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Enhancing Literacy and Communicative Skills of Students With Disabilities in Special Schools Through Dialogic Literary Gatherings

Enhancing the quality of learning opportunities for students with disabilities and the learning level attained is a pending challenge. This challenge is especially relevant in the context of special schools, where the learning possibilities derived from interactions with others is limited. However,...

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Autores principales: Fernández-Villardón, Aitana, Valls-Carol, Rosa, Melgar Alcantud, Patricia, Tellado, Itxaso
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8082068/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33935921
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.662639
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author Fernández-Villardón, Aitana
Valls-Carol, Rosa
Melgar Alcantud, Patricia
Tellado, Itxaso
author_facet Fernández-Villardón, Aitana
Valls-Carol, Rosa
Melgar Alcantud, Patricia
Tellado, Itxaso
author_sort Fernández-Villardón, Aitana
collection PubMed
description Enhancing the quality of learning opportunities for students with disabilities and the learning level attained is a pending challenge. This challenge is especially relevant in the context of special schools, where the learning possibilities derived from interactions with others is limited. However, providing these students with a sufficient level of instrumental learning, such as literacy, and communicative and reasoning abilities is crucial for their subsequent educational and social opportunities. In this case study we analyse a special school that has implemented Dialogic Literary Gatherings with their students as a means to increase learning interactions within the group around the reading and debate of classical books. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the school principal and with a teacher of the transition to adult life course, and two focus groups were conducted with teachers–one with primary education teachers and one with secondary education teachers–and two focus groups with students–one with primary education students and one secondary education and transition to adult life students–. On the one hand, results show the characteristics of the Dialogic Literary Gatherings that allowed these students to participate and learn. On the other hand, several improvements have been observed. First, regarding instrumental learning, students increased their motivation for reading, and improved their communicative and reasoning abilities and in their reading proficiency. Second, regarding students' behavior, conflict has reduced, solidarity attitudes have increased, and they have acquired dialogic and argumentative habits. Finally, at the emotional level, they gained self-esteem and confidence and feel more empowered to make their voice heard.
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spelling pubmed-80820682021-04-30 Enhancing Literacy and Communicative Skills of Students With Disabilities in Special Schools Through Dialogic Literary Gatherings Fernández-Villardón, Aitana Valls-Carol, Rosa Melgar Alcantud, Patricia Tellado, Itxaso Front Psychol Psychology Enhancing the quality of learning opportunities for students with disabilities and the learning level attained is a pending challenge. This challenge is especially relevant in the context of special schools, where the learning possibilities derived from interactions with others is limited. However, providing these students with a sufficient level of instrumental learning, such as literacy, and communicative and reasoning abilities is crucial for their subsequent educational and social opportunities. In this case study we analyse a special school that has implemented Dialogic Literary Gatherings with their students as a means to increase learning interactions within the group around the reading and debate of classical books. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the school principal and with a teacher of the transition to adult life course, and two focus groups were conducted with teachers–one with primary education teachers and one with secondary education teachers–and two focus groups with students–one with primary education students and one secondary education and transition to adult life students–. On the one hand, results show the characteristics of the Dialogic Literary Gatherings that allowed these students to participate and learn. On the other hand, several improvements have been observed. First, regarding instrumental learning, students increased their motivation for reading, and improved their communicative and reasoning abilities and in their reading proficiency. Second, regarding students' behavior, conflict has reduced, solidarity attitudes have increased, and they have acquired dialogic and argumentative habits. Finally, at the emotional level, they gained self-esteem and confidence and feel more empowered to make their voice heard. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-04-15 /pmc/articles/PMC8082068/ /pubmed/33935921 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.662639 Text en Copyright © 2021 Fernández-Villardón, Valls-Carol, Melgar Alcantud and Tellado. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Fernández-Villardón, Aitana
Valls-Carol, Rosa
Melgar Alcantud, Patricia
Tellado, Itxaso
Enhancing Literacy and Communicative Skills of Students With Disabilities in Special Schools Through Dialogic Literary Gatherings
title Enhancing Literacy and Communicative Skills of Students With Disabilities in Special Schools Through Dialogic Literary Gatherings
title_full Enhancing Literacy and Communicative Skills of Students With Disabilities in Special Schools Through Dialogic Literary Gatherings
title_fullStr Enhancing Literacy and Communicative Skills of Students With Disabilities in Special Schools Through Dialogic Literary Gatherings
title_full_unstemmed Enhancing Literacy and Communicative Skills of Students With Disabilities in Special Schools Through Dialogic Literary Gatherings
title_short Enhancing Literacy and Communicative Skills of Students With Disabilities in Special Schools Through Dialogic Literary Gatherings
title_sort enhancing literacy and communicative skills of students with disabilities in special schools through dialogic literary gatherings
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8082068/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33935921
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.662639
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