Empowering All Learners: The Science of Reading and Interactive Read-Alouds in Special Education Classrooms

Presenter Information

Alexandra Berglund, Georgia College & State UniversityFollow
Hiller Crook, Georgia College & State UniversityFollow

Location

Room 121

Start Date

28-2-2025 10:45 AM

End Date

28-2-2025 11:25 AM

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Alexandra Berglund, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Reading, Literacy, & Language in the John H. Lounsbury College of Education at Georgia College & State University. In her work with pre- and in-service educators, she continually advocates for the inclusion of individuals within the disability community, focusing primarily on the ways that educators inform ideologies of disability through texts, language use, and instructional practices.

Second Presenter's Brief Biography

Hiller Crook is part of the Georgia College and State University Teacher Education faculty. She received her BSEd from the University of Georgia in 1998, MAT from Piedmont College in 2001, and EdS from GCSU in 2018. She will graduate with her EdD from Georgia Southern University in the Spring of 2025. Before joining the faculty at Georgia College, she was a public-school special education teacher for twenty-one years.

Third Presenter's Brief Biography

The Junior Special Education Cohort of the John H. Lounsbury College of Education is comprised of 13 amazing future educators who have varied experiences with students with disabilities in different contexts, including elementary, middle, and high school self-contained, resource, and inclusion classrooms. They are passionate about learning innovative ways to meet their students' diverse needs and are excited about their future in special education.

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Presentation Type

Concurrent Session

Panel Discussion, Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Join us for an engaging session where we share our insights on planning and implementing interactive read-alouds grounded in the science of reading. Learn how to use this versatile approach to empower all learners through their reading skills. Collaborate, create, and leave with actionable strategies for your classroom!

Conference Strands

Content Area Reading

Description

Coined the “Swiss Army knife of instructional tools” (May et al., 2014, p. 210), interactive read-alouds are a simple, yet powerful method, of literacy and language teaching and learning. During interactive read-alouds, teachers ask key questions throughout the reading to enhance meaning making and also model how one makes sense of a text while reading (Barrentine, 1996). With interactive read-alouds, the possibilities are endless, as this method can be used to deliver content, foster vocabulary acquisition, model comprehension strategies, remediate expressive and receptive oral language skills, develop print knowledge and awareness, and promote listening comprehension (May, 2014).

Considering these possibilities in regard to foundational literacy concepts and beyond, we promote that interactive read-alouds are an innovative, but also easy-to-implement, teaching tool grounded in the science of reading. These vital skills are taught through explicit, cumulative, and frequent instruction that is grounded in the five foundational language systems: phonology, syntax, semantics, morphology, and orthography. Further, the science of reading ensures that all learners’ needs are met in developmentally appropriate, inclusive environments. When considering the needs of all learners, especially students with disabilities, instruction needs to be collaborative and interactive to provide students with the opportunity to engage with the material, promote dialogue, and ask questions, as they make meaning of texts. Further, as considered best practice for students with disabilities, dyslexia, and developmental language disorders, instruction should be direct and individualized, based on students’ particular needs. To ensure that these criteria are met, careful and intentional planning of an interactive read-aloud is especially important.

Within our university’s undergraduate special education program, pre-service teacher candidates are asked to create interactive read-aloud lessons with the key elements of science of reading and ultimately implement the lessons in their field placement classrooms, spanning grade level, content area, and special education context. After the lesson, teacher candidates are required to critically reflect on their experience with specific focus given to how the students responded to the text and lesson. As faculty, we have found that this planning, implementation, and reflection process leaves pre-service teacher candidates better prepared to implement recommended best practices in their future classrooms. Equipped with this knowledge and experience, the current cohort of preservice special education teacher candidates hope to share their own insights planning and implementing interactive read-alouds grounded in the science of reading with other educators across the state.

In this interactive session, teacher candidates will first present examples of their own lessons from a range of special education contexts, including elementary, middle, and high school self-contained, resource, and inclusion classrooms. Taking participants step-by-step through the planning process, candidates will share the narrative and informational texts they selected and model the specific and developmentally appropriate literacy strategies and supports to foster phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension they used. Then, participants will be guided through the process of creating their own interactive read-aloud lessons. Texts, manipulatives, and other supports will be provided, as we all collaborate to create interactive read-alouds that empower all learners.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.