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Discovering and Sharing Best Practices

Students with exceptionalities, like all other students, as well, may require supports and interventions in the area of reading comprehension. Accuracy and fluency within reading are vital, but not in isolation only. Thus, it means to say that it is not enough to simply read words correctly. If a student does not understand and/or retain the words they have read, then no real learning has occurred. Furthermore, the following slides will outline best practices for teaching reading comprehension to students with Autism, students with learning disabilities, students with intellectual disabilities, and students with emotional/behavioral disorders.

Students with Autism:

Interventions for reading comprehension:

Vocabulary instruction:

“The significance of vocabulary aligns with many studies documenting the particularly strong and important role of vocabulary in predicting reading comprehension in TD individuals and children with poor comprehension not on the autism spectrum (Chrysochoou et al. 2011; Protopapas et al. 2007; Quinn et al. 2015; Tunmer and Chapman 2012; Van Dyke et al. 2014)” (Davidson, Kaushanskaya, Ellis-Weismer, 2018, p. 3525).

Background knowledge:

“Good comprehenders use effective retrieval strategies to integrate text information and stored knowledge to bolster their [working memory] capacities. Poor comprehenders do not use effective retrieval strategies, and therefore, are limited by their WM capacities” (Davidson, Kaushanskaya, Ellis-Weismer, 2018, p. 3525).

Students with Learning Disabilities:

Interventions for reading comprehension

Rehearsal strategies:

“Rehearsal strategies like rereading or looking back in a text are associated with “surface” processing and lower levels of performance. As such, they are appropriate for tasks that require simple recall or identification of important information” (Botsas, 2017, p. 140).

Elaboration strategies:

Elaboration strategies, in turn, are associated with “deeper” processing and more sophisticated achievement, building bridges from what is already known to what will be known, mediated by prior knowledge activation. Deeper processing strategies like inferencing and summarizing help students to be actively engaged, employing more cognitive sources and effort in tasks required reading comprehension (Botsas & Padeliadou, 2003; Graesser, McNamara, & Vaulehn, 2005)” (Botsas, 2017, p. 140).

Students with Intellectual Disabilities:

Interventions for reading comprehension

Shared story reading:

“Hudson and Test (2011) discussed using shared story reading to increase ERC skills for at-risk preschoolers, kindergarten students, and students with mild intellectual disabilities. Qanwal and Karim (2014) suggested that teachers who ask students Cox-Magno et al., 2018 Journal of Educational Research and Practice 197 questions during reading can increase ERC” (Cox-Magno, Ross, Dimino, Wilson, 2018, p. 196).

Students with Emotional Behavioral Disorders:

Interventions for reading comprehension 

Direct instruction:

“The study results indicated that direct instruction and peer-tutoring are effective reading interventions for students with EBD” (Cambell, Bowman-Perrott, Burke, Sallese, 2019, p. 128).

Peer tutoring: 

“Findings of this study suggest that aspects of peer tutoring interventions such as repetition of key concepts and opportunities to respond are particularly beneficial for students in need of additional academic supports. Peer tutoring interventions are especially effective for students with EBD” (Cambell, Bowman-Perrott, Burke, Sallese, 2019, p. 124).

TLDR: Students with exceptionalities are, first and foremost, students. The exceptionalities they may possess are crucial to know and understand, as it cruciaul to know and understand every student. The interventions described are generally useful with students of that category of exceptionality. However, as with any student and any goal, what is generally recommended may not be best for that child in particular. Best practices are research-supported and known to be effective, but every teacher knows their students individually.

References

Botsas, G. (2017). Differences in strategy use in the reading comprehension of narrative and science texts among students with and without learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities -- A Contemporary Journal, 15(1), 139–162. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=eue&AN=123019084&site=eds-live&scope=siteCampbell, A. R., Bowman-Perrott, L., Burke, M. D., & Sallese, M. R. (2019). Reading, writing, math, and content-area interventions for improving behavioral and academic outcomes of students With emotional and behavioral disorders. Insights on Learning Disabilities, 16(2), 119–138. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=eue&AN=136958676&site=eds-live&scope=siteCox-Magno, N. N. co., Ross, P., Dimino, K., & Wilson, A. (2018). Metacognitive R\reading strategy and emerging reading comprehension in students With intellectual disabilities. Journal of Educational Research & Practice, 8(1), 195–209. https://doi.org/10.5590/JERAP.2018.08.1.014Davidson, M. M., Kaushanskaya, M., & Ellis Weismer, S. (2018). Reading comprehension in children with and without ASD: the role of word reading, oral language, and working memory. Journal Of Autism And Developmental Disorders, 48(10), 3524–3541. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3617-7