chapter 9-11

I think itinerant teachers are very important. Some students do great with an itinerant teacher. Others may benefit more from a self contained classroom. Having not been or be exposed to itinerant teacher I can't sat anything to specific about it benefits or negatives. However, I do agree it is important for the itinerant teacher and the regular teacher to meet regular. They are both responsible for the student so they need to ensure the student is receiving the best education possible for that student. Communication will also help them to see where the child is really progressing and where the child is struggling when it comes time to prepare the child's IEP. I think itinerant teachers are very important, especially in the area of teaching deaf and hard of hearing students. They help get students the services they need.

Chapter 7

Even if the communication barriers are removed between deaf children and hearing children they will still not be at the same level to learn the same way. There is still a gap in the deaf child's prior knowledge that the hearing child doesn't have. Because of this there are things that will have to be directly taught to the deaf or hard of hearing child that the regular hearing child acquired from listening to conversations, TV, talking with others, etc. So if the communication barriers are removed the children are still different and their learning needs and styles need to be addressed differently. One way to show how the two groups are still different is int he way that you present new information. When reading a book a child who is deaf or hard of hearing will struggle more with the comprehension of the story then a child who hearing. For the deaf student the teacher will need to ask more questions and may need to build on the questions slowly, where as the hearing child may be able to completely tell you what happened in the story without much assistance. Also if you are filling out a graphic organizer of the story the deaf student may need to really talk through the story more to understand where all of the information goes.

These two groups are very different. However, it is important to remember that no two hearing kids and no two deaf kids are alike so we as teachers need to be always adjusting out teaching presentation to meet the needs of each of the students.

Chapter 7

I agree that story problems are very difficult for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. If they do not have basic math skills then the story problems are very difficult because they are written differently and the students have to figure out the problem instead of it being presented to them. Another thing that makes the story problems difficult is the language. However this does not mean that they can not do story problems at all. In my student teaching class all of the students did word problems 3 times a week for morning work. They all did different levels and would need help but the goal was to help them so that next time they could complete it on their own. My teacher used a series called Apple Tree to get the word problems for the students. This series has levels 1-6 total. I will be using this series in the future because I love the way the different levels are layed out and how each level progresses. I will also being teaching my students helpful hints for word problems. One thing would be looking for key words that tell you to add or subtract or multiple or divide. I will also teach them how to look at a problem and see what information they need and what information they don't need to solve the problem.

Teaching science can be challenging for a lot of students, but especially for our students who are deaf or hard of hearing. The language that is used in science books can be at an upper level that many students are not at yet. It is more challenging when there are no signs for many of the vocabulary used to teach science. If I came across this problem I would work with the students to come up with signs that made sense to all of us to help them to understand the various topics.

Chapter 6

In this chapter the authors on focusing on literacy. One activity they suggest to help promote literacy is shared reading. I think shared reading is a great activity for parents and students to share together. The book goes on to explain how shared reading works on different levels and how parents might use it at home. Something that the book mentions is parents should follow the child's lead for focus of attention and duration of activity. This is so important for parents and teachers to remember because if we keep forcing children to read and do activities they don't enjoy then we will turn them off of reading.

This chapter also discussed the importance of phonological awareness skills and phonics skills for children to have. I liked how the book described this two terms. It was very easy to follow and would be very helpful to parents or others who don't really understand phonological awareness or phonics.

The various studies discussed throughout this chapter were very interesting. There are so many different opinions and options for teaching so it is important to be up on the latest research and I think this chapter gave a really good over view of various studies and finding.

Student Teaching

Last week my cooperating teacher invited me to attend the class field trip. I was very excited that she called me. We went to Ponderosa for lunch. The students were very excited that I was there because they did not know that I was coming with them. For lunch each adult was assigned two students. We helped the students through the buffet line. The students had to ask for what they wanted and they had to talk to any staff member that spoke to them. The kids had a lot of fun. My teacher also explained to the students that we tip our waitresses and why we tip them. After lunch we went to an elementary school that was hosting a play by a local sign group about Charlotte's Web. The play was a lot of fun and the students really enjoyed it. I was so glad that I was able to go with them and experience a field trip with them.

Assessment Plan

The content area I want to focus on is reading. Reading is such an important skill for all children. It also carries over into all aspects of the child’s life so it is important to know how the child is functioning in their reading abilities.

The first assessment I would give the student is a running record. A running record is a great way to see what skills the student has and at what level skills are. One way to do this assessment is to use the Basic Reading Inventory assessment tool. Another way is to have two copies of a passage the student is suppose to read and mark on the teacher copy when the child makes an error in their reading. This will allow the teacher to see what types of errors that the child makes while reading. Also while reading the passage the teacher can keep track of how many words per minute the student is reading to determine the students reading rate.

The next assessment I would do would be to ask the student comprehension questions. Being able to comprehend and understand what you read is very important for everyone. However, often children who are deaf or hard of hearing have a hard time with comprehension. Therefore it is important that we as teachers target this skill and continue to build on this skill. Questions that I would ask the students would be who is this story about, what was the problem, how did he/she try to fix the problem, were they successful, what else did they try to fix the problem, etc. Based on the students responses additional questions may need to be asked to make sure the students understood what they read.

There are many different formal assessments that can be used for assessing reading skills. The assessment that I would use would be Accelerated Reader. My school during student teaching used this program. For this program all books are assigned a reading level. The students take a test to determine what their reading level should be. Then the students read a book on that level and take a test on the book. The test consists of 5 to 10 questions about the book. Each book then has a number of points that it is worth. Depending on how many comprehension questions the students get correct determines how many points they earn for reading that book. The students also have a specific reading points goal that they have to ear during each quarter. In my classroom my teacher then gave those students that met their AR goal a little party. This assessment program is great because it tells the teacher how the students are doing reading and comprehending on their own. If they are struggling then the teacher knows to work more one on one with that student to see where they are struggling. The kids from my student teaching placement also responded well to this program because they were motivated to read and they wanted to do well on their tests to earn their points.

Student Teaching

I really enjoyed my student teaching experience. I learned a lot about time management! Everyday was a challenge to fit every lesson in for every student. I really had to learn to focus on what was really important and to make sure that task was completed. Everyday was crazy and most days I didn't even have a second to think, but I loved every minute of it. There was never any time to doubt myself or wonder if this was the right thing or how I could make the lesson better. I just had to do my lesson and move on. This helped me to really build the confidence in myself that I needed to help me to really see that I can really be a teacher and be a great teacher!

Science Strategies

Hands On
A hands-on approach is so important when it comes to teaching science, especially deaf and hard of hearing children. This approach allows children to explore and discover new things by trial and error instead of just reading about it in a text book. This approach really helps students to expand their thinking and really grow in there learning.
http://www.ehow.com/way_5879133_effective-strategies-teaching-elementary-science.html

Group Work
Working together in groups when learning a new concept is another important strategy. If children work in groups to figure out a new concept there are different brains and ideas being tossed around about how the concept works. The students can also brainstorm and work together to problem solve different scenarios.

NASA
The NASA website offers a wide variety of information. There is information on earth, the planets, missions and much more. The information is divided into information for teachers and students. There are interactive games and activities for students to plan and learn. There are also experiments that students can try in class or at home. Another cool feature of this website is that students can ask a scientist if they have a question about something. This website has so many different things to offer both teachers and students to help make learning about science fun!
http://science.nasa.gov/about-us/science-strategy/

Science Teachers
This website is great for teachers! There are a variety of lesson ideas on various science related topics. There are also worksheets already made up on various topics and on different levels. Another great feature about this website is that they are links to other websites about specific topics. These additional resources are great for when you are teaching about a topic and need to know more information to better inform your students.

Additional Resources
This websites all offer additional strategies and helpful tips for teaching science to students. Each of these websites can offer fun activities for students and help teachers with finding additional help.
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/
http://www.nsta.org/
http://www.ehow.com/teaching-science/

Math Strategies

Math Strategies
Number Charts
Number charts are amazing to use!!! I used this website http://www.homeschoolmath.net/ to create a lot of my own number charts. I was working with my students are counting numbers up to 1000 and some of the students had a hard time with the counting. I created a number chart for each of the hundreds and we taped them all in a line in the room. We then studied these charts over and over again to help them with their counting. Then when the students had to complete paterns of numbers such as filling in the 250,____, 252 or ____,400,401 the students could go the charts and follow the chart to help them. I believe that hundreds charts can be used in so many different ways for students.
Blocks
During my math lessons I used all different kinds of blocks in my lessons. When working with place value we used hundreds, tens, and ones blocks. These blocks were great for showing the place value representation for the students. The blocks were also great for when the student add to look at a number such as 100 and add one to the number or ten to the number. They could not understand this concept by just the numbers alone, but the visual of the blocks helped a lot. I used these blocks in many different lessons and there are something that I definitely want to have in the future! When doing geometry I used different shape blocks. Again this visualization helped the students to understand the different geometric shapes and concepts. There are so many different types of blocks available for lessons to help students with the visualization that they need in understanding difficult math concepts.

Games
My students loved to play different games. For math lessons I would spend time on a particular topic we would talk about it, do some worksheet, and then for a review/ something fun the students would play a game. I found several different website that had different math games that student could play. In my classroom we have a promethean board, which is like a smart board, sp the students could play the games on there as a group or individually. Here are some websites that I used,
• http://www.free-training-tutorial.com/place-value-games.html#3digits
• http://www.funbrain.com/cgi-bin/tens.cgi?A1=c&A2=0&A3=0&A4=0&A5=5705.00000000&A6=2&A7=2&A8=[0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0][0]
• http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/bead/free/free.htm
• http://www.primarygames.com/math/timeclock/start.htm
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/math/teaching-methods/48952.html
This website was very interesting. There were a lot of different and helpful strategies to sue with our students. Some of them need to be adapted depending on the student and their level, but still useable. There are also fun lesson ideas for different topics. I really liked this website because there is a lot if information and because all the information is broken down into specific topics. This made it easy to go to the website and fins something depending on the topic I was working on at the time.

Reading Strategies

Graphic Organizers
Graphic organizers are a great tool to use with students when they are reading. Using a graphic organizer allows students to look at what they are reading and how it all connects together. Doing a group graphic organizer together allows the students and the teacher to discuss the story and discuss the as a group the best way to state the main idea, the problem, etc.

Picture Story Telling
I like to look at the pictures in a story and have the students tell me what they think the story is going to be able. This allows the students to use their imagination as well as picture clues. Another thing I like about this activity is when students read the story it is fun to see if they get any of their ideas right. It makes it so much fun when what they thought happened id really what happened.

Fluency
Students need to have good fluency in order to comprehend what they are reading. I have notice especially in my student teaching placement that the students that have poorer fluency seem to struggle with comprehension more than some of the other students. I think this is because the students are struggling so much to just read the words on the page that they don’t really understand anything that they are saying. Therefore, we need to help our students with their fluency skills. I know this does not seem completely change comprehension, but I believe that it can help in a small way for students to understand more what they read.

Vocabulary
Vocabulary plays such a big role in student’s ability to understand what they are reading. If students are reading words, but don’t know what they mean they won’t be able to understand what the story is about. I have found that having students look up vocabulary words in their reading selection is a great way for them to learn the words. In my student teaching placement the students look up their vocabulary words for their story selection. The students and I then read the definition together and discuss what we think it means. The students then write a definition for each word based on the discussion that we had about the word. Discussing and writing the words helps the students to really think about the vocabulary term and what it means,

Weeks 6 and 7

The last 3 weeks have been crazy. We got a new student, which means there are 14 students now. It has been crazy how adding just one new student to the mix can turn the room upside down and change everyone’s behavior. It has also been interesting because the child’s IEP does not seem to really fit the child. Therefore the child has been shuffled around to different groups to see where they will fit the best. The student has also needed extra help because they will use to different rules and situations. On another note I have been running the room on my own and making sure the students are getting all the lessons they need in the day. It has been a lot of fun taking on more responsibility and getting to work with the students more and just getting to be there with them every day. I am very excited to be where I am because I have learned so much. I am looking forward to the next few weeks at the school!

Chapter 4 and 5

Chapter 4:
This chapter is on early intervention and identification. These two things are so important!! I don’t think that this topic can be stressed too much. With the use of UNHS children are being identified sooner and intervention starting sooner. I found it interesting that it was suggested that identifying hearing loss at such an early age could interfere with positive parent bonding. Yes, it is true that the bonding may be different because if I child does have a hearing loss the parents may be going through the stages of grief. However, it is also important for parents to know if there is a problem with their child so that they can seek help and their child receive the best services available. I can see how this would be a valid argument, but I certainly hope it would never stop someone from having their child’s hearing tested. Parents can still bond with their child even if they have a hearing loss. Overall I thought the information in this chapter was very good and easy to follow. This would be a great resource for parents to read and learn about early identification and intervention.
Chapter 5:
There are a variety of different approaches and programs when it comes to educating students who are d/hh. Language development that is referred to as oral focuses on understanding spoken language and promoting speech. Another program natural auralism stress speech reading. Cued speech is another oral program which allows students access to phonology of spoken language which is something that they usually miss because of a hearing loss. Totally communication was another program that was mentioned.
There are so many different methods of teaching students who are deaf or hard of hearing. It is important to remember that no one method is perfect. Each program and approach has its advantages and disadvantages. I think it is important to give the students everything we can (based on the parents’ wishes) and see what works best for them. Currently I am ina program that was set up to be total communication. However, currently there are no signers at the school. This is something that I am not use to and have had to adjust my thoughts on teaching and communicating. I have seen the students in my room be successful without the aid of sign, but I have also see them struggle and wished I could sign to them. There will always be a debate as to what program to use and I am sure I will change my mind from time to time depending on my current situation.

Social Studies Strategies

Column Note taking
http://www.georgetownisd.org/ccorner/socstudies/InstructionalStrategiesforSocialStudies.asp
This was a strategy that I remember using growing up. I liked this strategy because it helped me to visualize what information went with each topic. In this strategy the students will fold their paper in half like a hot dog. Then they would write a topic on one side. Next they would write facts about that topic on the other side. Then students would then read and study the information. The students could then quiz themselves by only looking at one column. The students would then have to say the facts that went with the topic. They could then open the paper to check themselves.
Graphic Organizers
Graphic organizers are another great strategy for teaching social studies. There are so many topics and facts that go with them. Having the students list a topic on a graphic organizer and then write the supporting facts around it will help them to visualize the information. There are many different graphic organizers available. Teachers can also customize one that best fits their students and the topic that is being discussed.
Time Line
A time line around the room is also a great visual for displaying social studies facts. For this the students could discuss a topic and learn all the details. Then the students could write down key facts and place that topic and facts on a time line. The time line could get around the room so the students could see it all the time. Having this visual around will help them to learn events, but also see how those events happened in relation to each other.


Column Note taking
http://www.georgetownisd.org/ccorner/socstudies/InstructionalStrategiesforSocialStudies.asp
This was a strategy that I remember using growing up. I liked this strategy because it helped me to visualize what information went with each topic. In this strategy the students will fold their paper in half like a hot dog. Then they would write a topic on one side. Next they would write facts about that topic on the other side. Then students would then read and study the information. The students could then quiz themselves by only looking at one column. The students would then have to say the facts that went with the topic. They could then open the paper to check themselves.
Graphic Organizers
Graphic organizers are another great strategy for teaching social studies. There are so many topics and facts that go with them. Having the students list a topic on a graphic organizer and then write the supporting facts around it will help them to visualize the information. There are many different graphic organizers available. Teachers can also customize one that best fits their students and the topic that is being discussed.
Time Line
A time line around the room is also a great visual for displaying social studies facts. For this the students could discuss a topic and learn all the details. Then the students could write down key facts and place that topic and facts on a time line. The time line could get around the room so the students could see it all the time. Having this visual around will help them to learn events, but also see how those events happened in relation to each other.

Social Studies Strategies

In my student teaching placement we have two students that are in the deaf and hard of hearing room for scocial studies. The students were recently learning about different deographical areas. To help them to visualize these areas my teaching pulled out several different maps that showed different features. The students studied these while reading the book. They then filled out their own maps for practice. They filled out these maps several different times for practice and to use different styles of learning. I am sure this is a very popular method, but I also think it is a very important method for teaching.

Week 3 and 4

I am really enjoying working with my students and my teacher. I am learning a lot about juggling 13 different kids schedules!! I am also learning that it is very challenging to fit every lesson in during the day when you have 6 spelling groups, 4 english groups, 5 phonics groups, 3 math groups, 6 reading groups, and so much more. Some days I am teaching the same lesson 3 times because not all the kids in one group are in the classroom at the same time. This past week my teacher had me taking over during the morning completely which lead to many full days of running the room and making sure the students went to each place they had to be. I have learned that flexability is key!!!!! The day never seems to go as planned, but some how it always works out. I am so glad to be working where I am. I am looking forward to the next few weeks and diving in deeper into running the classroom completely, eventhough, it can be a bit overwhelming at times!

Evidence Based Practice in Educating Deaf and Hard of Hearng Students

Chapter 1:
This chapter was an overview of what is to come in the book. This chapter was easy to read and follow along with so I am excited to read the rest of the book and hope that it is as easy to read. I like how the chapter stated that no one system or apporach will work with all deaf and hard of hearing studnets. This is such an important statement for any one who is working with this population to remember. There are so many factors to considering when educating students who are deaf or hard of hearing. I think that people often forget that no two children are a like and no one way of teaching will work with everyone.
The key findings index had a lot of really great statements. One statement that spoke to me was "Early identification and interverntion can greatly decrease barriers to language learning faced by deaf and hard of hearing children durng the early years of life, although they have not been eliminated." We learn the importance of early identification and intervention everyday in our classes. This again is something that we as future educators of the deaf and hard of hearing need to make others aware of. We need to help people to understand how important it is to get their child services if they do have a hearing loss.
"Even with early cochlear implantatiopn, language abilities remain on average below those of hearing peer." This statement is so true! There are so many people who think that if a child get a cochlear implant they will be cured. This statement tells people that, there assumption is wrong. It is so important for people to understand that a cochlear implant can make a difference for children, but will never cure them.

Chapter 2
This chapter discussed universal newborn hearing screens. I found the information about other countries hearing screening to be very interesting. I have never really thought about other countries and what types of screenings that they might have. This chapter also discussed many differnt statistics that apply to deaf and hard of hearing children and their over all development. Most of the information I knew, but I was glad to have a reference to refer to when sharing this information with others that may be interested. I know that students who are deaf and hard of hearing are behind academically compared to their hearing peers. But when I read a statistic such as high school students who are deaf or hard of hearing are performing at the 80th percentile which compares to average hearing fith and six graders I am still shocked. However, reading that statistic over and over again and ingraining it into my brain helps me to stay motivated. It helps me to again realize why I am doing what I am doing and pushes me to be a better teacher for my future students.

Chapter 3
This chapter was about a lot of reasearch. Research is very important in our field. It is so important because technology is always changing and new ideas are always being thought up. Even though I know research is very important I must admit I dont always enjoy readng about how something was found out. I want to know what they found and how I can apply it to be a better teacher and help my studnets. With this being said I found this chapter to be slightly boring compared to the other two chapters that I read.

Student Teaching Update

Student teaching started off with a snow day. The rest of the week went really well!! The second week was a bust. Snow days all five days. The third week went great. I started teaching spelling to all six groups we have in the room. I have been learning a lot and the students are amazing. Monday is the Valentine's Day party. I am excited for the party and another great week of teaching and working with the kids more!!

Writing Strategies

Writing Strategies

Prewrite

One writing strategy that I have seen is giving the student an idea and having them draw a picture. Drawing a picture of all of the events that the students needs to write about helps them to organize their thoughts. The picture also helps them to be creative in their story telling through the picture. The prewrite picture strategy also allows the students to have fun when they are beginning the writing process. Keeping writing fun is so important since it is an important skill that students need to learn. A picture can also help the teacher to know what the student it trying to write about. In both my practicum and my student teaching experience I have seen this strategy used.

Four square

This writing strategy involves a piece of paper with a center line on it and four squares around. In the center line the teacher writes a topic sentence such as “my school is the best because”. The students then have to write a sentence in three of the boxes for why they think their school is the best. They have to use some descriptive in the sentences. This means they can just say “I like music” they have to say something such as “music is fun because we get to sing”. In the fourth square they write a sentence about how they feel about the topic. In this case they would write a sentence about how they feel about their school. After they have finished their four square they write a paragraph using their sentences. To expand this activity the teacher can then have the students add more about their topics so they have a well developed story.

Currently my school uses this strategy. The students have to write a story from this form every few weeks with different topics. This form really helps them to gather their thoughts so that they can write on topic.

The Hamburger Strategy

This strategy comes from the Buffalo education. In this strategy a visual of a hamburger is used. This visual helps the students to see all the parts of writing that they need to include and how they are laid out. I think this is a great visualization because it helps the students to relate the parts of writing a paragraph to a visual that is very familiar to them. This would be a great visual to have hanging up in the room. This would allow the students to be able to see this picture and to remember the parts of a paragraph. http://gse.buffalo.edu/org/writingstrategies/Toolbox/Strategies_Toolkit.html

Brainstorming Kit

This strategy is also from the Buffalo education website. This brainstorming kit offers questions for students to answer before they start writing. There are separate questions for expository and creative writing. I really liked these questions. They were very simple for students to follow and really helped them to think about what they were going to write and who they were writing for. The questions would be great to have in each students writing folder or hanging up in the room for them to refer to when they are writing. Overall this website had a lot of helpful writing tips and ideas for teachers to use with their students. http://gse.buffalo.edu/org/writingstrategies/Toolbox/Brainstorming_Toolkit.html

Work with words relevant to students lives

According to the national writing project it is important to relate students writing and vocabulary to their everyday lives. Students become more excited about learning when they can relate to what they are learning about. If teachers allow students to write about things that happen in their everyday lives, then students will be more enthusiastic about the writing process. This article also suggests taking the letters of the alphabet and having the students find one word that describes them. They can then elaborate on why this word describes them based on the types of things that they do in their everyday lives. http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/922

Golden Nuggets

I really enjoyed this article. There is so much information that is great for first year Deaf Education teachers. I really liked how the article was set up into a question and answer style. This helped to break up the information and get a clear idea of what each questions was addressing. This section of the reading that was about the interview process was also very informative. The questions that they suggested for me to ask were great. Some of the questions I had not even thought about asking in an interview. Another section that I found very helpful was the Getting Started section. In this section there are seven different points that these authors suggest for preparing for the first day. The first day of teaching is going to be a very overwhelming process. There is so much to remember to do on that first day of teaching. These seven points are great because they can help me remember even the little things because I am sure that I will forget something because of everything that will be happening all at one time. Something that I noticed throughout this article was how much they stressed the importance of a mentor. Being a first year teacher is very stressful. I know personally that I would fell a lot better if I had someone that I could go to for help, advice, information, and guidance. Throughout the article it is mentioned how important it is to have someone at your school that you can look up to and go to at anytime to try and ease the transition into teaching and make the process less stressful. Another section in the article that I found both helpful and slightly comical was the section about the New Teachers Experiences and Feelings. I also enjoyed reading the different strategies and activities that were listed in the article. There were a lot of great ideas that I will be using in my future classroom. Overall I truly enjoyed this article. Everything in the article was helpful and really informative. It is definitely something that I will keep around to refer back to during my first year of teaching.

Spelling Strategies

Spelliing Strategies

Having the words available in the room during the whole week is one strategy. This allows the children to visually see the words all the time. The children will then be exposed to the words on a daily basis and help them to be more familiar with the words. In my current room the teacher has each groups spelling list hanging up in the front of the room for the students to view each day. This is very helpful for the students when they are working on their spelling sheets. It is also helpful for them because if they have a few minutes of down time they can look at the wall and read their words over for themselves or practice writing them. This is something that I will for sure be using in my room in the future.

Children who are deaf or hard of hearing need a hands on approach to learning spelling words. This can be writing the words in different manners, sequencing the letters in the correct order to spell a word, using scooters to race to spell the word to the teacher, etc. Having different tactile activities will help to make learning the spelling words fun, but also help them remember the words. Spelling is not always a fun task so it is important to change up the activities so that the students are excited about learning and want to learn.

An important strategy for teaching spelling is to teach the students the rules for spellings. If the students can learn the rules for long vowels and what letters make what sound they can see the patterns. Knowing the rules will help the students to understanding spelling instead of just memorizing spelling words. This strategy was suggested from the book “All About Spelling” which can be found on http://www.all-about-spelling.com/effective-spelling-strategies.html website. I think this is a very important strategy. It is so important to teach students about the rules and skills of spelling in order for them to learn and to be effective spellers.

According to the scholastic website it is important for students to discover spelling patterns. This strategy states that it is important for students to visualize a spelling word. It is also important to recognize patterns in words to help with spelling more difficult words. The website explains that teachers can select a book or passage and also a spelling pattern for the kids to recognize. Then as the class or individuals read the passage they can underline all the words with the particular spelling pattern. The teacher can then select one word and show how that small word can help students to spell longer words. The example that the website gives it the word great. Then the students can spell the word great, greater, greatest. They can do this building with many different words if they recognize the spelling patterns. Overall I think this is a very useful strategy. I think it is something that can be used with our DHH students to help them see visual patterns. It is always helpful when there is a skill that is taught that will then carry over to other skills. I think it would also be fun to put a word pattern up such as “ir” and make a word wall of different words that follow that pattern. These basic words can then latter be expanded on, but the students will still have the original form of the word available for them to view. http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/lessonplans/instructor/spell4.htm

Another strategy that I found is called Word Sort. This strategy says that putting letters in order to create the word helps the brain. Also having to put the words in alphabetical order also makes the students not only be aware of the spelling of the word, but also alphabetically word which is another important skill. If the students have to rearrange letters then they have to think about the spelling of the word more and the rules and patterns of the word. It also helps them to visualize and to use their brain more to think about the spelling of the word. I have seen this strategy used a lot and it seems to be a fun activity for the students as well as helpful for remembering the spelling of words. The strategy of unscrambling letters to create the spelling word and putting them in alphabetical order is something that I will use in the future. I have used this strategy now and have seen other teachers use it and see how it can help the students to learn and understand spelling words. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/684579/effective_spelling_strategies_and_games.htmlA

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