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Children with special educational needs often require assistance when it comes to
reading and writing, particularly in the realm of story-telling. Christine de Graft-
Hanson, a consultant for SEMERC, explains how digital media can open up the world
of story-telling to non-readers and non-writers alike.
The art of storytelling has evolved far from its origins of oral recounting using vivid
descriptions and delivery. Whilst everyone loves to hear a good story, technology
now provides a much wider window of opportunity to engage children in their own
reading and writing of stories. This has a particular impact on children with additional
support needs.
In a traditional literacy lesson, teachers tended to present pupils with a blank sheet of
paper and ask them to write a story. There was frequently very little stimulus beyond
instructions to make the story interesting by using adjectives and avoiding the
repetition of words or phrases.
The learner was generally given 30 to 40 minutes to battle with spelling, sentence
structure, story content and descriptions of characters. With any luck, they managed
to produce a piece of finished work before the lesson ended, before being invited to
draw a picture to illustrate their story. Key here is the fact that the drawing part of the
lesson always came at the end, thereby placing emphasis on the use of text and
minimising the importance of graphics.
With the advent of word processors, the story-writer of today has access to support
tools, such as a template to follow or modify, word banks, clip art and imagery.
Concept and mind mapping software has taken this a step further.
We also have to bear in mind that it is possible for a non-reader and non-writer to
work out the above sequence from understanding the images or simply matching the
edges of the jigsaws together correctly, even without the knowledge that chicks are
hatched from eggs.
When an adult works alongside a learner, it is important that use of images is
supported by use of language. If we take the above sequence, it would be vital to first
establish the language “egg”, “crack” and “chick”. Depending on the cognitive abilities
of the learner, further vocabulary can then be introduced, such as “hatches” or
“hatching”.
The next two sequences should be familiar enough to belong in the background
knowledge of most learners. Whilst the apple sequence gives a very simple
message, the snowman sequence could be turned into a whole story with the learner
verbally describing the snowman’s appearance and the conditions that result in his
demise.
The images shows how easy it is to see how learners can select all or some of these
to create a story.
With ease of access to digital media, there is no longer any reason why learners who
are non-readers or non-writers should be incapable of expressing themselves and
communicating effectively with others around them. It is down to the supporting adult,
helper or teacher to ensure that digital media resources are placed within their reach
and they are shown how to access these. That is when non-writers will create stories
for the pleasure of all, and non-readers will experience the beauty that lies in
decoding a story.