As a pre-service teacher, I am curious as to how I can recognize learning disabilities in my elementary school classroom. Are there signs that I should be looking for? Once I recognize a disability, is there a standard procedure as to who I should contact next? Thanks for your help!
Re: recognizing LD in my classroom
: As a pre-service teacher, I am curious as to how I can recognize
: learning disabilities in my elementary school classroom. Are there
: signs that I should be looking for? Once I recognize a disability,
: is there a standard procedure as to who I should contact next?
: Thanks for your help!Usually students with learning disabilities have difficulties in one or more subject areas. The Council for Learning Disabilities gives five catagories in which students can have a disability: reading, written language arts, mathematics, memory, and metacognition. Students who might have reading disabilities may show difficulties in word recognition and may orally omit, insert, substitute or reverse words. They may also have difficulties with comprehension. While reading they may consistently loose thier place or read in a choppy manner. Dyslexia is included in this area. A disabilities in written language ( handwriting)is referred to as Dysgraphia. Look for problems in handwriting, spelling, word usage and composition. Many times reading disabilities and written language disabilities go hand in hand and students have disabilities in both areas. Students that may have a disability in mathematics (Dyscalculia) may have difficulty copying shapes or differentiating numbers, recalling math facts, writing numbers, using math vocabulary,solving word problems or makning comparisons, and using stratagies to solve problems. Many times these students have difficulty with generlization. They cannot apply mathematic concepts to every day skills such as adding two numbers and then adding the cost of two items in a store. Applying what is learned from one setting to another. Many students with learning disabilities also have problems with long-term memoy. Signs to look for in this area are the inability to recall information from one day to the next and difficulty organinzing information. In terms of short term memory, look for difficulties in comparing, organizing, processing, and coding information. Students with learning disabilities have difficulty distinguishing how they learn information. This is metacognition. Students usually demonstrate problems in knowing a large number of strategies for acquiring, storing, and processing information. Determining a learning disability in a student can be a difficult and long-term process. One suggestion is to collaborate with the special education or LD teacher in your school. The student must have a nondiscriminatory evaluation and undergo a series of test to determine the extent of the disability. Parents must be contacted and made aware of the situaton and should have a role in the entire process from evaluation to testing and identification of the disability. IDEA ( Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) is a good reference for following the appropriate and leagal steps for individuals with disabilities.
Re: recognizing LD in my classroom
: If a child is not doing well in school or in a particular class, I tend to think of learning differences. Particularly if the difficulty is fairly constant. I tend to think of learning differences when I see very shaky handwriting as well or very shaky social skills. Most people have learning differences of one kind or another.In my school there is no standard procedure, but each school is different. In some schools , they would prefer that we as teachers not notice when a child has a learning difference as the school prefers not to address the issue.As a pre-service teacher, I am curious as to how I can recognize
: learning disabilities in my elementary school classroom. Are there
: signs that I should be looking for? Once I recognize a disability,
: is there a standard procedure as to who I should contact next?
: Thanks for your help!
Re: recognizing LD in my classroom
: As a pre-service teacher, I am curious as to how I can recognize
: learning disabilities in my elementary school classroom. Are there
: signs that I should be looking for? Once I recognize a disability,
: is there a standard procedure as to who I should contact next?
: Thanks for your help!Usually students with learning disabilities have difficulties in one or more subject areas. The Council for Learning Disabilities gives five catagories in which students can have a disability: reading, written language arts, mathematics, memory, and metacognition. Students who might have reading disabilities may show difficulties in word recognition and may orally omit, insert, substitute or reverse words. They may also have difficulties with comprehension. While reading they may consistently loose thier place or read in a choppy manner. Dyslexia is included in this area. A disabilities in written language ( handwriting)is referred to as Dysgraphia. Look for problems in handwriting, spelling, word usage and composition. Many times reading disabilities and written language disabilities go hand in hand and students have disabilities in both areas. Students that may have a disability in mathematics (Dyscalculia) may have difficulty copying shapes or differentiating numbers, recalling math facts, writing numbers, using math vocabulary,solving word problems or makning comparisons, and using stratagies to solve problems. Many times these students have difficulty with generlization. They cannot apply mathematic concepts to every day skills such as adding two numbers and then adding the cost of two items in a store. Applying what is learned from one setting to another. Many students with learning disabilities also have problems with long-term memoy. Signs to look for in this area are the inability to recall information from one day to the next and difficulty organinzing information. In terms of short term memory, look for difficulties in comparing, organizing, processing, and coding information. Students with learning disabilities have difficulty distinguishing how they learn information. This is metacognition. Students usually demonstrate problems in knowing a large number of strategies for acquiring, storing, and processing information. Determining a learning disability in a student can be a difficult and long-term process. One suggestion is to collaborate with the special education or LD teacher in your school. The student must have a nondiscriminatory evaluation and undergo a series of test to determine the extent of the disability. Parents must be contacted and made aware of the situaton and should have a role in the entire process from evaluation to testing and identification of the disability. IDEA ( Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) is a good reference for following the appropriate and leagal steps for individuals with disabilities.
: If a child is not doing well in school or in a particular class, I tend to think of learning differences. Particularly if the difficulty is fairly constant. I tend to think of learning differences when I see very shaky handwriting as well or very shaky social skills. Most people have learning differences of one kind or another.In my school there is no standard procedure, but each school is different. In some schools , they would prefer that we as teachers not notice when a child has a learning difference as the school prefers not to address the issue.As a pre-service teacher, I am curious as to how I can recognize
: learning disabilities in my elementary school classroom. Are there
: signs that I should be looking for? Once I recognize a disability,
: is there a standard procedure as to who I should contact next?
: Thanks for your help!