"How to Write When You Can't"

Cynthia and Andrew Sheehan's article was really helpful. The mother's frustration didn't surprise me; so often, when students with LD get to high school the parents are exhausted and beyond frustrated by the long battle to advocate for their children. But that's another blog. Andrew's portion on the article really put a cognitive/socio-emotional face on the challenges faced by students with dysgraphia and ADHD. Andrew shared specific strategies he uses to be successful--and the one I'm going to chose to focus on in this blog is technology.

Those who have only known me a few months--nay, those who have only known me a few days--are painfully aware of my limitations in the technological arena. Right now our building is struggling with getting the Kurzweil reader up and running. Last Friday we had a conference day; Special Ed devoted the morning to fine tuning the Kurzweil system which has nominally been in place since October. At the end of three hours, half of us teachers/TAs hadn't been able to log on: some of us had figured out how to scan things in but couldn't figure out how to get them into Kurweil form.....you get the picture.
"It's just easier to read to the kid!" I heard.
"It's not going to be good for Mark and Evan, anyway," I heard, "the computer isn't going to discuss the readings. They won't understand what they're reading."
"This is a complete waste of my time!" I heard.

What I found most interesting was this: I wasn't making those negative comments. Was I frustrated? Yep. Could I think of more productive ways to spend 3 hours? Yep. But Andrew Sheehan's article had highlighted the benefits of technology for students with learning challenges for me. Andrew has good reading comprehension; some of my students don't. This technology won't be a panacea for every student with reading challenges. Yet Andrew's comments helped me see that technology can bring the possibility of independence...the "level playing field." So, I'm all for the Kurzweil. We just have to figure out how to make it work!

Barb