From input I’ve gotten from various sources, it looks like an inclusion program is what we need for our fourth and fifth graders at my school. Next question - How to set it up? I know I want to include the regular ed. teachers in any training. I have read a little here about co-teaching, and have talked to a teacher from another school where they did that. But, I need some practical advice - scheduling, grouping, etc. Thanks for any help!
Re: Setting up an inclusion program
: From input I’ve gotten from various sources, it looks like an
: inclusion program is what we need for our fourth and fifth graders
: at my school. Next question - How to set it up? I know I want to
: include the regular ed. teachers in any training. I have read a
: little here about co-teaching, and have talked to a teacher from
: another school where they did that. But, I need some practical
: advice - scheduling, grouping, etc. Thanks for any help! I have done inclusion with one 5th grade teacher at my school for 2 years. We placed 7 LD kids in her classroom that we thought would be successful in an inclusion setting. They are all LD in either reading or written language or both. I am in her classroom 90 minutes perday. We plan together every Wed. after school. I do some teaching with the whole class and we do a lot of small group instruction. I have developed a modified spelling program that I implement with these 7 students in a small group for approximately 20 minutes per day while the regular teacher does daily oral language/spelling with the rest of the class. We talk daily-it takes a lot of communication, flexibility, and trying new things. We both have some of the same philosophies as far as teaching styles, etc. this is a must! It must be a joint venture. The rest of my day, I do pull-out groups. Other teachers are interested but with 25+ kids I don’t know how to schedule that! So as you can see, I do inclusion on a small scale, I still feel many of my other students need direct instruction in a small group.
Re: Setting up an inclusion program
Dianne, Thanks for your response. It’s very helpful! I do have some who will still need pullout also, and was kind of wondering how to be all things to them (the joy of special ed!-heehee), your setup sounds like a really good starting point. I have a fourth grade teacher in mind to work with, but fifth will be a little more challenging…Anway, thanks and good luck to you and your kids! patti
reply to: A word of caution
PASSWORD>aaLufCNf4SxQgKathy,The county in which I teach will be mandating co-teaching in “special areas” beginning in the 2000-01 school year. As a former classroom teacher, Title I teacher, and in my current position as a Reading Recovery/Reading Support Teacher, I found your cautions very interesting. I have had many of the same worries myself. Our county supervisors frown upon our bringing up these kinds of issues because they see it as our being unwilling to give new trends a try. I printed your comments and plan to give a copy to the teachers at my school. Hopefully it will raise some of the classroom teachers’ consciousnesses so that they will be, at least, tolerant of these children and our efforts to provide the skills that will help them learn more efficiently and feel good about themselves.
A word of caution
EMAILNOTICES>noNot being a teacher myself, I’m ill-equipped to give you any of the practical advice you’ve requested, so I’ll leave that to others. But I would like to offer a few words of caution, if I may.If you go with inclusion, please don’t make it full inclusion. Please don’t eliminate the continuum of placements needed for special-ed to be a success. No special-ed child should HAVE to be homeschooled or sent to a special school because the public school does not have what he needs, and too often, full inclusion forces that choice for too many kids with disabilities. There are a number of disabled kids who will not be able to cope full-time in a regular classroom, no matter what accommodations, etc., you put in. They will still need pull-out programs (and for a small number, self-contained programs).Also, for those who do stay in a regular class, you’re going to have the problem of protecting their egos in front of their classmates. First, will they be willing to accept remediation in a regular class, where all their classmates will see and maybe tease them for being “stupid” or “retarded”? In addition, those who have social-skills problems are going to learn nothing appropriate from their classmates if all they receive is ridicule, bullying, and ostracism. Therefore, you AND the regular-ed teacher are going to have the added problem of helping them to be accepted by their classmates.Another factor to consider will be the attitude of the regular-ed teachers themselves. Do you know how many of them will be willing to do whatever’s needed to help a special-ed student learn and cope? If they resent the students with disabilities AND the program that forces them to have to teach these students, their attitude will seriously undermine whatever benefit inclusion might have otherwise brought. Trying to educate them won’t necessarily change their attitudes, I fear. (Maybe it will for some, but for hard-liners, it won’t.)Please keep these considerations in mind as you go about implementing an inclusion program. I know you don’t want to set up these children to fail via the very program you’re implementing for their success. BTW, Richard Lavois went on at length on this very issue on his “Ask Richard” forum. He advocates what he calls “responsible inclusion.” Have you read it? What he had to say makes good sense to me.Yours truly, Kathy G.
Re: Setting up an inclusion program
: From input I’ve gotten from various sources, it looks like an
: inclusion program is what we need for our fourth and fifth graders
: at my school. Next question - How to set it up? I know I want to
: include the regular ed. teachers in any training. I have read a
: little here about co-teaching, and have talked to a teacher from
: another school where they did that. But, I need some practical
: advice - scheduling, grouping, etc. Thanks for any help! I have done inclusion with one 5th grade teacher at my school for 2 years. We placed 7 LD kids in her classroom that we thought would be successful in an inclusion setting. They are all LD in either reading or written language or both. I am in her classroom 90 minutes perday. We plan together every Wed. after school. I do some teaching with the whole class and we do a lot of small group instruction. I have developed a modified spelling program that I implement with these 7 students in a small group for approximately 20 minutes per day while the regular teacher does daily oral language/spelling with the rest of the class. We talk daily-it takes a lot of communication, flexibility, and trying new things. We both have some of the same philosophies as far as teaching styles, etc. this is a must! It must be a joint venture. The rest of my day, I do pull-out groups. Other teachers are interested but with 25+ kids I don’t know how to schedule that! So as you can see, I do inclusion on a small scale, I still feel many of my other students need direct instruction in a small group.
Re: Setting up an inclusion program
Dianne, Thanks for your response. It’s very helpful! I do have some who will still need pullout also, and was kind of wondering how to be all things to them (the joy of special ed!-heehee), your setup sounds like a really good starting point. I have a fourth grade teacher in mind to work with, but fifth will be a little more challenging…Anway, thanks and good luck to you and your kids! patti
reply to: A word of caution
PASSWORD>aaLufCNf4SxQgKathy,The county in which I teach will be mandating co-teaching in “special areas” beginning in the 2000-01 school year. As a former classroom teacher, Title I teacher, and in my current position as a Reading Recovery/Reading Support Teacher, I found your cautions very interesting. I have had many of the same worries myself. Our county supervisors frown upon our bringing up these kinds of issues because they see it as our being unwilling to give new trends a try. I printed your comments and plan to give a copy to the teachers at my school. Hopefully it will raise some of the classroom teachers’ consciousnesses so that they will be, at least, tolerant of these children and our efforts to provide the skills that will help them learn more efficiently and feel good about themselves.
EMAILNOTICES>noNot being a teacher myself, I’m ill-equipped to give you any of the practical advice you’ve requested, so I’ll leave that to others. But I would like to offer a few words of caution, if I may.If you go with inclusion, please don’t make it full inclusion. Please don’t eliminate the continuum of placements needed for special-ed to be a success. No special-ed child should HAVE to be homeschooled or sent to a special school because the public school does not have what he needs, and too often, full inclusion forces that choice for too many kids with disabilities. There are a number of disabled kids who will not be able to cope full-time in a regular classroom, no matter what accommodations, etc., you put in. They will still need pull-out programs (and for a small number, self-contained programs).Also, for those who do stay in a regular class, you’re going to have the problem of protecting their egos in front of their classmates. First, will they be willing to accept remediation in a regular class, where all their classmates will see and maybe tease them for being “stupid” or “retarded”? In addition, those who have social-skills problems are going to learn nothing appropriate from their classmates if all they receive is ridicule, bullying, and ostracism. Therefore, you AND the regular-ed teacher are going to have the added problem of helping them to be accepted by their classmates.Another factor to consider will be the attitude of the regular-ed teachers themselves. Do you know how many of them will be willing to do whatever’s needed to help a special-ed student learn and cope? If they resent the students with disabilities AND the program that forces them to have to teach these students, their attitude will seriously undermine whatever benefit inclusion might have otherwise brought. Trying to educate them won’t necessarily change their attitudes, I fear. (Maybe it will for some, but for hard-liners, it won’t.)Please keep these considerations in mind as you go about implementing an inclusion program. I know you don’t want to set up these children to fail via the very program you’re implementing for their success. BTW, Richard Lavois went on at length on this very issue on his “Ask Richard” forum. He advocates what he calls “responsible inclusion.” Have you read it? What he had to say makes good sense to me.Yours truly, Kathy G.