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Welcome to the Project Wikispace for Greenacres School: Zulmira Muzzio (with William)

__**Our Questions and Student Background**__ Do students with special needs approach the task of locating information in the internet the same way regular ed students do? Do their reading disability continue to be an obstacle for comprehending when they read texts in the internet?

Our hypothesis is that the disability will be present no matter what media is used in order to comprehend written text. The original and broad question led us to adapt and modify our approach and hypothesis. As the classroom teacher, I started working with my students who have disabilities ranging from autism, Asperger's to learning and emotional disabilities. The students who are on the spectrum presented at first, as more computer literate than the rest of the class. I thought that their inability to stay focused on topics that did not interest them and work on something pertaining their specific area of interest ( fixating on topics or ideas such as trains, ships, disasters) would create an unsurmountable obstacle for our research. We were counting on their interest on computer games and on the feeling of being isolated from the rest of the world that they enjoy when sitting in front of the computer.

__**Observations**__ To our surprise the interest quickly disappeared when they were told what to do in terms of locating information on a topic suggested by the teacher. Their illiteracy started from basic skills such as opening a blank document in Word, copying, pasting, changing fonts, formatting,etc. We had to work on developing their skills in order to make their web navigation more smoothly. It was hard work.

We moved on after a few lessons and started to teach them that the Internet was another way for them to find information on any subject they wanted to know more about. We were beginning the unit on Explorers of the New World. A list of explorers was given to them. They had to choose a name and then start looking for information on their subject. It was very difficult for them to understand how to start. A lesson on using key words, quotation marks, plus and minus signs was taught to help them.

Another great hurdle was to formulate a question that would lead their research. We started by using the links in the Greenacres Library. It proved to be very hard for them. The amount of words and the readability of the texts proved too challenging for them. "Googling" became the second best option. By then, we had decided to narrow our students to one girl, classified as learning disabled. The others were not able to focus long enough on the topics and proved that their disability stretched to areas where our reseach reached.

__**Working with "K"**__ We are going to use the abbreviation "K" to refer to our student from now on. Prior to using the computer lab where we recorded "K"'s online reading behavior, she had the opportunity to locate simple information in order to practice using the web.

By then our class was studying Endangered Species. We had been to the Bronx Zoo twice and "K" had a reasonable amount of prior knowledge to start her research on her endangered animal. I prepared a simple guide to help her. "K" was told to formulate a question on her endangered animal. We talked about what she would like to know about the animal. Questions had to be suggested, as the area the animal lives in, what caused it to be listed as endangered, etc. "K" was not able to come up with a question that would help her locate a good site to learn from. "K" needed a lot of prompts, and cueing; the same way she needs when she reads any text. "K" decided to type in the search box the name of her animal. "K" did not remember the previous lessons when we discussed the use of key words, or quotation marks. "K" ended with an enormous number of sites to look up.

When cued to narrow her list by typing "why is the red panda endangered?", she was able to see the immediate change and how much easier it was for her to find a topic to write about. Although she had a list of sites on the screen, she did not know what to do with them. She did not remember to read the lines below to choose the best site. I helped her decide which one would have the best information on her topic. Once we clicked the site, "K" realized that the task was too challenging for her. She did not know what to do. I started reading aloud with her and highlighting 4 or 5 lines at a time to make it less challenging visually. At this point the task became so hard for "K" that she gave up. She started saying she did not understand what she needed to do and that it was too hard for her to read. The inability to inference when she reads any text, also came up when reading text in the internet. The need to click on the hyperlinks did not seem to be a priority for her. "K" tended to be looking for images to help her understand what she was reading. "K" kept saying she would rather use a picture book to work on her research project.

I was beginning to think that my hypothesis would prove wrong. "K"'s inability to comprehend text read from internet pages proved to be far more difficult that reading a book. "K" was unable to finish her project using the internet. I gave her a couple of picture books to research her endangered animal and she was able to finish her project. Needless to say that her project was simple and not more than a "copy"and "paste" series of sentences from books.

__**Concluding Thoughts**__ It became obvious to us that a lot more work has to be done in the area of the new literacies. Students with special needs do not react much differently than regular ed students; however they need the extra time, redirection and refocusing as they need in other areas or their academic life. The internet texts have too much text and the readability is too challenging for their level. It will take a lot of support from the technology team, classroom teachers and librarians to establish a new "culture" among our special ed students.

We need to encourage them to use the internet to locate simple information by using tutorials created by us. The modifications are necessary to make it accessible for them. They need to be prepared for the new generation of readers. Disabled readers learned to read books through special reading programs, so now is the time to teach disabled readers the strategies that they need to become literate in the internet. As we taught them to decode and comprehend, we need to teach them to decode and comprehend web pages. I just don't know what those strategies are yet. I have to keep on trying to see what method will reach the part of their brains that is not responding to the stimuli we have been offering so far.

__**For future study**__ In what ways can we utilize the Online Reading resources for students with special needs who are much more visually oriented than textually oriented? Are those students able to infer or develop basic facts from watching a video or series of pictures from a web site during a guided lesson? What modifications are necessary (ex. visual stimulii such as a text highlighter, modified web sites, offline reading strategies, etc.) for students of special needs to develop better online reading comprehension?