Hi! I am a current University student studying to become an elementary/middle school teacher. When including students with learning disabilities into the classroom, I was wondering if their were any physical features a teacher should add to the room to meet the needs of such students. For instance, classroom setup, daily routines and displays used around the room. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Re: Inclusive Classroom Features
LD students are all unique, however in an inclusive setting there are some things that I believe really help with organization. Reserve part of your white board (or chalk board is school building is old) to place assignments with due dates, then require that students transpose those into a tracker or assignment sheet in a 3 ring binder. Keep the assignment list current and re-teach changes.
When you are teaching an inclusive classroom, keep the things that may distract students to a minimum (bright, multi-colored displays, busyness that is unorganized, etc.)
Structure your room so that you can teach in a variety of setting (area for large group instruction, area(s) for small group instruction, area(s) to isolate students who need to be separated.
Think about the strategic location of all furniture items, including your teacher’s desk.
That’s what I can think of this moment.
Hi Melissa,
Since LD describes 7 different types of disorder and a student can have any *one or more* of the disorders at the same time, the term LD describes a possible 5,040 (7x6x5x4x3x2x1=5,040) combinations of disorders that could be described at LD. To make it further difficult, a child could have other conditions (such as ADHD) that make his or her learning needs still further different. The bottom line is that it is pretty individual.
Many teachers are trained not to read cumulative files (such as old grade cards) but this is one of the first things I do. It gives me clues about what has and has not been successful for this student in prior years. Since I’m not just like any of those teachers, I take it all with a grain of salt, but make some predictions and study the child to see if my original ideas appear to be correct.
This is probably way more than you ever wanted to know.