More Language Arts, Math, and Science for Students with Severe Disabilities

edited by Diane Browder, Ph.D. and Fred Spooner, Ph.D.
University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Contents

I Greater Access to General Curriculum

1 More Content, More Learning, More Inclusion Diane M. Browder and Fred Spooner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Embedded Instruction in Inclusive Settings John McDonnell, J. Mathew Jameson, Timothy Riesen, and Shamby Polychronis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3 Common Core State Standards Primer for Special Educators Shawnee Y. Wakeman and Angel Lee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

II Teaching Common Core Language Arts

4 Passage Comprehension and Read-Alouds Leah Wood, Diane M. Browder, and Maryann Mraz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5 Reading for Students Who Are Nonverbal Lynn Ahlgrim-Delzell, Pamela J. Mims, and Jean Vintinner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
6 Comprehensive Beginning Reading Jill Allor, Stephanie Al Otaiba, Miriam Ortiz, and Jessica Folsom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7 Teaching Written Expression to Students with Moderate to Severe Disabilities Robert Pennington and Monica Delano. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

III Teaching Common Core Mathematics and Teaching Science

8 Beginning Numeracy Skills Alicia F. Saunders, Ya-yu Lo, and Drew Polly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
9 Teaching Grade-Aligned Math Skills Julie L. Thompson, Keri S. Bethune, Charles L. Wood, and David K. Pugalee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 10 Science as Inquiry Bree A. Jimenez and Heidi B. Carlone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
11 Teaching Science Concepts Fred Spooner, Bethany R. McKissick, Victoria Knight, and Ryan Walker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

IV Alignment of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

12 The Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Pieces of the Student Achievement Puzzle Rachel Quenemoen, Claudia Flowers, and Ellen Forte. . . . . . . 237
13 Promoting Learning in General Education for All Students Cheryl M. Jorgensen, Jennifer Fischer-Mueller, and Holly Prud’homme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
14 What We Know and Need to Know About Teaching Academic Skills Fred Spooner and Diane M. Browder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

About the Editors

Diane M. Browder, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Special Education and Child Development, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 9201 University City Boulevard, Charlotte, NC 28223

Dr. Browder is the Lake and Edward P. Snyder Distinguished Professor of Special Education and has over two decades of research and writing on assessment and instruction for students with severe developmental disabilities.

Fred Spooner, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Special Education and Child Development, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 9201 University City Boulevard, Charlotte, NC 28223

Dr. Spooner is Principal Investigator on a personnel preparation project involving distance delivery technologies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Co-principal Investigator on a U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Project to teach students with moderate and severe intellectual disability to solve mathematical problems.

CHAPTER 3

Common Core State Standards Primer for Special Educators

Shawnee Y. Wakeman and Angel Lee

Sara has been provided the links to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS; National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) by her administrator. She has listened to her general education counterparts discuss the changes from the existing state standards to the CCSS. She feels overwhelmed as she navigates how to address this content with her students with moderate and severe disabilities.
Many teachers of students with significant cognitive disabilities are still searching for resources that will help them adapt instruction that aligns with the CCSS.

Although the CCSS are relatively new, having to use state content standards to plan instruction is not new for most teachers of students with moderate and severe disabilities.
Research has shown that curriculum for students with significant cognitive disabilities has shifted to include academics in the instructional targets for this population.
Research literature reviews of academic content instruction with students have identified shifts beyond functional academic skills to content more typical of general education state standards.

STATE CONTENT STANDARDS

Prior to the development of the CCSS, every state in the nation had either required or suggested standards for teachers to use to design instruction.
Researchers have looked into how well these early attempts of extending content aligned with the original standards and found mixed outcomes. States have also begun to create extensions for the CCSS, recognizing the need for alignment to grade-level standards for students participating in alternative assessments.

LEARNING PROGRESSIONS

Learning progressions have been hypothesized about how students learn the content, focusing on what students should master en route to achieving broader curricular goals. The development of learning maps designed specifically for students who participate in alternate assessments illustrates pathways for reaching curricular goals.

PURPOSE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS

The CCSS were created to ensure all students, including those with intellectual disabilities, are college and career ready. Teachers are encouraged to use the CCSS as a primary resource to design instruction, driving effective practice and aligning educational goals across states.

Learning Progressions

1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
4. Model with mathematics.
5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
6. Attend to precision.
7. Look for and make use of structure.
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.