to educate the learners who may see others as “less”. Student bodies need to develop programs or workshops that integrate all learners, were every child feels included within the day to day life of school. If a learner feels secure, wanted and loved- leaning will follow. Practically, schools can make classrooms accessible, playgrounds inclusive (tables for learners with wheelchairs etc), a variety of outdoor equipment where learners can get the sensory input that their bodies need to be calm within the class. School policies should be drawn on how SNA forms are used and by whom. This policy and how the school provides their learners with support should be addressed with parents. Inclusivity needs to be added to the ethos of the school and supported by every staff member. b. Support Services required: (Department of Basic Education, 2014)) (i) Health Department/health care practitioners (ii) Department of Social Development/social workers (iii) Special School/Resource Centre (iv) Speech therapists, OTs etc. A positive relationship between the above Support services and the school should be in place. The school should allow different talks/meet and greets to happen between themselves and these departments. It is important for educators to know that they are not alone. 200900023 2 c. Educator awareness, training and support required: It would be to the teacher and students benefit if schools had a qualified learner support staff member dedicated to each phase of the learners journey. This would provide learners with the support that they may not be able to afford in their private capacity, it would also enable teachers to have support while supporting leaners within the class. The learning support staff member could be assigned to learners who have higher risk of failure. This staff members could provide strategies to teachers and turn training into a daily conversation. Teachers would feel that they had a sounding board with a quicker response rate as they would just need to knock on the door next door. Handover meetings between grades from the previous year would be beneficial. Teachers would have a better understanding of the learners within their class. d. Classroom support: Interventions require a financial cost. It would be beneficial if teachers within the public school sector had classroom assistance at a foundation phase level. An extra set of hands will help learners to feel safe and secure, better control on behaviour and attending to the emotional needs of learners. It would also be advisable if teachers kept their classroom rooms structured and uncluttered. Leaners who battle to focus will find it difficult to place themselves within their class if they keep getting distracted. It is important that classrooms / teachers have access to equipment to deal with learners with difficulties. This could include - posture wedges, resources for concrete learning, projectors/laptops for visual learning and the accessibility to workbooks and textbooks. Specific Language support integrated into a scholastic diagnostic report: a. Oral Language Support strategies Depending on the age group different activities can be used. The most important is to get the conversation going by sharing stories, reading, singing, listening to instruction games. The focus needs to be on sentence structure in order to clearly articulate what the person is thinking. 200900023 3 b. Reading Support Strategies “Reading does not develop naturally, and for many children, specific decoding, wordrecognition, and reading comprehension skills must be taught directly” ( Lyon, n.d.) The more learners are exposed to reading the more “natural” reading will become. As educators, we need to encourage reading by reading to learners, practise decoding and word recognition. There are word games, interactive activities that can be used on a daily basis. Activities to engage learners in reading: - Vocabulary enrichment: big- huge, gigantic - Word webs: sounds “at” - bat, cat etc or topic related. - Word / sentence sequencing: atr = rat or girl shop the went = The girl went to the shop. c. Spelling Support Strategies “Say the word.-Blend the sounds.-Identify the number of sounds.-Identify the individual sounds.- Spell the word.- Blend and check the spelling. - Repeat.”The student needs to have a sound knowledge of all forty four sounds for reading and spelling to be supported. If a learner is able to identify the sound and can write the symbol, spelling needs to be practised. Just like reading, spelling is not natural and the more a student is exposed to grammatical rules and practises by applying those rules in creative writing, sentences and spelling tests the more “natural” it will become. d. Writing and handwriting support strategies “Functional means the student can hold the pencil, write with legible handwriting, and doesn’t have joints that are hyperextended or otherwise inefficient in joint positioning. Fatigue and endurance play a part in a functional pencil grasp”. (The OT toolbox, 2020) . The school of thought was that learners needed to hold a pencil in a specific way. The new thought is that as long as learners are writing where the reader is able to understand what is being written, there is “no” need for interventions. The main strategy that learners need if handwriting is problematic is to understand the planning processes attached to writing. Where do you start on a piece of paper? Where does your date go? Are you writing in cursive or print? It is said that to support writing the student needs to practise, practise and practise. The role of the teacher is to ensure that the student is using the correct pressure and that their writing posture is correct. 200900023 4 References 200900023 5
