Introducing SOLO™
Part I*
Creating a supportive environment where struggling students are successful
across the curriculum encompasses a variety of skill areas in the learning continuum-from
using reading strategies to comprehend text, to planning and organizing information
for a first draft, to expressing knowledge in a final revised and edited paper.
Wouldn't it be incredible to have one learning intervention that is open-ended
enough to use with any content and be able to support students throughout the
entire learning continuum? Don Johnston has just announced such an intervention-SOLO...coming
in January 2005! SOLO breaks the learning continuum into its constituent parts,
targeting the explicit skills students need to be successful learners.
In anticipation of SOLO's release, a series of three Leader Link articles will
introduce you to SOLO and provide you with information on how SOLO revolutionizes
the way students learn and the way educators teach across the curriculum. Students
will build skills and utilize strategies through incomparable scaffolds that
provide guided support for reading comprehension and a structured model for
writing.
- Scaffolded through the process of making meaning-students get to the essence
of reading with SOLO Students begin the reading/writing process in a considerate
learning environment that specifically addresses the needs of struggling readers.
Learning new information no longer needs to be a painful process for struggling
readers because:
- Students Comprehend New Information - Students have a guided experience
with any content that is presented to them because easy-to-use Supported Reading
Guides and comprehension tools help students use research-based reading strategies
and hierarchical structures that help focus their attention:
- Supported Reading Guides perfectly complement the e-Text to guide reading
and support writing by helping students identify the important ideas and information
within the text. Teachers can use non-content specific Reading Guides that
ship with SOLO or build their own content-specific guides.
- eHighlighters allow students to select and move text into the Reading Guide
without retyping.
- Note-taking helps students make a text-to-self connection, allowing them
to indicate, in their own words, why they highlighted information-how it is
important to them.
- Locked text embedded in the Reading Guide provides instruction for using
good reading strategies and directs eHighlighting of pertinent information.
- Students Confidently Attack Any Reading Assignment Across the Curriculum
SOLO's reading environment has a wealth of considerate learning interventions
that students use independently to practice and build reading strategies explicitly
taught in class. Ultimately these considerate supports help students develop
good comprehension habits. Any e-Text can be opened in SOLO and paired with
a Supported Reading or Writing Guide to give each student the level of support
they need.
- Teachers Differentiate Reading Instruction in a Diverse Classroom - Teachers
adjust the presentation of new information, rather than have the student adjust
or adapt to the curriculum. They create customized materials for individual
students or groups of students by:
- Easily adapting e-Text with added pictures, supporting text and appropriate
font sizes.
- Matching different Supported Reading Guides with e-Text to meet individual
student abilities.
- Setting individual student preferences to match the amount of support needed.
* Selecting testing accommodations mode to go beyond supporting daily assignments.
- Viewing students' highlighted documents with completed outlines to assess
student progress.
SOLO Connects Reading and Writing
The new information that students gain through reading can easily be used to begin
the writing process. The Supported Reading or Writing Guide is automatically transferred
to a writing environment that supports the planning, organizing and draft-writing
process. Students' notes and the pertinent information the student eHighlighted
travels with them, each new task always building on the last, information never
needs to be re-typed.
Next month Part II will feature more about SOLO's supportive environment for
struggling writers and the role it plays in the beginning of the writing process.
More information can be found at http://donjohnston.com/catalog/solofpfrm.htm.
*This article first appeared in the November Leader Link from Don
Johnston, Inc.
© 2004 ConnSENSE
Bulletin
