New Teacher

I”d only suggest that the approach of the resource room be clear. What will that be? Will your resource room remediate basic weaknesses - as best it can - or will it direct itself to supporting the students to keep up and be successful in their courses?

It’s hard if not impossible, I think, to do both. Students can’t ‘catch up’ while still successfully keeping up.

Good luck.

If you can afford it, buy some dollar store stuff that the kids can buy with “tickets” they earn for on-task behavior. This “stuff” makes good incentives. I set a timer and give the students a ticket for every 15 minutes without violating a classroom rule. At the end of the week(for elementary, it can be the end of the day) they can trade in their tickets for “stuff”.

Extra pens, pencils are a must; kids lose them all the time.

Motivational posters to be put on the back wall of the room helps brighten the place and can encourage the students.

Little certificates or stickers or other awards if your students are elementary in the resource room.

The timer is invaluable. In a resource class, students are often moving from one activity to another. Posterboards are often a tremendous help for learning stations.

Any ready-made reinforcement activities or games for those who finish work early will be a Godsend. Remember, in a resource class many of your students will be working independently at some point while you are working individually with other students.

Good luck……you will absolutely love it! Just be gentle with yourself…and give yourself time to adjust and adapt.

God speed!

Sara……..boy, you hit the nail right on the head. There is no way you can do both. There is no way a teacher can remediate AND support regular class activities in the space of 45 min. to an hour: the length of time most students spend in a resource class, especially if there are 5-8 students in the resource room at one time.

Well said!

Hi Sara. I am a parent of a fourth grade son who has just been diagnosed with a ld. His weakness is reading/spatial skills. The school psychologist has not test him yet (we had him tested elsewhere) but she did mention that the possibility of my son using a resource room if it she her testing agrees that he is ld. Since I am totally in the dark, and scrambling now to figure out how to best serve my son, what things should I ask for in the resource room? Which approach is more successful - remdiation of basic weaknesses or supporting students to keep up? It probably is different for each child, but how do I determine what is best for mine? Thank you, Pam.

Lauren,
I would also recommend building a “library” of both high interest, low reading level books and controlled text books for your students to use in the classroom or borrow. Be careful to check with your school’s reading specialist or others who might have book collections from which you can borrow to see what they have first.
Renee

HI , CHILDERN WITH LD CAN BE TRYING AT TIMES BUT I DO ENJOY WORKING WITH THEM , I LEARN SOMETHING NEW EACH DAY.

The answer to taht depends on a lot of things, including how you’re planning to remediate and what you’d sacrifice to do it. Not remediating can, unfortunately, sacrifice future independence — but, also unfortuantely, most schools do a horrendous job of it especially after fourth or fifth grade. (Not all… just most.) Some choices include using that resource room just to have a period to do homework — so you can get remediation done at home (and you may still want to reduce the homework during that time).
An important question is how well the child learns by participating in a classroom. Some kids can pick up all that stuff they hate to read about — but other kids have just as much trouble keeping track of all that spoken language as they do the printed words. For the first kiddo, you want him in those regular classes as much as possible.

By middle school, there is no choice. It is all supporting students in most schools. I would take remediating basic weaknesses any day. But not all schools have programs/teachers that are good enough so be prepared to hire a tutor or do it yourself.

My son is LD and in fourth grade. He has been classified since age 4 (speech impaired). He is in a resource room for one hour a day for reading. He also does reading in the regular classroom, since at this point he can keep up with the regular circ. as well. He is in the lowest reading group. We have done lots of remediation privately and I work every day with him as well.

Beth

Magnetic letters, and other such manipulatives for use in making words. I also use sentence strips a lot. As previously stated the more books you can have that are high interest and low readability the better. High Noon books offers many such books. Math flash cards, or math games to reinforce basic facts. These are just a few things. Once you get to know the students you will be working with you will be able to come up with items of your own. Good luck and have fun, I love working with special needs students.