Many students with developmental delays are placed in classes that they are not proficient of succeeding in. The article I chose deals with reading techniques that are used to help adolescents who deals with developmental delay. It addresses the literacy requirements of students with delays and how to meet their exact education needs. Literacy skills are one of the most important necessities of our everyday life. Developing literacy skills, therefore, empowers individuals with disabilities or developmental delays and facilitates their integration into communities (Rizopoulos, 2004). The literacy requirements of adolescents have increased dramatically from what was expected in the past and in elementary school; however, the skills of students are not aligned with the requirements of secondary school education. (Rizopoulos, 2004).
Two approaches of literacy that stuck out to me in this article was The Functional Literacy Approach and The Repeated Readings Approach. The Functional Literacy Approach focuses on developing isolated word recognition with emphasis on survival words, such as “exit, enter, danger, walk, or don’t walk” which can translate directly to the student’s home, work, or living environment (Rizopoulos, 2004). This is an important approach, because it allows the adolescent to learn the everyday words that are used in their community. According to the article, it is helpful for students to be taken on community trips, where they have the chance to generalize these skills to everyday situations (Rizopoulos, 2004).
Another literacy strategy used with students with mild developmental delays is called “Repeated Readings”, which students practice reading passages, rather than isolated words (Rizopoulos, 2004). This approach helps students to improve word recognition, memory skills and facilitates comprehension (Rizopoulos, 2004). My reading was not as good as all the other subjects, so I was always in a different reading from elementary to my sixth-grade year. One of the things that really helped me with my reading was the repeated readings. In my class we would have a daily passage that we would read. My teacher would read the passage to us and then we would read it to her. Throughout class we would read this passage over and over. At the end of the class we would have to recite the passage we read. This helped me with my reading and memorization skills.
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Literacy is very important and is one of the largest developmental delays in our society. Educators must be aware of this type of developmental delay. Many adolescents have been overlooked throughout the years of the childhood and are just being passed along grade to grade. Educators should be able to recognize that the student needs help and be able to offer different ways to fix the situation, whether it be placing the student in another class or after school tutoring.
