Implementing District Standards
The Houston Independent School District uses the Functional Academic Curriculum for Exceptional Students (F.A.C.E.S.) for math, science, social studies, personal health and vocational instruction in lifeskills. Secondary teachers also utilize F.A.C.E.S. as their primary lifeskills Language Arts Curriculum guide. The Language Arts Module contains instructional objectives that are appropriate for students who range developmentally from 18 months to 8 years. With appropriate modifications, these objectives can be used with elementary through secondary students. The language arts objectives selected are aligned with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (T.E.K.S.) for pre-kindergarten through second grade. These curricula significantly modify the general curriculum to offer focused and functional instruction that enable the students to reach their greatest possible level of independence in all aspects of adult life.
The following skills for students at the transitional or exit level (2nd grade) to learn are found in the F.A.C.E.S. Language Arts Module:
- Know practiced consequences and problem solving strategies
- Read and make predictions and inferences
- Read and sequence information such as directions in a recipe
- Read and write using an extensive sight word vocabulary
- Use phonetic strategies
- Read environmental print in different contexts
- Read and write work and community related vocabulary in different contexts
- Write one to two sentences advancing to short paragraphs
- Write for specific purposes, such as e-mail, postcards, letters, stories, etc.
- Use assistive technology when appropriate
The IEP includes appropriate functional academic instructions in all areas of the general curriculum including independent community functioning, as needed. Off-campus, or community-based instruction (CBI) that is age-appropriate, is utilized as necessary, to ensure that skills taught in the classroom are generalized to the campus at large and to the general community setting. On a daily basis, students receiving lifeskills services have opportunities to interact with their non-disabled peers in age appropriate settings that may consist of ancillary or elective courses identified by the Admissions, Review, and Dismissal (ARD) Committee.
The F.A.C.E.S Language Arts Module quotes from The Policy Statement on Literacy for People with Mental Retardation, as follows:
Literacy is a major key to more effective self-government, self-advocacy, self-determination, quality of life, employment, healthcare, and participation as a citizen for all people, including individuals with mental retardation; …Educational methods, materials, techniques, and technologies are readily available to significantly improve the literacy of the majority of people with mental retardation…A curriculum focus on daily living skills to the exclusion of meaningful literacy is inadequate for the majority of people with mental retardation… (Intro - 2)
Teaching children with limited mental capabilities to read and write presents challenges, but Katims in his 2000 monograph, The Quest for Literacy: Curriculum and Instructional Procedures for Teaching Reading and Writing to Students with Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, reports that "students identified with mental retardation can learn to read and write and this has been documented in research literature for some time"( p 12). Katims also references research by Cegelka & Cegelka, 1970; Dunn, 1956; Conners, 1992; Orlando, 1973; Singh & Singh, 1986; and, Stanovich, 1985, (p. 12) that supports this fact.
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