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Frequently
Asked Questions
Q:
Why do students with learning disabilities have trouble comprehending
text?
A:
There are many views on why students with disabilities struggle
with reading comprehension. A widely accepted view is that poor
performance in reading comprehension is attributed to the student's
failure to read strategically and monitor their own understanding
of what they read.
Q:
What are the best approaches to take for enhancing
reading comprehension with students with disabilities?
A:
It is clear that students with learning disabilities should be
taught as many strategies and methods as possible for improving
reading comprehension. For students with low incidence disabilities,
there tend to be more specific strategy recommendations for use
with students of particular disabilities. For instance, it is
recommended that Classwide Peer Tutoring and other interventions
involving cooperative learning and peer tutoring be used for students
with developmental disabilities, while metacognitive
strategies be used with hearing impaired students.
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Q:
What are the similarities and differences between direct
instruction and strategy instruction?
A:
Both models include daily reviews, statements of an instructional
objective, teacher presentations of new materials, guided practice,
independent practice, and formative evaluation. Both follow a
sequence of events and involve the presentation of information
through a step-by-step progression from subtopic to subtopic and
use examples, demonstrations, and visual prompts to convey instructional
material. Differences are generally in the area of the kinds of
information the models aim to teach. Strategy
instruction focuses on more top-down procedures, teaching
the rules and reasons for using certain learning tactics. Direct
instruction focuses on more bottom-up procedures, breaking
skills into parts and teaching students subskills needed to accomplish
certain tasks.
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