Speech Disorder Literature on the Whole

These texts as a whole demonstrate a positive outlook on having speech disorders. These disorders can be cured and overcame. They are good literature to be used in the classroom to get the students to be comfortable with speech disorders. They can teach about the disorder and inspire students who are dealing with these disorders. As a whole students can learn how to address the subject that some may not be familiar with and others may be very familiar because they suffer from them.

The article provides more solid information to the topic while the stories bring abstract life to the topic. Each book covers a different grade level. Each book covers a different type of speech disability. Hooway for Wodney Wat is a picture book for lower elementary school that has a main character that has sound substitutions in his gliding sounds (he pronounces his R’s as W’s). Cats got your Tongue is a picture book for upper elementary whose main character deals with selective mutism. The Silent Spillbills is a chapter book for adolescents whose main character suffers from a stutter of her S’s. These books cover a wide range of speech disorders for a wide range of students.

The Prevalence of Stuttering, Voice, and Speech-Sound Disorders in Primary School Students in Australia

This compilation of authors studied the prevalence of speech disorders based upon grade level, gender and socio economic status. They also look at the amount of support and help for those students in each of those areas. David H. McKinnon, Sharynne McLeod and Sheena Reilly found some unexpected results after their research. These Australian students were studies in a four stage process. These stages include: training in the data collection process, teacher identification, confirmation by a speech-language pathologist and consultation with district special needs advisors. They found that speech disorders were more prevalent in males than females. As grade level increased, the prevalence of speech disorders decreased. Students who were identified with a speech disorder were more likely to be in the higher socioeconomic groups.

This article gives great background knowledge to how the topic affects our youth. It is more prevalent than we know and the issues should be addressed. There is a lack of support in the public school systems for students with speech disabilities. The authors do a good job of studying the issues and bringing them to light. This can be used as a basis for the study of literature that deals with speech disorder plots and characters. It can also be used in figuring out what kind of literature and speech therapy needs to be used in what kinds of classes. The different demographic will help teachers decide this.

The Silent Spillbills

Katerina is starting the seventh grade. She’s a confident girl but there one thing that she’s insecure about. Katerina stutters her S’s. Her neighbor Paul is not any help in the manner. He’s been teasing her since she was little. The only thing that gets her mind off of it is rowing through the wetlands with her grandfather and sighting birds. But once her grandfather threatens to kill her favorite bird she must use her voice in the community and take a stand. She overcomes her fear of stuttering in public with the help of an unexpected friend.

Tor Seidler does an excellent job at giving hope to those who stutter in his novel The Silent Spillbills. This book will inspire leadership in even the shyest students. They will be encouraged to overcome the fears of public speaking. They will learn to speak their mind in the most public spaces. It encourages students not to focus on how their voice sounds but more on what their thoughts are saying. Many people suffer from many types of stuttering. This can be used to introduce the topic of stuttering and speech disabilities.
Seidler, Tor. The Silent Spillbills. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 1998.

Cats got Your Tongue

Young Anna is just about to start kindergarten but she is very shy. As the first day of school approaches Anna decides to stop talking. She doesn’t talk to her classmates. She doesn’t talk to her teacher. She barely talks at home even. Her lack of speech hinders her progression in class. The teacher offers her help through speech therapy. With the help of her family, her teacher, her therapist, and her classmates Anna is able to overcome her fear of speaking at school.

Selective mutism is the refusal to speak in certain places or at certain times. Those who suffer from selective mutism choose when they will and will not speak. This condition is more common than most of us know in elementary schools. Students experience selective mutism for many reasons including shyness, anger, and sadness. This book can be used to introduce the topic and encourage those who experience selective mutism to speak in class. It can be used as an introduction to dealing with emotions and learning to speak in class with confidence.

This picture book by Dr. Charles E. Schaefer, illustrations by Judith Friedman, is a positive portrayal of those who suffer from selective mutism in their book Cats got Your Tongue. It is encouraging because it depicts a young child overcoming the condition. Anna is a character that many elementary students can relate too. It is good for them to know that they too can overcome their selective mutism.
Schaefer, Charles E. Cats got Your Tongue. Washington D.C.: Magination Press, 1992.

Hooway for Wodney Wat

Hooway for Wodney Wat is an encouraging picture book about a young rodent who has trouble pronouncing his R’s. He is consistently teased by his peers. The classroom is suddenly turned upside down by the arrival of a new student, a bully student. After being named to leader of Simon says Wodney Wat is able to get all of his peers on his side with the use of his unique voice inflection as he drives the bully away.

Hooway for Wodney Wat is a positive portrayal of those with speech disabilities. It gives hope to young readers who may be facing some of the same issues. Helen Lester is able to pull the reader in with charming humor and keep them in until the last sentence with Wodney Wat’s story. Lynn Munsinger does a great job at capturing the smallest details to express the biggest emotions in her illustrations. This heartwarming tale will inspire students in many different ways. It is a great way to introduce a topic that may be touchy to young students but positively arouses discussion about issues that many people go through at a young age.
Lester, Helen. Hooway for Wodney Wat. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.

Literature Counts...

In my TE 401 class I recently had to teach a lesson on Thanksgiving. I had a general idea of what I wanted to do. Since I would be teaching 1st graders I decided to first brainstorm with them about the holiday. Then i would read them some literature on the holiday. After the story was over i would recap on what they learned and do a creative project that involves making Thanksgiving turkeys that describe what the students are thankful for. Simple enough? Not really. I begin by look for a book that tells the story of Thanksgiving for 1st graders. This was not an easy task. Many of the books that I found at our countries most popular book stores were not telling of the Thanksgiving story. They were more like "Jane Doe had a horrible Thanksgiving". That was just the first problem

After an intensive search I found one book that told the story of Thanksgiving. After reading the story it did not seem to be for the 1st grade level but at that time I had no choice. So I bought the book. That day I began reading the story with a few tweaks that I thought would make it go smoothly. The story took longer than I expected and by the time I was done I had lost the attention of all the students on the carpet. When it was time to recap the story they couldn't even tell me some of the main points in the story. The literature had lost them.

So the moral of the story is that LITERATURE COUNTS! The choice of literature is very important in teaching a lesson. You have to think of the grade level, the content of the book, and whether or not the students will be interested. Well I have definitely learn my lesson...no pun intended.

DAN 420

For all of you education majors here is a class you may want to look into for future semesters. It is called dance 420: creative dance and learning. This is not quite a dance class as you might expect. It is more like a movement class. It is a class based on movement in educational settings. As a part of the course you will be writing lesson plans that involve movement using the michigan content standards. This is a good course to take in your earlier undergrad years simply because it exposes you to lesson planning and content standards which in the michigan state education program you dont get until the fourth year. I am taking this class right now and I wish that I had taken it last year. Either way it is still a great course to take.

For example right now for my final lesson plan I am planning a lesson on the growth of apple trees. The students begin in a seed, grow into a sapling, then finally a tree. It goes through the seasons and stages of growth. Lastly apples are picked, leaves fall, and the trees rest for winter. The students will get to act out these movements while learning how apples and apple trees grow.

There is also a course called THR 420. This is the theater version of this class. I dont know much about it but it involves teaching theater in educational settings using lesson plans. I would recommend both of these classes to education majors.

Museum Trip

I know this is a late post but I was recently reminded of our trip to the museum. during that same week I took a trip to a different museum to focus on how as a teacher I can make field trrips fun and educational. I found this correlation to be helpful in my general understnading of how to incorporate diverse groups into the curriculum. A field trip like this can be beneficial to the students in diverse school districts such as Lansing. The students can learn about the heritage of their fellow classmates or even their own. This can also be beneficial to students who are in a less diverse school district. They can learn about cultures that they dont have much contact with and develop a better understanding of different types of people.

More specifically focusing on our trip to the museum I enjoyed the mali exhibit. The pictures were very intimate and detailed. they all told of story of the lives of these teens. It gave and insight into anothe culture and showed how those in that culture live. While it showed the differences in culture more importantly I think it highlighted the similarities.

The other exhibit was very inspirational. It took a look at the lives of many Latino/a men and women. they all came from many differnt walks in life and all have achieved many high successes.

Speech disability Books

In preparation for my final project I began looking for children's books that deal with speech disabilities. Unsurprisingly I didn’t find many. Also I am finding it hard to figure out which books portray the disability in a good light and which portray it in a bad light. I have been going on Amazon. com to search books. I read the short except front and back cover but it does not provide me with as much information as I would like. Some of the books don’t even have that short excerpt. One book that I did find is called Taking Speech Disabilities to School. I noticed that this is one of a collection of books. These books include: Taking Autism to School, Taking Deafness to School, and many more. These may be helpful in some of your final projects.

One book that I did find was Hooway for Wodney Wat. This book should be familiar with most of us but I never made the connection to speech disabilities until now. This is a good way to introduce speech disabilities to a younger audience subtlety. After searching a little harder and a little longer I began to find a lot of useful books for my final project. I am excited to begin working on this....now I just have to figure out how I’m going to get a hold of all these books. Wish me luck!

Schneider Family Book Award

-Recognizes an author or illustrator’s book that shows a protagonist or secondary main character that’s dealing with an emotional, mental or physical disability. The disability may not be stereotypical, overbearing or pitiable. The character should be shown to live a full life in a realistic fashion.

-There are three categories for the award. Three different books receive the award each year. The first is for age 0-8, the second 9-13 and the third 14-18.

-The sponsor is Dr. Katherine Schneider. She came up with the award after struggling to find books in order to read when she was younger because she is blind. The award is given by the American Library Association (ALA) annually to three different books. The committee is made up of seven ALA members who all have various expertise, but with common experience and knowledge of what it is to live with a disability.

-The books must emphasize the artistic expression of the disability experience for children and/or adolescents.

-2008 winners:
(0-8) Kami and the Yaks by Andrea Stenn Stryer- Deafness
(9-13) Reaching for the Sun by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer- Cerebral Palsy
(14-18) Hurt Go Happy by Ginny Rorby- Deafness

-Official website: www.ala.org/ala/awardsgrants/awardsrecords/schneideraward/schneiderfamily.cfm

Field Findings

So as many of us in this class are I have been doing field work in some of my other TE classes. I think this is a great opportunity to be observant in the classroom about what literature is used in the classroom and how it is used. I was pleasently surprised to find that there was a good amount of multi cultural texts in the class and school library. While working with 1st graders during silent reading alot of the students ask the TE students to read them their books since they can not read it own their own. Today one of my student ask me to read him a book called "My name used to be Hussein". This is a book about a muslim family who is forced to take american names. I was glad to see that he had access to this kind of literature and took interest in it. Also I noticed a poster outside the door that said that from september 17 to october 18 is mexican heritage month. So in the classroom their were many picture books written in spanish and many books about latino families. In such a diverse community like Lansing I think it is important to have books that reflect the culture of each student in the classroom. I was pleasently surprised and impressed.

Insider/Outsider Debate

As far as the insider/ outsider debate goes I fall in the middle with where I stand. I always think that it is good to be an insider in writing on the topics that concern you. Insiders most of the time have a more intimate knowledge of the topic they are writting on. They are able to show in addition to tell what it is like in that certain culture. When an insdier writes about his or her own culture the reader can get a better sinceof what is is like to be apart of that culture according to that insiders experience. But this can also work in a number of ways.

One way in which there might be a problem with the insider writting about the own culture is if they were not brought up in that culture. A person with Native American hertiage but who was raise around whites would be no better of a resource than someone without that heritage. In that same repect someone who is not apart of that culture biologically but has been immersed in it or has done a substantial amount of research on that culture should be able to produce some worth while reading.

The question that I would ask about this subject would be the issues that I have brought up here. Most would assume that writers should be insiders to the subject that they are writting about but is it all that nessecary if they have done the research?

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