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Monday, March 26, 2012

Guided Reading for Students with Autism

For this week, I focused my efforts on finding articles about using Guided Reading in the field of Special Education.  I came across an article titled "Using Guided Reading with Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders," which explained how Guided Reading groups could help students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) be exposed to a larger variety of reading materials and to take a more active role in learning to read.  In the article, students with ASD are placed into guided reading groups, based on their skill levels, which were determined through several forms of assessment.  By being in small groups, students receive more one-on-one instruction and teachers are able to tailor activities to each student's particular needs.  Lower achieving students can benefit from observing higher achieving students, and the higher achieving students solidify their skills by helping to explain concepts to the lower achieving students.  Overall, the article said that the students with ASD have the ability to achieve 6-24 months of growth in their reading levels over a one year period, which I thought was amazing.

http://journals.cec.sped.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1429&context=tecplus

3 comments:

  1. This reminds me a lot of my article about modified guided reading. It was directed towards ELLs, but seemed to be very useful in a special education setting to me.

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  2. I agree that 6-24 months of growth in reading levels is amazing. I think that with studies like this it proves that guided reading should be used more in special education classrooms. I think that we focus more on disabilities sometimes than the students abilities. This shows that even though a student has autism, they still have incredible educational abilities.

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  3. I think it's really amazing also that students with ASD have the ability to achieve 6-24 months of growth in their reading levels over a one year period. I think guided reading is beneficial to all students including special education.

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