During the weekend of April 16 and 17, Laubach held its annual general meeting in Woody Point. Reports from participants state the group of nine volunteers did an outstanding job. They enjoyed both the workshops and the fellowship. My congratulations go to them for their efforts. Laubach Literacy volunteers have done and continue to do invaluable work for the literacy community.

I spoke to Kenneth Faulkner, one of the students who attended the workshop. He stated with enthusiasm about being invited to speak at the opening of the Atlantic Regional Laubach Conference to be held in Gander next year. Wow! It is opportunities like this that help students appreciate and understand their own progress. Once again, Hats Off to Laubach for not only assisting Kenneth, but equally as important, providing him with new opportunities for growth in the future.

Instruction for Learning Disabled Adults and Children

by Dr. William T. Fagan

Teachers, on a daily basis, must cope with children who have learning disabilities. Every year more and more children are being classified as learning disabled. According to the United States Office of Education, learning disabled children make up almost 50 percent of all placements in special education. There is no reason to believe the numbers are different in Canada. Unless children with learning disabilities get special help, they eventually leave school having attained little success. As adults, they may return to a literacy or adult education upgrading program only to have the same difficulties in learning that they experienced as children. A key question is: "Which kind of instruction is best for children and adults with learning disabilities?" A study by H. Lee Swanson and Maureen Hoskyn from the University of California at Riverside, California, attempted to answer this question.

In order to do this they identified 180 research studies that were completed between 1972 and 1997. Each study described at least two instructional methods that had been used with learning disabled children or adults. Any studies that had been completed in Canada during that time period were included. They used as their definition of learning disability, a difference between a person's intelligence and his/her achievement in one or more academic areas. The person may also have had social or related behaviour problems. The authors analyzed the 180 studies for a range of information. They looked at such things as the type of instruction, the kinds of measures that were used to measure success, the nature of the gains that were made.

Nature of Instruction

Swanson and Hoskyn identified four types of instruction that the learning disabled children and adults had experienced. These four types are described below.

Direct instructional approach. As the title suggests, the focus here is on the teacher providing face-to-face instruction that is directed to learning particular skills or material. The teacher clearly states the objective of what is to be learned, guides the students in what they have to do, presents material in sequence, proceeds at a fairly fast pace, allows them time to try things on their own, builds in review and practice, and continually evaluates how things are progressing. The instruction usually focuses on what are referred to as lower-order skills in reading and writing, such as developing knowledge of sound-symbol associations, word knowledge, spelling, answering specific questions, etc.

Strategy approach. The strategy approach is similar in some ways to the direct instruction approach. The teacher (or in case of adults, the instructor/facilitator) is directly involved with the students. In this approach, the emphasis is to provide the children or adults with strategies, steps, or procedures for working on their own. The goal is to show the students "how they can do it", rather than just having the new information.

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