Can LD can help teach regular eduction students?

I’m so glad you raised this issue.

I guess my main point is that in theory, it sounds good. We all benefit from experiencing the fact that everyone learns differently and perceive the world differently.

But, reality is that when we group all of these kids together, it is not humanly possible to give them the proper individual instruction they need to be successful.

An LD child needs differential instruction and many times lots of extra individual attention. A teacher and a co-teacher just cannot be expected to accomodate all of the needy students in a gen ed classroom. Someone is going to get the short end of the stick.

Here’s a “good one” too. Peer tutors. A non-LD child assisting an LD child in understanding how to multiply fractions. Whose idiotic idea was this? I have observed children “helping” each other at all age groups. This is just a lame attempt at forcing inclusion to work for everyone. Plain and simple, it doesn’t.

People will argue that inclusion, done properly, is effective. Now, honestly, viewing all of the posts here, how many school districts are doing things properly? So, how much of their “intervention” is actually effective?

I think we should all give up on this politically correct attitude and do what is necessary to actually “help” kids who need help. We need to stop with the discrepency model which sets a cut off point determining those who deserve help vs. those who are set off to sea only doomed to fail.

All of this probably means not being so afraid to re-examine how we educate children in general. Our national reading and writing scores prove that things are not well in education and all would fare well by some thorough house cleaning and adoption of research-based educational techniques instead of tenured teachers who “have been doing ‘this’ for 25 years” and refuse to change.

It is my belief that when we put all of these children in 1 classroom, we force them to take a place on the level of pecking order; brighest vs. dimmest.

I see it all the time, kids who can rattle off who is the smartest and who is the dumbest.

Calling attention to LD kids in their classroom surely does not foster a healthy self-esteem. In our case it has caused our child to need private psychological therapy in order to deal with the classroom daily.

In my school, not so much, but that’s because we’re very hush hush about our students’ learning difference and learning difference in general. If we were more open and willing to speak to it, it could do all our students good. Some of the accomodations provided to LD students would be beneficial to every student.

Teaching LD students ask teachers to teach to the child’s individual needs. The concept of teaching to any child’s individual needs - LD or not - is an excellent one and could improve schools.

Yes, students with LDs in a classroom can help teach regular education students. They can also hinder learning at times, however, overall I think inclusion with the right supports and as Lulu mentioned “done properly” can work. Often it does not work. For example, you may have a student with impulse control problems throwing a book across the room. I know of a situation where this occured. Obviously that endangers other children most importantly, and it also disrupted academic learning. It is also a moment where students can learn about frustration, impulse control, and other social topics. It also teaches peers patience. This child was taken out of a regular education class .

I don’t understand the question, but I do agree with Little Lulu’s point.

Who are we kidding? Let’s do remediation right in a pull out model and do it well, so that we can bring back the children into the regular classroom ASAP using an inclusion model.

Inclusion only works for those who can at least read and write. For the non readers, it’s a sure road to failure. Kids know their groupings no matter what name you call the group. Isn’t it better to be pulled out and “stigmatized” for a year then be mainstreamed than stigmatized in the regular classroom with successful readers forever? I’ve had students with dyslexia in my pull out class for 2 years then they are mainstreamed. Now, they’re very happy and successful except in spelling, but it would always be a concern anyway. So what if they were pulled out for 2 years? Right now, who can tell?

With this inclusion model I’ve had to always fight with the regular ed teachers. It depends so much on teacher chemistry, trust, planning time, and belief in the system plus admin support of course.