Using Symbols to Make Meaning: Functional Literacy for Students with Additional Needs

Abstract

This chapter describes the design and validation of an observation survey of skills that students build as they learn how to make meaning using symbols, including pictures and the components and conventions of written text, as well as trials of the survey by teachers of students with diverse additional needs, development of learning progressions to support teachers’ instructional planning, and work with teachers to identify teaching strategies targeted to each level on the progressions. As with each of the SWANs studies, the work of school leaders with their students, family members, teachers and, in this case, literacy learning specialists guided the research and ensured it met legislated requirements for equitable provision of learning opportunities and respected the aspirations that families held for their children. This research into the assessment and teaching of functional literacy skills for students with additional needs took place concurrently with the research into communication skills described in Chap. 2 (see also Woods K, The design and validation of measures of communication and literacy to support the instruction of students with learning disabilities. Doctoral thesis, The University of Melbourne, Australia, 2010, Woods K, Griffin P, Assess Educ Princ Policy Pract 20(3):325–348, 2013). The studies described here stretched over a period of almost 10 years.