Strategies and Technologies to Enhance Language Development and Communication Skills

Teachers consider many factors when developing unit plans to meet the needs of a variety of students. It is important to consider the strengths and needed accommodations of students in the classroom when developing lessons and units. If there are students with specific language impairments, the teacher must also consider ways to facilitate communication and engagement during classroom instruction. There will be a need to pre-teach vocabulary and plan questions that can be answered by students throughout the unit.
Read the following case study to inform the assignment:
Case Study: April
Grade: 4th
Age: 9
April is a fourth grader with a language impairment, but no physical impairment. Her performance on norm-referenced measures is 1.5 standard deviations below the mean for her chronological age. April has good decoding skills, but has difficulty with reading comprehension, semantics, and morphological processing. One accommodation that is prescribed in the IEP is the use of visual cues to support comprehension when learning new skills. She lacks organizational skills for writing and struggles with word choice. She receives services from a speech and language pathologist who is working with her on understanding word parts, vocabulary, and multiple meanings of words. You instruct April in a resource classroom with five other fourth grade students who also struggle with reading and written expression.
Communication goals in IEP:
April will identify at least five key content vocabulary words from an assigned reading using text with Mayer-Johnson symbols in Proloquo2go software and text to speech software with 90% accuracy over 10 consecutive trials.
April will write a definition for up to five key content vocabulary words from an assigned reading with 90% accuracy on a rubric over 10 consecutive trials.
April will use up to five key content vocabulary words in written sentences that use the word correctly in context, and include correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar with 90% accuracy over 10 consecutive trials.
Part 1: 3 Day Unit Plan
Use the “3 Day Unit Plan Template” located on the College Education site in the Student Success Center to complete this assignment.
Create an English language arts (ELA) unit plan for your resource classroom based on Arizona or your state’s ELA fourth grade literacy standards specific to vocabulary acquisition and use. Include the following in the unit plan:
Strategies to enhance students’ language development and communication skills in the Multiple Means of Representation section.
Strategies and technologies that encourage student engagement and the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills in the Multiple Means of Engagement section.
Using details from the case study, address April’s needs in the Differentiation sections of the Multiple Means of Representation, Multiple Means of Engagement, and Multiple Means of Expression.
Specifically, incorporate the following into the unit plan to meet April’s needs:
The use of the AAC systems and assistive technologies planned in April’s goal to support her communication and learning.
Differentiated formative and summative assessments that measure April’s progress on the IEP goals in Part 1.
Part 2: Rationale
Provide a 250-500 word rationale that explains:
Why the instructional choices specifically meet April’s needs.
How the selected augmentative and alternative communication systems assistive technology used in the lesson plan is appropriate for meeting April’s needs.
Support your work with 2-3 scholarly resources.