13
Support Materials for Students with Special Education Needs
English K–6
Case Studies
Case study 1
Learning experiences and assessment opportunities for guided practice
(cont)
Learning experiences and assessment opportunities
Shared reading
The teacher reads
Koala Lou
to the class. She asks one
student to retell the story. The teacher repeats or rephrases
what the student says using temporal language. The teacher
guides the students to identify where each narrative stage
(orientation, complication, resolution) starts and finishes.
The teacher re-reads the text in chunks, stopping at key points.
The teacher uses visualising strategies to elicit descriptions of
the setting, eg ‘Close your eyes. Pretend you are Koala Lou
walking down the track. What can you see when you look
up? What can you see ahead of you? What do you feel under
your paws? How do you feel? Where is the sun coming from?’
The teacher focuses on specific language targets and
highlights particular features of the text for students in
each tier (see examples below).
Note:
The examples are not designed to occur in one
session but show how the teacher may reflect on target
language or text features according to the stage of
learning for students in each tier.
Examples
Adjustments for Isabella
The teacher:
• emphasises key words when reading
• pauses for a sufficient period after each
sentence to assist with processing
• adds gestures to key words, where appropriate
to assist with meaning, for example
– positional gestures for prepositions,
eg up, under, down
– descriptive gestures for attributes
– representational gestures for objects,
animals, or action
– emotional gestures for feelings
• provides opportunities for Isabella to retell
parts of the story and assists her to use
temporal terms, eg using sentence starters
‘First _________’ etc.
• provides sentence starters to assist Isabella
to comment, eg ‘I can see ___________.’,
‘I feel ___________.’
• monitors Isabella’s comprehension of
what
,
where
questions
• adds positional gestures when repeating and or
rephrasing student’s descriptions, eg ‘So, you
look up
(points up)
and you can see …’
• monitors Isabella’s comprehension and use
of prepositions, eg ‘under’
Tier 1
•
verb forms that tell when (past, present)
,
for example jogged/jog, puffed/puff, lifted/
lift, panted/pant, was/is
Tier 2
• supporting students to use inference and draw
on personal experiences,
for example to:
– identify how the characters felt at different
times through the text
– explore how they responded to situations
Tier 3
• the way the author uses quoted speech
• supporting students to use inference and
draw on personal experiences
