Hi, I am a current student at a local university in Maryland and I am preparing to be an elementary education teacher. I am currently enrolled in a course concerning inclusion in the general ed. classroom and I am seeking information to help me in a situation where I will most definitely have some students with a learning disability in my future classroom. My question is:
How does a teacher modify or rearrange his/her classwork to fully include a student with a disability in the current content areas of study in the classroom?
The kinds of accommodations and modifications needed will depend on the student and his disability—it varies from student to student. Say you have a student with severe dyslexia and severe dysgraphia. First and foremost, he will need daily intensive remediation (which hopefully the school will provide), the most familiar of which is the Orton-Gillingham program. He’ll probably need to be pulled out for that, so there’ll need to be resource teachers who are trained to give that kind of remediation.
Second, while he’s building his reading skills, he will probably need books on tape, so he’ll have a way to learn the information his classmates are learning. Since writing and spelling are big problems for him, he’ll need a notetaker (if he’s in a grade level where note-taking skills are required). He should not be required to copy off the blackboard; instead, you should give him copies of whatever written information he needs. He should learn his math via oral math and with manipulatives, and when he does written math, he may need graph paper to make it easier to line his columns. He’ll need to take his tests orally, and when he begins to take written tests, they need to be untimed, since it takes him probably three times as long to finish them as it does his classmates. He should learn to type, and to use a computer, so he’ll have a way to prepare legible papers that look good to the eye, while he’s building his writing skills (and so that he’ll have a marketable job skill, since typing and computer skills are a requirement in today’s job market). He’ll need to be allowed to use the computer’s spellcheck as well.
He should be allowed to do fewer problems and answer fewer questions, since a homework assignment that takes his classmates a half hour will probably take him an hour and a half. Forcing him to do hours of homework every night will only be counterproductive. Let him use arts projects to show what he’s learned—photography, drawings, paintings, dioramas, etc. Let him prepare oral reports, too.
Now, as to the kinds of accommodations and modifications students with other kinds of LD will need, I’ll let someone else describe those.
Yours truly,
Kathy G.
Elizabeth Riggin wrote:
>
> Hi, I am a current student at a local university in Maryland
> and I am preparing to be an elementary education teacher. I
> am currently enrolled in a course concerning inclusion in the
> general ed. classroom and I am seeking information to help me
> in a situation where I will most definitely have some
> students with a learning disability in my future classroom.
> My question is:
>
> How does a teacher modify or rearrange his/her classwork to
> fully include a student with a disability in the current
> content areas of study in the classroom?