An unlikely pair--character education through literacy strategies.

Many, if not most, of our general education students will have interactions with a person with a disability at some time during their lives; they may become the parent of a special needs child; have a family member, neighbor, or co-worker with special needs; or at the very least, come in contact with people with disabilities in the community.

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This article describes a course of study, developed in partnership with general and special education teachers, that addresses understandings of the needs of people with disabilities through the use of integrated language arts curriculum. The article chronicles the yearlong journey of a class of 5th-graders who learned about people with special needs through literacy instruction and interaction with the early childhood special education students on their urban campus. The authors hope that general education teachers will use this format to develop similar courses of study in their own classrooms.

Background and Purpose

Melanie: Attempting to lead elementary students to an understanding of people with disabilities is a huge undertaking. As an early childhood special education teacher and former general education 4th-/5th-grade teacher, I had a unique view of this awesome task. I have always believed that while it is important to offer the very best learning opportunities to students with disabilities, it is perhaps an even more critical responsibility to educate the general student body concerning the abilities and limitations of the special population.

In 1975, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94-142), guaranteeing, for the first time, that all students with disabilities would receive a public education. In 1990 and 1997, reauthorizations changed the name of the law to the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (P.L. 101-476; P.L. 105-17) and set the stage for inclusive schooling, ruling that every child is eligible to receive a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment.

Many, if not most, of our general education students will have interactions with a person with a disability at some time during their lives; they may become the parent of a special needs child; have a family member, neighbor, or co-worker with special needs; or at the very least, come in contact with people with disabilities in the community. It is important to educate the general population about people with disabilities so that we may encourage compassion and understanding.

Craig: Many parents and teachers believe that integrated programs offer additional benefits for children without disabilities. Parents have reported that normally developing children enrolled in integrated settings "showed more acceptance of human differences, more awareness of other people's needs, less discomfort with people with disabilities, less prejudice and fewer stereotypes about people who look or behave differently" (Peck, Carlson, & Helmstetter, 1992, p. 58). Teachers have reported that children without disabilities "became increasingly aware of the needs of others when they were enrolled in a class including a child with a severe disability" (Giangreco, Dennis Cloninger, Edelman, & Schattman, 1993). Although we would not be involved in an inclusion program, per se, we believed that out students would reap the same benefits of deepened awareness and understanding from their involvement with a special education class.

Melanie: These underlying beliefs led us to develop a project that has opened the hearts and minds of a group of urban 5th-graders to the special needs and abilities of their schoolmates in the early childhood special education class.

History

Melanie: During the previous school year, I taught a group of 4th/5th-grade students at an urban elementary school in southern California. Using the California State Standards as a guide, I introduced each unit and helped to develop complex concepts through the use of children's literature. My students were very familiar with the use of read-alouds; we used them several times a day as we worked through some of the difficult concepts required by the 4th/5th-grade Social Studies and Science Standards.

At the end of the school year, the 5th-graders moved on to middle school and the 4th-graders were promoted to the 5th-grade classroom of my former 5th-grade teaching partner (the co-author of this project). I moved into the position of early childhood special education teacher for the new school year, and it is here that our story really begins.

The Project

Craig: My students, now worldly 5th-graders in the general education population, had a great deal of curiosity about the children in the early childhood special education class. Along with the fact that the kids were really tiny (3- and 4-year-olds), the older students noticed that some of these little ones looked different, or they didn't talk, or they "acted funny." Melanie and I talked a great deal about the curiosity of these older students. As the faculty member in charge of the character development curriculum on our campus, I was interested in working on a project that would help educate the older students about the differences and, more important, the similarities between people with disabilities and themselves.

Melanie: The Character Education Partnership, "a nonpartisan coalition of organizations and individuals dedicated to developing moral character and civic virtue in our nation's youth as one means of creating a more compassionate and responsible society," defines character education as "educating for understanding, caring about, and acting on such core universal values as respect, responsibility, honesty, and caring" (www.character.org). "The objective of character education is to help children learn to make decisions and take actions based on an internalized set of universal values" (Schaeffer, 2003, p. 36).

Craig: We wanted the older students to have an opportunity to interact with the little ones and to develop a personal understanding of each child as an individual. While the 5th-graders were very anxious to "help" in the preschool, we knew that we needed to do some fairly intensive preparation with the 5th-grade students before allowing them to work with the little ones.

Melanie: We brainstormed the many things that we considered important for anyone working with special needs students and decided on two general areas to address with the 5th-graders: 1) information about disabilities in general, and 2) techniques for working with all children.

Craig: On our campus, as in most schools, it is hard to find time in the school day for people skills, personal development, and character development--the kinds of lessons that we had in mind. While many of us agree with the work of Lev Vygotsky (1978), which stressed the importance of social interactions for overall cognitive development, we faced absolute responsibility for teaching the 3 R's. With this in mind, it became our task to develop a course of study that would encompass character development and an understanding of, and compassion for, people with disabilities, while also continuing to teach and refine the reading and writing skills on which our 5th-graders would be tested in April. A daunting task!

Melanie: In order to develop the skills and dispositions that were the objectives of this project, we decided to use the ExLL strategies that we had been taught during our training the year before. The ExLL project, under the direction of Adria Klein, addresses what we, as good teachers, know as best practices. Not a "canned program," this outstanding project builds on the research of effective teaching practices and, particularly, on the most recent research in literacy development.

ExLL emphasizes seven important elements: Read-Aloud, Shared Reading, Guided Reading, Independent Reading, Guided Writing, Independent Writing, and Oral Presentation. Using this multi-faceted approach seemed to be the most effective way to meet our literacy and subject matter goals for the students (www.cell.exll.com/exll.htm).

Since most of Craig's students had been in my class the previous year, working with the ExLL format, they were comfortable with taking risks in their thinking and writing and were generally excited about reading and learning. By early October, Craig and I were ready to move forward. We introduced the students to the concept of disabilities, using the fairly traditional tool of the T-chart. We divided the students into small groups and asked them to brainstorm these two questions: What Do I Know About People With Disabilities? How Do I Feel About People With Disabilities? (See Figure 1.)

Craig: The students' honesty and their willingness to open their minds to this topic was refreshing. Although we cringed at some students' lack of sensitivity, we knew it was important to understand where we were starting. Our project was made more important raid necessary due to the fact that our campus had housed self-contained special education classes for only one year before starting the early childhood special education unit. For most of our 5th-graders, this would be their first significant experience with the special needs population.

Melanie: "It is important for children to become aware of their common traits, their likenesses, their humanness" (Marshall, 1999, p. 19). Building on the foundation of knowledge that the students already had concerning the special needs population and their great interest in preparing to work with the preschoolers, we decided to go to our favorite source, children's literature. We, of course, love the book Leo the Late Bloomer (Kraus, 1993), and thought that Leo's story would give us an effective and low-risk beginning. We wanted to introduce the concept of individual differences and considered it important to give a developmental edge to our introduction of disabilities. This classic offered an opportunity to involve the older students by having them think about themselves as little kids.

Craig: Leo couldn't talk or draw or even eat neatly. Throughout the story, Leo's father watches and watches him, but Leo just will not bloom. Finally, in that miraculous way that often happens, Leo blooms! By the end of the story, Leo can talk and draw and even eat neatly. We talked to our 5th-graders about the fact that each person is on a different developmental rime schedule.

Melanie: Some babies walk at 10 months, while others walk at a year or even 2 or 3 years old; the same is true for language development, learning to read, etc.

Craig: We spent some time talking about development, then asked the 5th-graders to design a page for a book that illustrated a task they could not do when they were 3 or 4 years of age, but that they could do now. We planned to laminate and bind the book, then share it with the preschoolers in a buddy-reading experience. Such examples as "speak English, do math, ride a bike, color in the lines, write my name, and dress myself" let us know that these 5th-graders did indeed remember what it was like to be 3 or 4 years old and less skilled (see Figure 2).

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Melanie: We thought it was important for the older students to be reminded that the preschoolers would eventually be able to do most of the things others can do--in most cases it would just take a little longer and require a little more assistance. We used the book as the basis for one of the first partner-reading experiences with the 5th-graders and preschoolers.

Craig: The next partner reading experience came as the result of an interactive editing activity conducted in a study on genre. For two years, we had worked with this group of students, using different kinds of children's literature. Most of us, as elementary teachers, do a good job of familiarizing our students with a wide variety of fiction. Unfortunately, we frequently fall short in our teaching and use of historical fiction, biography, poetry, and informational text. Knowing that our students needed to be exposed to a wide variety of books, we made a conscious effort to incorporate such texts into our daily read-aloud sessions. As a result, our students became voracious readers of all genres.

Melanie: To give the students an authentic reason to write, we asked the 5th-graders to choose a storybook and change the genre, then find a way to present their poem or play or song to the preschoolers. For example, one group chose a fractured fairy tale, The Frog Prince, Continued by John Sciezka (1991) and changed the genre by writing a play based on the story. After practicing their play and making simple costumes and props, they presented their work to the preschoolers. While the little ones did not catch the wry humor of the story, they did enjoy the performance and were exposed to a great deal of oral language, which was a primary goal of their IEPs.

Craig: Several groups rewrote stories into songs, plays, and poems, and then made their presentations. Each performance presented the older students with an opportunity to learn about the preschoolers' abilities and personalities, as well as the opportunity to hone the literacy skills for which they would be accountable.

Melanie: A myriad of disabilities were represented in the preschool class. Two of the children had Down syndrome, which involves some specific physical characteristics along with mental retardation. The older students soon became aware of and curious about these differences. Using a frequently used technique to help our students access factual information, we retrieved an article about Down syndrome from an online encyclopedia and gave a copy to each student. We furnished each 5th-grader with a clipboard and highlighter and modeled, using the overhead projector, the technique of highlighting the most important word in each sentence. We then made a word bank of the highlighted words, frequently negotiating about the important words as we went along. At the end of the lesson, students were asked to write a summary paragraph of three or four sentences, which gave the main idea of this 10-paragraph selection. Not only were the students learning about an important topic, they also were practicing the crucial skill of summarizing and finding the main idea in a nonfiction selection.

Craig: On the playground one day, I overheard one of the 5th-graders calling another student "retarded." While this is not terribly unusual at this age, we thought it was important to address the inappropriate nature of this kind of interaction, especially in light of the project we were undertaking. We knew that the students were using the word without really thinking about what it meant. I began the lesson after recess by reading My Sister Is Different by Betty Ren Wright. This is an older book, originally published in 1981, but it still seemed very relevant to our situation. It is the story of a boy who has an older sister with a mental disability. He is conflicted by his feelings of resentment toward her on the one hand and his love for her on the other. He is forced to acknowledge his feelings for her when he almost loses her. Many of the 5th-graders had younger siblings for whom they are responsible a great deal of the time, and so they were able to relate to the boy's conflicted feelings.

Melanie: Following the story, before any discussion could occur, Craig wrote the word "retarded" on the board. Some of the students gasped in surprise, shocked that their teacher would use such a word. Without commenting, Craig asked one student to look the word up in a dictionary and another student to find the word in a thesaurus. As he wrote the definitions on the board, the students continued to chatter among themselves about times they had heard this word used. Craig was able to lead the students to the realization that it is not a word to be used negatively on the playground. He followed this lively discussion with another literacy activity--having students do an acrostic, using the word "retarded." He reminded the students to think of what they had already learned about people with disabilities, particularly those who are mentally retarded. Again, their responses showed us that they were thinking. Students were allowed to use the dictionary and thesaurus to expand their vocabularies, and their finished products showed much growth from the beginning of the project (see Figure 3).

Craig: The next task was to assign a Definition Poem, which would reinforce our literacy objectives for the 5th-graders. The poetry frame is:

Name it Describe it, rename it Tell where it would be found Tell more about it Use emotion words to tell how you feel about this Explain why you used the emotion word on line 5

Working with the definition poems (see Figure 4), we gained an early insight into our 5th-graders' feelings of pity and sadness for students with disabilities. Believing that helping the students to increase their knowledge about people with disabilities was the only way to effectively address their feelings, we set out to educate them concerning the fact that there are many more similarities than differences between people with and without disabilities. We wanted them to know that helping and getting to know people with disabilities is a joyful endeavor, not one of sadness or pity.

Melanie: In December, we began to notice that all of the students on campus were greeting our little ones by name when we passed them on the way to the playground or lunchroom. Needless to say, the preschoolers were ecstatic. While they would normally become shy and refuse to acknowledge an adult, every child waved and responded to their older schoolmates. Following the example set by this popular group of 5th-graders, every student on campus made it a point to greet the little ones by name.

I've always believed that a great deal can be determined about a campus from observing how the special education students are treated. In schools where there is respect for students and teachers and an understanding of and appreciation for differences, the special education students are involved in campus life and accepted into the community. We certainly found this to be the case at our elementary school!

Craig: After winter break, we were anxious to get started again. We found a few new read-alouds during the break and were eager to share them with our students. One of our favorites, We'll Paint the Octopus Red (Stuve-Bodeen, 1998), is the story of a little girl, Emma, who is none too thrilled to discover that she will soon be a big sister. Eventually, she comes up with a few positive things to say about having a baby brother--he will be able to play kickball with her, travel with her to visit an aunt, and even eventually go on a safari to Africa with her. About the time Emma reconciles herself to this new addition to the family, she learns that the baby has Down syndrome. Emma thinks that all of her dreams of companionship will go unrealized. After a moving discussion with her dad, however, she comes to understand that baby Isaac will be able to do all of the things she has planned for him--it just may take a little more time and a little more help than she originally thought. After sharing this book with the 5th-graders, we had an insightful discussion about how the book's message related to their work in the preschool. They were making great connections between literature and their new world.

Melanie: We were on a roll! The 5th-graders were excited about the privilege of working with the preschoolers and took their responsibilities seriously. We were anxious to have a mid-project celebration, and came up with the idea of having a "Discovery Day." Based on the domains of language arts, physical education, music, and science, the 5th-graders engaged the preschoolers in activities that were developmentally appropriate. Such concepts as "sink and float," "fast and slow," and "big and little" were explored through literature, movement, and art; all of the activities were planned and carried out by the 5th-graders, with the interests and abilities of the preschoolers in mind.

Craig: Southern California has many benefits; the greatest, of course, being the beautiful weather. On a sunny afternoon in February, when much of the country was covered in snow, we were able to celebrate the coming together of these "unlikely pairs" on our school playground. The 5th-graders spent hours planning, making lists of supplies, painting signs, and writing out directions to carry out with their little buddies. (Little did they realize that they were engaging in some very advanced literacy practices!) They searched the school library for materials to use and books to read with the preschoolers in the centers. They practiced reading and rereading their selections, with expression, until they got it just right. The preschoolers were thrilled as they spent a pleasant, sunny afternoon enjoying the full attention of their new role models.

Melanie: Having met with some success over the past few months, Craig and I thought it was time to deepen the experience for our 5th-graders. In an effort to make this as real as possible for our students, we researched simulation activities that would give the students a better understanding of the lives and challenges of the disabled. To simulate the experience of being physically handicapped, we paired up the 5th-graders and directed one partner to don a pair of socks on his/her hands and try to zip, tie, write, etc. The other partner took notes on the responses and feelings of the "disabled" student.

Craig: In order to give the students the experience of having visual difficulties, we smeared the lenses of some old glasses with petroleum jelly, creating a very cloudy field of vision. We then asked students to read a simple selection from the Los Angeles Times. Needless to say, the students were very frustrated and gained some understanding of the challenges faced by those with limited vision.

Other simulations included a spelling test, which rearranged the spelling of simple words; a reading selection of Greek characters; and a handwriting assignment in which students were asked to simply copy shapes--the difficulty came when they were required to make the copies by looking into a mirror. The point was well taken; living with a disability is a difficult thing.

Melanie: As the spring began, Craig and I decided that we wanted the students to create a theme song--a kind of anthem for the experience that we'd had during the year. It had come to our attention that our second language learners were having difficulty with the rhyming patterns of the English language. When we asked our students to write rhyming couplets, they were unable to grasp the concept. So, we backed up and had the students listen to a variety of popular music, taking time to identify rhymes and near-rhymes in each song. We continued with this popular activity for several days, until the students were able to pick out rhymes from the songs and develop their own rhyming couplets.

Craig: On the day we were to write the song, we began by brainstorming again. This time, we asked the 5th-graders to think of all the words they could to describe their friends in the preschool, such as: "smile," "alike," "friend," "buddy," "pal," "grin," "giggle," "laugh," "play," "sing," and "dance." These were just a few of the words that we added to our Word Splash. We then reminded the students of the concepts that the preschoolers had been learning this year: colors, numbers, letters, their names, along with movement activities and names of body parts. We then gave each student a marker and a long piece of newsprint and asked them to choose one word from the Splash and write as many true rhymes as possible. We talked to the students again about "forced rhyming" and "near rhymes," then asked them to continue their rhyming list (in a different colored marker) by adding forced-and near-rhymes.

Melanie: We posted the rhymes around the room as a guide for the songwriters, then asked the students to develop a theme for the song they were about to write. After some discussion, they decided on the theme of "We're more alike than different." With this theme in mind, the 5th-graders worked in small groups to write one stanza per group. What they came up with astounded us both. Craig put the words to music and the anthem was born! (See Figure 5.)

Craig, We have many more plans. We developed a list of relevant novels to use in literature groups, a list of children's literature selections to use as read-alouds for continued concept development, a journal writing activity in which the older students will write about their experiences in the preschool on a weekly basis, and plans for a joint field trip to the Los Angeles zoo. While the results of the writing and reading projects have been exciting for us as teachers, the greatest reward has been the smiles on the faces of the preschoolers when they see their "Big Buddies."

Conclusion

Melanie: As teachers, we certainly do not dispute the need for academics. We must, however, also value the importance of children developing an internal set of values that will guide their actions as they grow up. Introducing values into school discussions and activities in an integrated way brings meaning to those academic subjects. While time is always at a premium in the public school classroom, by combining literacy instruction strategies with character development content, everyone is a winner!

Craig: We asked the 5th-graders to talk to us about this project and what it had meant to them.

Melanie: While we weren't surprised by their answers (after all, we had been living with their growing sensitivity and understanding all year!), we were encouraged by this anecdotal success of the project. I asked, "What was your experience with people with disabilities before this project?" Here are responses from two students:

I was scared. My friend's sister is disabled and I was just scared to be around her. I didn't want her to be near me. (Stephanie)

I just thought they were weird. I was just real sad. (Israel)

Craig: We then asked how this project had changed their thoughts about people with disabilities.

I think it is cool to work with them. They are very cool people, just like us. It just takes them a little longer to learn things. (Israel)

I'm hot afraid of them any more. I have made some good friends. (Stephanie)

Melanie: I guess we will never really know the full impact of this project on our students. Craig and I both observed profound growth in the understanding of the older kids and in the vocabulary and socialization skills of the little ones. We met the academic goals for the 5th-graders and the preschoolers alike. The social and behavioral goals that we achieved were beyond our hopes and imagination! I believe that the effects of this project are far-reaching and will continue to reap benefits for its participants for years to come.

Craig: "It should be little surprise that effective character education not only develops the kind of thoughtful, ethical people that we want, but ones who are more academically motivated and successful as well" (Schaeffer, p. 39). We can't ask for more.

What I Know/How I Feel About People With Disabilities--Student
Responses

WHAT I KNOW

They are brats
They are small
They can't do what other people can do
It can be caused by injury, prenatal things or just genetic
Disabled people are sad and lonely
Disabled people can go crazy
Difficult for them to do some things
Can't keep their hands to themselves
Can't share
Can't read or write
Difficult for them to learn
Some look different
Some have problems learning
They love to play
Some people make fun of them
Some can't hear, walk, or talk
Need lots of help
Some can't walk
Learn slowly
Look different
Need help
Are crippled

HOW I FEEL

I'm happy because they are not in our class
I feel sad for them
Bad and melancholy (this week's vocabulary word)
Sad
Bad and sad
Sad, lonely, scared, angry
I feel sorry for them
Terrible
Sad--they probably feel left out
Sorry for them
I feel like I want to help them
Sad/sorry
Sad because they can't have a normal life
I feel like helping them
Scared

Acrostics

R-regular kids
E-exciting to be with
T-talented in their own way
A-ability to do things
R-restricted
D-delayed
E-encouragement from friends
D-difficulty doing some stuff

--Shelby, Jesus, & Briana

R-realize abilities
E-encourage them
T-take a little longer to learn
A-able
R-responsibility
D-different
E-each a lot like us
D-delayed, but progressing

--Israel, Jessica, & Jose

Definition Poems

   Disabled
   Someone with a problem in their system
   In our friends
   Mentally challenged, paralyzed, physically challenged
   Sorry and mostly sad
   I feel sad because people's brains and systems were
   damaged.

--Elizabeth & Vanessa

   Disability
   An accident or disease
   Each person is special in his or her way
   Sad, sorry
   Because we have a normal life
   And they do not

--Crystal & Briana

Project Anthem: All Day Long

   One, two, three, four, rive
   Wave your hands in the air, if you're alive.
   Red, green, orange and blue
   Some favorite colors of me and you
   A, B,C, D, E
   Together means you and me

   Refrain:

   Now that I know your name,
   It's for sure that we're the same
   The best thing about our song
   Is that I want to keep singin' it
   all day long
   Yea, I want to keep singin' it all day long

   We can snap, snap, snap
   And we can clap, clap, clap
   We can hop, hop, hop
   And we tan drop, drop, drop
   We can wiggle, wiggle, wiggle
   And we can tickle, tickle, tickle

   Refrain

   We each are special in our own way
   Special each and every day
   And here is something true
   My heart is open to you
   I don't want this feeling to end
   This feeling of a great new friend

   Refrain

References

Character Education Partnership. Retrieved July 10, 2003, from www.character.org.

Foundation for California Early Literacy Learning. Retrieved July 10, 2003, from www.cell.exll.com/exll.htm.

Giangreco, M., Dennis, R., Cloninger, C., Edelman, S., & Schattman, R. (1993). I've counted Jon: Transformational experiences of teachers educating students with disabilities. Exceptional Children, 59(4), 359-372.

Kraus, R. (1993). Leo the late bloomer. New York: HarperCollins.

Marshall, C. S. (1999). Highlighting commonalities, differences, and diversity with picture books. Social Studies and the Young Learner, 11(4), 18-21.

Peck, C., Carlson, P., & Helmstetter, E. (1992). Parent and teacher perceptions of outcomes for typically developing children enrolled inintegrated early childhood programs: A statewide survey. Journal of Early Intervention, 16(1), 53-63.

Schaeffer, E. (2003). Character education makes a big difference. Principal, 82(3), 36-39.

Sciezka, J. (1991). The frog prince, continued. New York: Penguin.

Stuve-Bodeen, S. (1998). We'll paint the octopus red. Bethesda, MD: Woodbine House.

United States Government. (2003). IDEA '97 Retrieved July 10, 2003, from www.edu.gov/offices/OSERS/Policy/IDEA/index.html.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wright, B. R. (1981). My sister is different. New York: Steck Vaughn.

Melanie Wallace is EC-4 Program Director, University of Texas at Arlington. Craig Knotts is an early childhood special education teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District.