Marissa Okamoto Discussion Week 3 Inclusion is such an important part of education and is very beneficial

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Marissa Okamoto Discussion Week 3 Inclusion is such an important part of education and is very beneficial. In my classroom I say that each student is a friend and that we treat each friend with the same respect and kindness. For me this lets all of my students know that they are all equals no matter what. After reading this weeks chapter, "Including Everyone A Model Preschool Program for Children with and without Disabilities" and looking at the table on page 102, I would consider my school a "early childhood setting with consultant services" facility. The text stated that this is "A typical early childhood class where specialists (special educator and therapists) visit to support staff and provide direct services to students with disabilities" (p.102). This is exactly what happens at my school, the students who need services will have therapists come in and work with them throughout the day. They can also sometimes work with some of the other children. I think this is also beneficial because the children who may not need the services can understand what their friend might be doing and not just be confused. Inclusion in general is so benefical for student who may have a disabilities and those who may not. We tend to use the words "normal" and "not normal" when it comes to this, when in reality every child is normal, some just might need more help than others. Amity Boyce Week 3 Inclusion is an essential aspect of the development of a child with disabilities. List a few other reasons you feel inclusion can be beneficial to both a child with disabilities and their peers? When you open your classroom door for a new school year, you’ll be welcoming preschoolers with a variety of experiences, strengths, and challenges. For some children, this will be their first time in a classroom, and they may struggle to follow routines and grasp concepts. Others will arrive having a lot of experience with books and language, and some may be dual language learners. A few children in your new class might have disabilities or developmental delays that impact their learning, social skills, or behavior. This is why having an inclusive classroom can have benefits for everyone. The social advantages are one of the most obvious advantages of inclusion in special education is the fact that students with disabilities can be integrated socially with their peers. The academic benefit for students with disabilities can also benefit academically everyone in an inclusion setting. Of all the benefits of inclusion, this one is perhaps most astounding, peer help to teach the children with special needs and become these amazing little peer models who meet the need of the classroom and help the teachers. I love watching the interactions between peers and IEP students because I see it as a worldwide learning experience that is going to stay with them forever! Children learn as much from other children as they do from teachers (Guralnick, Connor, Hammond, Gottman, & Kinnish, 1996). They model how their peers move through routines, how they follow directions, and how they interact with one another. Often a child who has receptive language problems and does not understand the teacher’s verbal instructions imitates other children to know what to do. Developing language and appropriate social skills requires both models and practice (Cavallaro & Haney, 1999; Grisham-Brown, Hemmeter, & PrettiFrontczak, 2005; Guralnick,Roopnarine, Jaipaul; Johnson, James E.. Approaches to Early Childhood Education (2-downloads) (p. 104). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition. One reason inclusion can be difficult is if a child is in need of more one-to-one assistance and discreet trial learning, as well as more intense schedule following and meeting of the special needs students outside resources such as OT, PT, SPL, or any other services. Depending on the severity of the students needs, the set up in my classroom this year is called sub separate. Where some days we have peers and somedays we don’t where we can work much more intensely with the students who require it. Diane Zona Week 3 There are many benefits of inclusion to both a child with disabilities and their peers. Children learn how to accept people different from themselves. Social skills is one of the benefits. When the students are placed in an environment with peers they, "model how their peers move through routines," (Barnes and Smukler, pg 102). Children who have language needs learn how to talk and interact from their peers in typical classrooms. The children can then take their new acquired social skills and apply them to every day life, for example, home, school, or community. Technology is a tool that contributes to the benefit of inclusion. Through the use of computers, students with disabilities and their peers can increase their attention span and learn problem solving skills. Non-verbal children can also use a computer to communicate with peers through keyboards and voice-output equipment, (Johnston, Beard, and Carpenter, 2006, pg 107). Another benefit is the transition from preschool to kindergarten. The students with disabilities and their peers have had the opportunity to integrate. They have been exposed to different learning modalities and learn to adapt to a flexible curriculum. At this stage some children's exposure to others with disabilities may be minimal. Roopnarine, Jaipaul L., and James E. Johnson. Approaches to Early Childhood Education. Pearson, 2013. My discussion post: Week 3 Including Everyone Including Everyone Inclusion has numerous benefits, not only for the learners with special needs but also for all the students. The Department of Education emphasises including children with disabilities and those without disabilities in the same classrooms and other learning activities. Inclusion is beneficial because it allows learners to learn acceptance of their peers. Learners also learn the uniqueness of each one of them. These two skills help them interact well with other people and see the importance of their colleagues at work, family, and friends in adulthood. Inclusion provides children with disabilities equal opportunities to engage in the same learning activities and programs as general education learners. Children learn essential qualities of life such as friendship skills, positive self-image, respect for others, peer models, and problemsolving skills. Learning these skills trickles down to children at all levels, their peers, and their families. It teaches families and parents to be more accepting of uniqueness and differences (Barnes & Smukler, 2013). More so, inclusion encourages good communication with children’s families by creating consistency between school and home since family members are the learner’s first teachers and know the kid best. Coordinating home and school to work together by creating a partnership with families is essential because it helps students attain their developmental potential. Inclusion brings students with different abilities, qualities, skills, and understanding together, creating diversity that helps to enrich lives. Students from different cultures and classes with differing potentials share classrooms, impacting each other to experience biodiversity. Classrooms do not become factories to produce ignorant, dull, and underdeveloped children (Barnes & Smukler, 2013). Teachers enjoy teaching and learn the virtue to appreciate every learner, their culture, and background. As a teacher, you find yourself diving deeply into getting interested in teaching children with different abilities, qualities, and potentials because they all don’t act and look the same. Inclusion encourages learners to achieve more because, in such a setting, parents and teachers have greater expectations for them. For instance, parents and teachers expect a child with a slow learning potential to improve when placed among students with higher learning potentials (Barnes & Smukler, 2013). There is a higher chance that the learner will raise his learning potential due to the influence of her peers. Research shows that students’ achievements go up when more is expected of them. Inclusion breaks stigmatization. Through interaction, the differences between students with and without disabilities become less ‘different.’ Learners gradually become more accommodative, kind, and loving to those with differences. They start to view other learners from the perspective of positivity (Barnes & Smukler, 2013). For example, peers learn that despite being blind, their classmate is a talented pianist. They begin to look at the student as a future great pianist and not a poor blind child. When integrated into a diversified classroom, such a learner brings new strength. Other learners build interests in learning how to play the piano offering the blind child opportunities to showcase his talent, help others, and interact with other learners better. When taken positively, inclusion is good because it has numerous benefits to all parties involved. It enhances children’s development while making teachers, parents, families, and society accept their differences and uniqueness. It also reduces stigmatisation. Reference Barnes, E. & Smukler, D. (2013) Including Everyone A Model Preschool Program for Children with and without Disabilities. In J. Roopnarine & J. Johnson (Eds.), Approaches to Early Childhood Education. 6th ed. (pp 99-122). New Jersey: Pearson. Respond to this reply to my discussion: Hi, Yes, I agree it is crucial to have a good relationship with your student’s parents or guardians. It is essential to be able to communicate what is going on with a child. If they were having a difficult morning, it’s nice to know that and that could be why they are not getting right on task and may need a few extra minutes to themselves. Or why they have not been able to focus on the assignment. I agree that inclusion can help when a child does not understand something and is placed with their peers. I feel it builds self-confidence in both children. What is another example of how inclusion can be beneficial for non-disabled students? Jess