Comparing The Adequacy of The Teaching Activities Applied By Special Education Teachers At The Preparatory Stages of Reading And Writing1

International Journal of Modern Education Studies December, 2018 Volume 2, No 2 Pages: 67-82 http://www.ijonmes.net dergipark.gov.tr/ijonmes


INTRODUCTION
Nowadays Educating students with special needs requires some special arrangements. The things what make special education are these arrangements. In general education activities suitable to improvement of typically-developing students are designed according to age groups in advance and teaching environments are arranged in line with it (Özen, 2012). However, in special education, teaching environments are arranged according to performance of students with special needs.
Ministry of Education defines the individual with special needs as someone who are different from their peers in terms of individual characteristics and educational competencies (MEB, 2006). Following students are defined as the students who need special education: mentally retarded students, students with learning disability, students with emotional and behavioral disorder, physically retarded students, students with speaking disorder, hearing-impaired students, gifted students, talented students. These students couldn't take advantage of general education and need special education services. In all countries regardless of its development level there are individuals who couldn't take advantage of general education services due to their physical, mental, emotional and learning characteristics (Kırbıyık, 2018: 8).
The curriculum for individuals with special needs must be prepared to develop the abilities they can use in daily life (Babaoğlan vd, 2010: 347). The positive attitudes of preschool teachers to students with special needs are of great significance in terms of social and academic success of both typical students and students with special needs. The source of the negative attitudes of teachers is not having necessary preliminary training regarding special education curriculum. Therefore, activities to change these negative attitudes into positive must be done (Güven, 2011).
Students with special needs may show academic, social and occupational insufficiencies due to the emotional problems that hinders their development. Therefore, teachers must take these characteristics into consideration while planning teaching-learning process. For a decent inclusive education, teachers must analyze the existing insufficiencies by trying to identify students' affective behaviours and basic problems (Şahin,2010).
In general, society and parents attach importance to literacy. Being illiterate is seen as a great flaw. This skill is of great importance for typically developed children as well as children with special needs. Because those children with special needs know reading and writing is a significant step for his independent life. So, what is literacy? Academically, literacy is defined as "communicating by using symbols and extracting meaning from symbols". As can be understood from the definition children must be in the concrete operational stage to start teaching reading and writing.
The primary goal of education of mentally retarded children is to teach them independent life skills. Independent life skills include necessary skills for mentally retarded children to live independently. There are various classifications for independent life skills.
One of the most known classifications is suggested by Close, Sowers, Halpern and Bourbeau (1985). This classification separates independent life skills into four categories as necessary basic skills for achievement, necessary skills for adaptation, daily life skills, and occupational preparation and skills (Cavkaytar, 1998). As seen many skills that a mentally retarded children must learn are closely related to reading -writing. In other words, the main goal of teaching reading and writing to a mentally retarded child is teaching him independent life skills.
There are two important things in special education before starting teaching reading and writing. First one is to answer following questions; what handicaps does the child have?
What kind of school life will the child have? Does the student have autism, Down syndrome, learning disability or developmental retardation? What is the most suitable method for him? Does he have inclusive education or go to special sub-class or just get rehabilitation? The second important thing to take into consideration is the readiness of the student. Students who have sufficient readiness level have to perform some prerequisite skills for learning reading and writing. There are nine prerequisite skills for a student with special needs to learn reading and writing. These skills are; general knowledge and vocabulary (fruits, vegetables, vehicles, animals, numbers, occupations, verbs, geometric figures, opposite concepts), vision (finding the same one, finding the different one, completing, matching pictures, colors, numbers and letters), hearing (sound imitation, locating the source of the sounds, guessing the sounds with his eyes closed, listening, answering questions regarding what he listens), speaking (self-expression, introducing his family, answering questions), muscle development (fine and gross motor skills, catching ball, tearing paper, playing with dough, string, etc.) social and emotional adaptation (having the sufficient prerequisite skills), listening, holding pencil, using fingers while reading, coloring limited areas, and drawing.
The most important thing for teaching reading and writing process is whether the child ready for the school or not. This readiness show itself in two forms. The first one is being physically ready and this is called maturation. Children cannot learn reading and writing before reaching a certain maturation as the birds must reach a certain maturation for flying (Binbaşıoğlu, 2004). To explain the concept of being ready for reading-writing, first of all the readiness term must be clarified. In the literature it is defined as someone's reaching a certain maturation to fulfil a task and his having necessary knowledge, ability and attitude to fulfil this task. So, readiness covers both maturation and necessary precompetencies. Although there are different views regarding the starting age of learning reading-writing, there is a consensus on the necessary abilities to start teaching it. In order a student to be ready for learning reading-writing he must have some certain abilities. These abilities are explained below. Children must know the necessary words used in teaching reading-writing (Keskinkılıç, 2002;Çelenk, 2003;Akyol, 2014). It is most likely that mentally retarded students have deficiency in vocabulary knowledge. Therefore, teachers must define the words he is going to use while teaching reading-writing and teach these words months ago.
Children could narrate his observations and chain of events in a story without ruining its order (Çelenk, 2003). The presence of this ability in mentally retarded students must be controlled and if they don't have it, they must be encouraged to narrate stories without ruining its order. For example, a narrating activity could be done by following this order; firstly, tell a simple with story cards. Secondly give them the cards by tangling up their order and then make them tell the story again by reordering the story cards.
Children must solve simple problems they encounter. The most troublesome issue for mentally retarded children is problem solving. Thus, by doing exercises with simple problems, their problem solving skill must be improved. For instance, asking following questions may improve their problem solving ability: which one of these two keys open the door? How can you take out a nut put in a deep container? What can a thirsty student do?
Answering questions and following instructions are important abilities for learning readingwriting. Therefore, in the preparation period these abilities must be taught if they don't have them.
Children must remember the important points of an event they listen. It is rare for mentally retarded children to have this ability. Therefore, exercises beginning with remembering the important points of an event they experience must be done and then they must do exercises regarding remembering important points of events they listen. They must recognize the phonetic and form of a word to distinguish one word from another. If this ability isn't improved in mentally retarded student, they must do exercises to distinguish sounds they hear every day like door creaking sound or sound of a car's horn and animal sounds like cat and dog. They must have a desire for learning reading-writing. Therefore, mentally retarded students must be encouraged to learn reading-writing and by avoiding negative experiences in the learning reading-writing period, their motivation towards learning reading-writing must be maintained. Students' chronic illnesses, muscle and joint problems and general health status as well their visual and hearing problems must be examined carefully.

Purpose of the Study
Retarded students are educated according to their retardation group. In special education every retarded child gets preparation activities for reading-writing suitable for their retardation group. Preparation activities for reading-writing for students with special needs could be given within the individualized education programs and the prepared steps could be applied in the education process in a certain order. This study aims to investigate the activities applied by special education teachers in the preparation stage for reading-writing.
To fulfil this aim answer to following question is sought; "what are the views of special education teachers regarding what must be done in the preparation stage for reading-writing?" Following factors are examined; genders, ages, graduation branches, duration of working in the special education, and whether they do preparation activities to teach reading-writing to mentally retarded children. Moreover, the views of special education teachers regarding what must be done to improve fine and gross motor skills, visual dicrimination, auditory discrimination, directional motor and mental preparation abilities are examined.

METHOD
This study, aiming to determine the views of special education teachers regarding reading-writing instruction, is conducted through survey model based on quantitative data.
Survey model aims to examine a present situation as it is. The thing, event or individual discussed is identified within its own conditions (Karasar, 2005).

Population and Sample
The population of the study composed of special education teachers working in the central districts of Konya (α=297). Study is conducted on a randomly chosen sample. The representation power of sample group is defined and simple random sampling method has been used.

Data Collection Tool
297 forms have been collected from the all 297 teachers. The demographic data of the survey is shown in the tables below. 98 of the participants are male and 199 of them are female. 274 of them did preparation activities for reading-writing for mentally retarded students before and 22 of them didn't. 133, 90, 43, and 31 teachers are ages between 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51 and above respectively. 74 of the teachers graduated from special education, 109 of them graduated from classroom teacher department and 114 of them graduated from other departments. As for years of seniority 184, 64, 28, 7, 14 teachers have worked between 0-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21 and above years respectively. Table 1 shows whether the gender variable affects the preparation activities for reading-writing. As understood from the analyzed data, no significant difference is found according to gender regarding fine motor coordination, gross motor coordination, visual and auditory discrimination, directional motor coordination and mental preparation activities (p>0,05). This result reveals that in the preparation activities for reading-writing there isn't any difference between male and female teachers. The findings regarding teachers' views about doing a reading-writing activity with mentally retarded students when conducting preparatory activities for reading-writing are shown in table 2. Results suggest that there is no difference between the teachers who did activities and who didn't in terms of fine motor coordination, gross motor coordination, visual and auditory discrimination, directional motor coordination and mental preparation activities (p>0,05). So, views of teachers, who did preparation activities to teach reading-writing to mentally retarded students and who didn't, regarding preparation activities are the same. Table 3 shows the findings regarding whether the age variable affects the teachers' views about preparation activities for reading-writing" As is seen in Table 3, there is no significant difference between the age groups in terms of fine motor coordination, gross motor coordination, visual and auditory discrimination, directional motor coordination and mental preparation activities (p>0,05).

RESULTS
Results reveal that views of teachers for preparation activities in terms of their age are the same. However, in terms of gross motor coordination preparation activities teachers whose ages are between 21-30 have higher points than teachers whose ages are between 31-40.
The findings regarding whether there is a significant difference according to their graduation department are shown in Table 4.  Table 4 shows that there is no significant difference among graduation departments in terms of fine motor coordination, gross motor coordination, visual and auditory discrimination, directional motor coordination and mental preparation activities (p>0,05).
Results reveal that views of special education teachers, who graduated from different departments, regarding preparation activities for reading writing, are the same. However, a significant difference is found in terms of preparation activities for reading-writing points of special education teachers regarding their graduation department (f=3,437; p<0,000). The results of TUKEY test done to find the source of difference revealed that there is no difference between the teachers graduated from special education department and teachers graduated from classroom teaching department, but a significant difference is found between the teachers graduated from special education department and teachers graduated from other departments.
Findings regarding whether there is a significant difference between the years of seniority and preparation activities for reading-writing are shown in table 5. As is seen in Table 3, there is no significant difference among the years of seniority in terms of fine motor coordination, gross motor coordination, visual and auditory discrimination, directional motor coordination and mental preparation activities (p>0,05).
However, in terms of mental preparation activities teachers who have a working experience between 0-5 years have higher points than teachers who have working experience between 6-10 years.
Findings about the views of teachers regarding what must be done in the preparation period in the field of fine motor coordination are shown in Table 6. As is seen in table 7, special education teachers think that it is necessary to do activities such as playdough and clay, arm-hand and wrist exercises, cut and paste, ruffling and tearing, sitting correctly, catching ball. However, they don't consider writing with beans, put-take off Legos, air writing and writing on the board, holding and opening a book, and sand writing activities necessary. Table 8 shows the findings regarding special education teachers' views about must be done to improve visual discrimination abilities when conducting preparatory activities. Table 8 Teachers' views about what must be done to improve visual discrimination abilities when conducting preparatory exercises Preparatory activities for improving visual Discrimination Abilities Total 1.
Finding the different one 1024 3.
Telling stories based on a picture 1013 4.
Finding the same one 1009 6.
Completing activities and matching pictures, colors, numbers and letters 1008 7.
Recognizing a picture he has seen before 1005 8.
Telling the details that he sees in pictures. Special education teachers consider discriminating pictures, finding the different one, telling stories based on a picture discriminating geometric figures, finding the same one, completing, matching pictures, colors, numbers, and letters, and recognizing a picture he has seen before activities necessary. However, they think it isn't necessary to do activities such as telling the details that he sees in a picture, finding the visual equivalents of the words he hears, making up stories with the help of pictures, taking about characters, event, places and time of a story he make up with the help of pictures, finding the suitable pictures for the sentences he hears, and distinguishing from others.
The findings regarding special education teachers' views about what must be done to improve auditory discrimination abilities when conducting preparatory activities are shown in Table 9 Table 9 Teachers' views about what must be done to improve Auditory Discrimination abilities when conducting preparatory activities Preparatory Activities for Improving Auditory Discrimination Abilities Total As is seen in Table 9, special education teachers consider the following activities necessary; discriminating the sounds he hears in his environment (animal sounds, car horn sounds), matching the sounds with their sources (bow-wow = dog) imitating sounds, locating the source of sounds, guessing the sounds with his eyes closed, listening. Table 10 shows the findings regarding special education teachers' views about what must be done to improve directional motor coordination abilities when conducting preparatory activities. Special education teachers consider that it is necessary to do activities to teach rightleft concept. But they don't consider the following activities necessary; turning page, putting into order the sequential event cards from left to right, putting into order the number cards from left to right, painting the figures starting from the ones in the left to right.
The findings regarding special education teachers' views about what must be done as mental preparation activities when conducting preparatory activities are shown in Table 11. Special education teachers consider the following activities necessary in the mental preparation stage when conducting preparatory activities for reading-writing; concentrating, teaching the names of the objects, recognizing the colors, matching letters, vocalizing the letter in the words (vocalizing the letter he is shown), finding the similarities and differences in pictures. However, they don't think it is necessary to do Finding the letter in a given word activity.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
Male and female special education teachers have the similar views regarding preparatory activities for reading-writing. Therefore, all the studies conducted on preparatory activities for reading-writing must be done regardless of gender. The views of teachers doing preparatory activities for reading-writing with mentally retarded students and the teachers who didn't do are the same. So, all the studies regarding preparatory activities for reading-writing must be conducted regardless of having experience with mentally retarded students. Special education teachers' views about preparatory activities in terms of their age are the same. However, in terms of gross motor coordination preparation activities teachers whose ages are between 21-30 have higher points than teachers whose ages are between 31-40. It may be beneficial to conduct a study to define the reason of this difference. Because in the following years the difference disappears. Special education teachers who graduated from other departments have the same views towards preparatory activities. Also there is no significant difference between views of special education teachers who graduated from classroom teaching department and teachers who graduated from special education department. However, a significant difference is found between the views of special education teachers who graduated from special education department and other departments. Special education teachers graduated from departments other than special education and classroom teaching must be supported.
In terms of working experience special education teachers' views about preparatory activities with regard to fine and gross motor coordination, visual discrimination, auditory discrimination, and directional motor coordination. However, in terms of working experience, there is a significant difference in special education teachers' views about mental preparation activities. Teachers who have a working experience between 0-5 years have higher points than teachers who have working experience between 6-10 years. When the special education teachers' views regarding what must be done to improve gross motor coordination skills are examined, they consider playdough and clay, arm-hand and wrist exercises, cut and paste, ruffling and tearing, sitting correctly, catching ball activities necessary. However, they think it is unnecessary to do activities such as writing with beans, put-take off Legos, air writing and writing on the board, holding and opening a book, and sand writing.
When the special education teachers' views regarding what must be done to improve visual discrimination abilities are examined, special education teachers consider discriminating pictures, finding the different one, telling stories based on a picture, discriminating geometric figures, finding the same one, completing, matching pictures, colors, numbers, and letters, and recognizing a picture he has seen before activities necessary. However, they think it isn't so necessary to do activities such as telling the details that he sees in a picture, finding the visual equivalents of the words he hears, making up stories with the help of pictures, taking about characters, event, places and time of a story he make up with the help of pictures, finding the suitable pictures for the sentences he hears, and distinguishing from others.
When the special education teachers' views regarding what must be done to improve auditory discrimination abilities are examined, they consider the following activities necessary; discriminating the sounds he hears in his environment (animal sounds, car horn sounds), matching the sounds with their sources (bow-wow = dog) imitating sounds, locating the source of sounds, guessing the sounds with his eyes closed, listening.
Nevertheless, they don't consider answering questions regarding what he listens activity necessary.
When the special education teachers' views regarding what must be done to improve directional motor coordination skills are examined, they consider teaching right-left concept activity necessary. But they consider the following activities less necessary; turning page, putting into order the sequential event cards from left to right, putting into order the number cards from left to right, painting the figures starting from the ones in the left to right.
When the special education teachers' views regarding what must be done as mental preparation activities when conducting preparatory activities are examined, Special education teachers consider the following activities necessary in the mental preparation stage when conducting preparatory activities for reading-writing; concentrating, teaching the names of the objects, recognizing the colors, matching letters, vocalizing the letter in the words (vocalizing the letter he is shown), finding the similarities and differences in pictures.
However, they don't think it is necessary to do Finding the letter in a given word activity.
Results revealed that special education teachers do not consider many activities which must be done to improve fine and gross motor coordination, visual discrimination, auditory discrimination, directional motor coordination and mental preparation necessary when conducting preparatory activities for reading writing. This shows that special education teachers do not have sufficient knowledge regarding preparatory activities for readingwriting. Therefore, special education teachers must be trained about this issue regardless of their different characteristics.