Teaching Strategies

     Teaching Strategies for Students Who Have Experienced Trauma



    Students who have experienced trauma or have other emotional disturbances may require extra support in the classroom. As explained in our previous posts, their experiences may have a significant impact on their learning. Research has helped to determine specific areas these students need the most support, as well as provided guidance on ways to provide intervention. The following strategies address some of the most important areas of literacy for these students. To begin with, mastering phonological awareness and fluency are foundational components in becoming fluent readers. I have included strategies in supporting these students in mastering these skills as well as promoting confidence. A reading comprehension strategy has also been included to support readers in utilizing comprehension skills. Finally, I have included two writing strategies that have been shown to help these students use their experiences and emotions as tools for developing their writing. 



    

Title of Strategy: Segmenting and Error Correction

Citation: (Garwood et al., 2020)

Literacy Component: Phonological Awareness

Objective/Expected Outcome: The student will be able to blend and segment the individual sounds in simple CVC pattern words. 

Instructional Group Size: Individual or small group

Directions:

Assessment: Teacher observation

Materials: word list









Title of Strategy: Fluency Development Lesson 

Citation: (Rasinski, 2017) (Wanzek et al., 2014)

Literacy Component: Oral reading fluency

Objective/Expected Outcome:: The student will be able to fluently read a  100-200 word text. 

Instructional Group Size: Whole group, small group, and individual  components 

Directions: 

  1. In preparation for the lesson, the teacher selects a text for the day. The text can be a passage from a story, an informational piece, a poem, or a song. The texts should be at or slightly above the students’ instructional reading level and should lend themselves to reading with good phrasing and expression. The teacher makes two copies of the text for every student and a larger display copy for group reading.

  2. The teacher introduces the display copy of the text to students and reads it to the students two or three times while students follow along silently. The teacher can read the text with various forms of expression or lack of expression.

  3.  The teacher then leads the students in a brief discussion of the text and the nature of the teacher’s oral reading.

  4.  Next, the teacher and students read the display copy of the text two or three times chorally. The choral readings can change from the whole group reading the text to different subgroups reading the passage.

  5. Following the choral reading, students are divided into groups of two or three, given their individual copies of the text, and allowed about five minutes to practice the text in their groups. One student reads the passage while his or her partner(s) follow along silently, provide help as needed, and give positive feedback. Each student is given the opportunity to practice in this manner.

  6.  At this point, students are able to read the text with some degree of fluency. To make the FDL an authentic activity, students are invited to perform their text for an audience. 

  7. At the end of the performance, the teacher and students select 5–10 words from the passage and engage in quick word study activities. These can include finding other words that contain a selected rime or word family from the passage, sorting the corpus of words in various ways, examining the morphological nature of certain words, and playing word games. The formal FDL ends with the word study.

  8. The FDL continues at home. Students take their second copy of the passage and are encouraged to read it to family members at home a select number of times, usually five or more.

  9.  A new FDL is implemented the following day with a new text. However, before beginning to read the new text, the teacher leads students in reading and celebrating their mastery of texts from previous days.

Assessment: Teacher observation

Materials: 2 copies per student- grade level text (100-200 words)



The following video is a presentation by Dr. Timothy Rasinski, the author of the article mentioned above. The video is lengthy, however at the 2:00 mark, he has the audience participate in a fluency exercise.









Title of Strategy: Story Mapping

Citation: (Cooper & Jacobs, 2011)

Literacy Component: Comprehension

Objective/Expected Outcome: The student will be able to identify the elements in a narrative story. 

Instructional Group Size: Small Group

Directions:

  1. Read a grade level text together in a small group. This should include prereading and predicting strategies as well. 

  2. Reread the story together, stopping to monitor comprehension and model think-aloud. Focus questioning on the elements of the story. 

  3. WIth guided support, have students fill out the story map of the story elements. 

  4. When done, have students give a verbal summary of the story including all elements from the story map. 


Assessment: Teacher observation, graphic organizer

Materials: Grade level narrative text, story map graphic organizer (example below)













Title of Strategy: Personal Narrative 

Citation: (Dutro, 2013)

Literacy Component: Narrative Writing 

Objective/Expected Outcome: The student will be able to compose a narrative in which characters, setting, and plot are established. 

Directions

  1. Teacher will do a class read-aloud of Visiting Day by Jacqueline Woodson. 

  2. Class discussion of the story about difficult/sad times and emotions involved

  3. Introduce the assignment of writing a narrative about a sad/difficult time in student’s own life.

  4. Teacher will write a model answering the prompt. While writing, the teacher will model think-alouds explaining choices in writing and ask for feedback and suggestions from students. 

  5. Students will write a narrative independently answering the prompt. 

Instructional Group Size: Whole group

Assessment: Rubric

Materials: Visiting Day by Jacqueline Woodson










Title of Strategy: Persuasive Quick Writes

Citation: (Cramer & Mason, 2014)

Literacy Component: Writing

Objective/Expected Outcome: The student will be able to identify the different components of a persuasive writing response. 

Directions:There are 5 sequenced lessons for this strategy. I am including just the first one here. Please visit the article to see the next 4 lessons that lead to independent practice. 


  1. The purpose of lesson one is to develop the students’ background knowledge and introduce the POW (pick, organize, write) + TREE (topic, 3 reasons, explain, ending) strategy. Before the lesson begins, the instructor should describe and discuss the words ‘‘persuasive’’ and ‘‘writing response’’ with the student. Discuss times when the students have been asked to write a persuasive piece or a response to something. 

  2. Introduce  the POW + TREE mnemonic chart that lists all strategy steps. Each strategy step in POW + TREE was reviewed and described.

  3. The instructor and student should practice locating persuasive parts in an anchor/model persuasive response. Together, the student and instructor will determine if the writer used all parts of a persuasive response. As the student identifies persuasive essay parts, the teacher should model writing notes for each part in the appropriate section of the TREE graphic organizer. 4.

  4. The instructor should then provide examples of how to improve the essay (i.e., give more reasons, use a counter-reason, use good word choice, use an interesting first sentence, use an interesting ending sentence). 

Instructional Group Size: Whole or small group

Assessment: Teacher observation

Materials: Grade level appropriate persuasive prompt and sample, POW & TREE anchor chart 





References

Cooper P. & Jacobs, B. (2011). Evidence of best practice models and outcomes in the education of children with emotional disturbance/behavioural difficulties: An         international review. National Council for Special Education. 

Dutro, E. (2013). Towards a pedagogy of the incomprehensible: trauma and the imperative of critical witness in literacy classroom. Pedagogies: An International Journal,     8(4), 301-315. 

Garwood J.D., McKenna, J.W., & Ciullo, S. (2020). Early reading instruction with embedded behavioral supports for children with emotional and behavioral disorders.         Beyond Behavior, 29(1), 6-17. 

Mason, L.H., Kubina, R.M., Valasa, L.L., & Cramer, A.M. (2010) Evaluating effective writing instruction for adolescent students in an emotional and behavioral support         setting. Behavioral Disorders, 35(2), 140-156. 

Rasinski, T. V. (2017). Readers who struggle: Why many struggle and a modest proposal for improving their reading. Reading Teacher, 70(5), 519–524.

Wanzek, J., Otaiba, S.A., & Petscher, Y. (2014) Oral reading fluency development for children with emotional disturbance or learning disabilities. Exceptional Children,         80 (2), 187-204. 

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