For our third installation of The Novel Effect, our team connected with Connecticut-based educator, Gina Gardella Ditrio, who uses Novel Effect to inspire a love of reading in deaf and hard of hearing students.
For 20 years, Gina worked in the Norwalk Public School District as a Special Education Teacher in Preschool. She now works in 13 schools throughout the district, and at St. Vincent’s Special Needs Services in Trumbull, CT, teaching students who are deaf or hard of hearing, ranging from 5 months to 14.
Brookside Elementary Library Media Specialist, Audra Good, introduced Gina to Novel Effect a little over a year ago. It has transformed Gina’s approach to teaching deaf and hard of hearing students. Novel Effect has enabled her to free up her hands for signing and allows her to introduce her kids to sound effects she would never be able to make on her own.
Below, find our interview with Gina about her journey into deaf and hard of hearing education, her work in the Norwalk Public School District, and how Novel Effect impacts teaching deaf and hard of hearing students.
Gina Gardella Ditrio (GGD): I’m so happy to be here! I teach deaf and hard of hearing children, from birth to 14 in the public school system. I’m itinerant, so I travel all over from school to school and I believe in using lots of sounds with my students–different environmental sounds.
I used to carry my big bag of instruments–I’ve got shakers and I have clappers and drums, including all of the materials I need for
my session. It’s a pain to have to carry all of those bags. Then Audra Good purchased Novel Effect for Brookside Elementary. I was like, “Oh my God, this is a game changer.” I don’t have to carry all of that stuff; I just carry my speakers–I have a few different ones according to who I’m working with.
For example, I work at St. Vincent’s Special Needs School in Trumbull. This population is severely disabled. Wheelchair, nonambulatory, nonverbal, cognitively disabled, so I do group lessons just because it’s more fun and engaging. I have a disco ball that lights up with a speaker so the visually impaired children can zoom in on the speaker–I wear all black when I visit so the colors stand out.
GGD: With Novel Effect, the attention span has improved greatly and they are more engaged in read-alouds. Because of YouTube and all of these videos out there now, they don’t really want to hear me read a story. That has been a challenge, even when I was in PreK before Novel Effect. By reading a story out loud you elicit so much more language out of a student. Ever since I started using Novel Effect back in the spring, all of the students from age 3 up have really improved.
In my birth to 3 program, babies that are 5 months to almost 3 years old, I’ve introduced Novel Effect as well. The difference I’m seeing in these little toddlers! I’m reading and I’m acting out, but Novel Effect is creating the sound effects and they sit and listen. It might only be for a minute, but that’s better than if I just pulled out a book without it.
GGD: I have a little preschooler I work with. At the preschool, I’m in a hallway with lots of activity going around, and it’s very distracting.
He sits facing me at a table as I’m reading and then I pause, he turns to the table, and I say, “OK, can you show me where the pear is?”–I’m doing sound discrimination, so things like pear vs. bear.
He is able to turn towards the table where I have my props laid out and he can point and then come back and turn to me. Because Novel Effect pauses, I can do that!
GGD: I know! A few weeks ago, I asked a second grade class–that I have a hard-of-hearing student in– if I could read to the group. I read to them and it was amazing because somebody started to fool around and one of the boys said, “Shhh! I can’t hear the sound effects.” And the kid stopped!
After the lesson, I said to them, “Tell me, how did you like this story?” It was The Little Old Lady Who Wasn’t Afraid of Anything, so LOTS of sound effects.
They said, “Ms. Gina, that was the best story ever because as you were reading we could hear it and we could really think about it. We had to be quiet so we could hear the sound effects.”
A little boy said, “It made me pay attention better.” That came from a 2nd grader!
"With Novel Effect, the attention span has improved greatly and they are more engaged in read-alouds. By reading a story out loud you elicit so much more language out of a student. Ever since I started using Novel Effect back in the spring, all of the students from age 3 up have really improved."
Gina Gardella Ditrio
Norwalk Public School District
GGD: The classroom teachers are starting to use it because I go in and I’m so excited! I say, “Turn off your Smart Board, read to them!” One teacher has a rocking chair and she reads to them, and she said, “The kids are just fascinated!”
Audra Good wants me to come and talk to all the teachers at the staff meeting because I’m so excited.
GGD: Yes. This particular student has bilateral hearing loss. He’s echolalic, he repeats everything you say. He has a very difficult time. I’ve been working with him for almost a year.
He did not follow one- or two-step directions. I struggled to find different activities that would engage him without putting on an entire performance.
Then back in April or May I used Novel Effect in my session and I’m telling you he just stopped. He sat and he listened, he attended, and he followed along with the book.
I could cry, how remarkable it was. It was a game changer for this particular student and if I can change one student like that? Worth it.
GGD: It’s very challenging when a child has a unilateral hearing loss because they don’t know where the sound is coming from. It’s very challenging with my birth to 3, preK, and Kindergarten kids. I have to do auditory training. What I do with Novel Effect is I hide the speaker and they have to play Hide n’ Seek listening. I hide it so they can’t see it and as they get close, I make the speaker louder.
Some of the children have something called a BAHA, a bone-anchored hearing aid. That’s a little challenging for the kids because they’re not hearing through the ear, they’re hearing through the bone. Sometimes my students don’t come in with their BAHAs. They hear nothing on that side. If I’m able to really reinforce the auditory on the other side with Novel Effect they’re happy. Then I’ll say, “You know, if you want me to read this story again, bring your BAHA in so you can hear on both sides.” It’s a source of encouragement.
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