I’m going to possibly be teaching LD elementary students in the fall and would like any tips I can get. Is there anyone out there that is new to this field as I am? What’s a good book to read with practical helps, etc? Whatever anyone can do to help me learn everything possible would be of great help to me…
Thank you!
Re: brand new LD teachers
Volume I and II by Joan M. Harwell are excellent-they are at the Borders Books and Music. The two big books, spiral bound, from Center for Applied Research in Education:
“Ready to Use Tools and Materials for Remediating Specific Learning Disabilities: Complete Learning Disabilities Resource Library”
and “Ready to Use Information and Materials for Assessing Specific Learning Disabilities: Complete Learning Disabilities Resource Library” $30.00 each, but it’s an investment in your future and the kids’ future.
I am a new teacher as well. I think Direct Instruction is the way to go for teaching a group of LD kids; an experienced high school teacher told me this. Direct Instruction math and reading are excellent. It’s from DISTAR. The originator was Siegfried Englemann.
It seems like sometimes we need to use conventional methods, and also unconventional ideas: the multisensory, the kinesthetic, the song, the memory tricks. Do as much assessing as you can to get to know them…so you know who is reading at which grade level, and sometimes two kids that are supposedly reading at the same grade level, actually one of them has big gaps in his knowledge and abilities, whereas the other guy is solid at that level, i.e., can read and write and comprehend at that level.
You can also look up www.allkindsofminds.org, which is Dr. Levine’s site, and get his book: “Keeping a head in school” A company called EPS has an excellent catalog, another excellent one with a catalog is called Linguisystems.
I’ll send you something when I get home that someone sent me about organization of the classroom and the school day.
Bond with the kids, bond with the kids. They will work their tails off for you.
Re: LD teachers
Congratulations on your new job! I am the program director at a school solely for kids with learning disabilities. This is what I tell and/or look for in great LD teachers:
First, read or watch anything you can by Mel Levine and Richard Lavoie. Take it to heart.
Second, use direct instruction for everything! Our kids are kids who don’t pick up on things that others take for granted. Even the social skills—they will need to be told things to say and not to say and when.
Teach kids things they can count on—spelling patterns that work all the time, mathematical patterns (not just procedures), social rules—first. Gradually teach concepts that work only sometimes later (less common spelling patterns, when it’s o.k. to ask how much something cost, etc.). Teach them hard fast rules first to give them some sense of understanding of the world around them, then teach the inconsistencies.
Stay away from negative teachers even if that means eating lunch alone in your room.
Be as supportive to your students’ parents as you are to your students. We likely can not imagine what they must go through dealing with a kid who appears so normal and yet just isn’t.
Remember that our kids have invisible disabilities—people won’t always be as compassionate as they should be because they either won’t know, understand or believe it to be necessary. Don’t be one of those people.
Never say or think “they should know better”. Of course they should, but they likely don’t, and sometimes can’t.
When you find something doesn’t work, even though you believe it would, CHANGE it immediately!
Don’t try to fit our square peg kids into round holes. They are never going to be round!
Don’t ever give up on our kids and don’t allow anyone else (including them or their parents) to give up on them either. they need to know that you believe in them, because it will be difficult for anyone else to at times.
Help your kids ACCEPT their disabilities. Don’t allow them to deny them or hide them. Help them become their own advocates.
Don’t limit your students’ potential. Don’t treat them as “once in a special ed class, always in a special ed class”. Push them as hard as you can. Teach them as fast as you can, but as slow as you have to.
Become one of the great ones…your students, their parents, and your colleagues need that.
Good luck!
Shara
A great book is Mel Levine’s Educational Care. I find it very practical. Anything written by Mel Levine though is good.
I’m not new to the field but I’ve offered the shortcut version of “everything you need to know to teach” below.
If you can put the learner above the learning, you’ll serve both best.
You’ll also find the kids will be your best teacher if you let them.
Good luck.