| Benchmark – Language Disabilities and Assistive Technology Mini-Unit Plan |
Teachers consider many factors when developing unit plans to meet the needs of a variety of students. It is important to consider the strengths and needed accommodations of students in the classroom when developing lessons and units. If there are students with specific language impairments, the teacher must also consider ways to facilitate communication and engagement during classroom instruction. There will be a need to pre-teach vocabulary and plan questions that can be answered by students throughout the unit.
Read the following case study to inform the assignment:
Case Study: April
Grade: 4th
Age: 9
April is a fourth grader with a language impairment, but no physical impairment. Her performance on norm-referenced measures is 1.5 standard deviations below the mean for her chronological age. April has good decoding skills, but has difficulty with reading comprehension, semantics, and morphological processing. One accommodation that is prescribed in the IEP is the use of visual cues to support comprehension when learning new skills. She lacks organizational skills for writing and struggles with word choice. She receives services from a speech and language pathologist who is working with her on understanding word parts, vocabulary, and multiple meanings of words. You instruct April in a resource classroom with five other fourth grade students who also struggle with reading and written expression.
Communication goals in IEP:
· April will identify at least five key content vocabulary words from an assigned reading using text with Mayer-Johnson symbols in Proloquo2go software and text to speech software with 90% accuracy over 10 consecutive trials.
· April will write a definition for up to five key content vocabulary words from an assigned reading with 90% accuracy on a rubric over 10 consecutive trials.
· April will use up to five key content vocabulary words in written sentences that use the word correctly in context, and include correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar with 90% accuracy over 10 consecutive trials.