Impacting Special Needs Students' Learning Through Multi-Voice Poetry

This book presents an investigation of the impact of multi-voice poetry/ partner poetry on the oral reading fluency of Grade eight students of the Special Educational Needs programme.The book begins by examining cognitive neuroscience in the context of special needs students by using a multi-voice approach with a sample of 10 students. A likert scale was utilized to capture students attitude towards reading while focus group interviews was conducted to gain insight into students¿ attitude towards reading and poetry. Fluency tests was also used as a data gathering method to assess students' fluency and registering word count per minute [WCPM]. It was found that through the use of strategies such as modeling, repeated reading, assisted readings, and shared readings, students made gains of an average of 50 WCPM at a sixth grade level. This indicated a significant impact on students¿ oral reading fluency among 90% of the participants. Additionally, students¿ level of motivation and self-efficacy, were also impacted. Those findings are in line with cognitive neuroscientist who claim that Poetry therapy leads to stronger neural connections and social and language skills in students.