[EnglishLanguage] RE: [English Language] pre-literate

[EnglishLanguage] RE: [English Language] pre-literate - vision/learning disabilities

dezreen at excite.com dezreen at excite.com
Sat Nov 5 19:41:22 EST 2005

Previous message: [EnglishLanguage] Re: ESL Geography
Next message: [EnglishLanguage] Re: EnglishLanguage Digest, Vol 2, Issue 6
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

First, I've been working in one small ski town in CO with ELL's for 10 years. These ELL's are part of a rapidly growing Hispanic community who are also have many cultural commonalities - they tend to be from 2 main states in Mexico and share similar socio-economic & educational levels. So my student pool isn't overly diverse.

Second, I have kept tabs of what I've found when teaching, assessing and evaluating these students so that when new ones come in, I check to see where they are with the same indicators. What I've found is that high behavior issues and distractiblity in my class and others tend to signal low academic levels in the student's L1. Although there are many potential causes for the low academics, vision issues and learning disabilities show up time and time again.

For vision, when I do my first language proficiency screening in English or Spanish, I always ask the students if they can see the board clearly, if they like to read, if the words move around the page, if the words are clear. This tells me a lot. Students will also open up very quickly and tell me that they can't see, their parents can't afford an eye exam, etc.

>From there our school nurse gives them a gross eye exam (which doesn't tell us too much) and then we look for community resources to help them get a formal exam and glasses if needed.

For a Special Education referral with a vision impaired student, I talk with the student about their behavior, why it isn't acceptable in this school and what the consequences are. I also talk with them about being bored because they can't see the board, ways to change their seating in classrooms and other methods for helping themselves out. Then I contact all their teachers, tell them what the concerns are for the student and ask them to make changes while we wait for glasses including enlarging text, changing seating, etc. I also ask them to document all modifications so that if even with corrected vision their learning is not improving, we have the documentation to begin the referral process.

For general Special Education referrals, I ask all classroom teachers to document any unusual learning styles (low or fluctuating memory, limited ability is seeing or recreating patterns, fluctuations in behavior) and make modifications to their work. I do the same.

A group including ELL, SPED and classroom teachers set short term SMART goals that help us determine if the issue is related to language learning or is an actual disibility and we keep close tabs on the student's progress, work production and social interactions in grade level groups. Sometimes this process takes the entire school year.

If we see limited growth tied to our goals over time coupled with other indicators, we will elect to refer the student for SPED testing. This choice is not taken lightly and some classroom teachers definitely find that hard to deal with. Some referrals are easier to make than others - An 8 yr. old girl who could not sit on a chair or focus after she ate sugar = ADHD with sugar allergy. We made that decision in 3 months. A boy with Central Auditory Processing difficulties; that took a year. The mucous in his system interfered with the testing. Much of the time, there are so many modifications in place by the time they get referred that not much changes with the addition of the SPED label.

Kathleen Morgan
Telluride CO

--- On Fri 11/04, Marcos Valle < marcos.valle at edcc.edu > wrote:
From: Marcos Valle [mailto: marcos.valle at edcc.edu]
To: dezreen at excite.com, englishlanguage at dev.nifl.gov
Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 14:40:08 -0800
Subject: [English Language] pre-literate - vision/learning disabilities

<html>

<head>
<meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered)">

<style>

</style>

</head>

<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple>

<div class=Section1>

In
a message dated Nov. 4, dezreen at excite.com says:

 

" I have also found that many of my pre-or low
level literate Spanish speaking Mexican/Central American high school/adult aged
students have one of two things going against them - They either have vision
issues [...] or have learning issues or disabilities that haven't been
diagnosed or addressed."

 

I'm
curious as to how your program was able to ascertain that students were vision
impaired or learning disabled. In my program we have been looking for
tools that might assist our Office for Students with Disabilities staff in identifying
learning disabilities in non-English speakers, but have yet to find any. Thus,
we must rely on an outside professional diagnostic, and there aren't that many
around that can do it either.

 

Thanks
in advance for any help you can provide. 

 

Sincerely,

 

Marcos
Valle

International
Division, ABE ESL

Edmonds
Community College,

Lynnwood,
WA

 

</div>

</body>

</html>


_______________________________________________
Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com
The most personalized portal on the Web!

Previous message: [EnglishLanguage] Re: ESL Geography
Next message: [EnglishLanguage] Re: EnglishLanguage Digest, Vol 2, Issue 6
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]

More information about the EnglishLanguage mailing list