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Recommended Teaching Strategies
Students with learning disabilities are often served in regular classes by general education teachers with the support of a special educator. As with the education of any student with a disability, it is important that the general and special educators collaborate effectively in order to develop a set of teaching strategies for the student.
Teaching Strategies for Students with Perceptual Difficulties:
Maintain attention by:
Direct instruction commonly refers to:
1. The identification and instruction of specific academic skills and
2. The use of teaching techniques that have been empirically demonstrated to be effective with students with learning disabilities
Direction instruction teaching methods address the organization and presentation of instruction. The approach is very teacher-directed and includes an initial presentation based on the teacher first modeling the skill or response, then providing guided practice (leading), and, finally, eliciting independent student responses (testing).
Source Retrieved 4/21/2012
Teaching Strategies for Students with Perceptual Difficulties:
- Do not present two pieces of information together that may be perceptually confusing. For example, do not teach the spelling of ie words (believe) and ei words (perceive) in the same day.
- Highlight the important characteristics of new material. For example, underline or use bold letters to draw a student's attention to the same sound pattern presented in a group of reading or spelling words (mouse, house, round).
Maintain attention by:
- Breaking long tasks or assignments into smaller segments (administer the smaller segments throughout the day)
- Presenting limited amounts of information on a page
- Gradually increasing the amount of time a student must attend to a task or lecture
- Use prompts and cues to draw attention to important information. Types of cues include:
- Written cues, such as highlighting directions on tests or activity sheets
- Verbal cues, such as using signal words to let students know they are about to hear important information
- Instructional cues, such as having a student paraphrase directions or other information to you
- Teach students a plan for identifying and high-lighting important information for themselves
- Teachers may need to teach the following memory strategies to students with learning disabilities:
- Chunking is the grouping of large strings of information into smaller, more manageable "chunks". Telephone numbers, for example, are "chunked" into small segments for easier recall.
- Rehearsal is the repetition, either oral or silent, of the information to be remembered.
- Elaboration is the weaving of the material to be remembered into a meaningful context.
- Categorization is when the information to be remembered is organized by the category to which it belongs. For example, all the animals in a list could be grouped together for remembering.
- Phonics: Use structured phonics programs that:
- Teach most common sounds first
- Stress specific phonics rules and patterns
- Expose the beginning reader only to words that contain sounds he or she has already learned.
- Sight words:
- Require the student to focus on all important aspects of the word (all letters, not just the first and last ones).
- Have the student discriminate between the new word and frequently confused words. For example, if you are introducing the word "what" as a sight word, make sure the child can read the word when it is presented with words such as "that", "which", and "wait."
- Context clues:
- Control the reading level of materials used so that students are presented with few unfamiliar words.
- For beginning readers, present illustrations after the text selection has been read.
- Teach students to use context clues as a decoding strategy after they are adept at beginning phonics analysis.
- Predictions can be based on pictures, headings, subtitles, and graphs. They can be used to activate the students' prior knowledge before reading, increase attention to sequencing during reading, and can be evaluated after reading.
- Questions can be asked before reading to help students attend to important information.
- Teachers may prepare an advanced organizer on the text to help focus students' attention on key material in the text. The student can review the organizer before reading and take notes on it while reading.
- Self-monitoring or self evaluation techniques can be used when reading longer passages. For example, students can stop periodically and paraphrase the text or check their understanding.
- Provide effective writing instruction that includes daily practice on a range of writing tasks, teacher modeling, cooperative learning opportunities, follow-up instruction and feedback, and integrating writing activities across the curriculum.
- Tailor writing instruction to meet the needs of individual children. Adaptations may include student-specific topics for instruction, one-to-one supplemental instruction, and adapting task requirements.
- Intervene early on writing assignments.
- Expect that each child will learn to write. Teacher's expectations, coupled with a supportive and positive classroom, can facilitate the writing performance of students with learning disabilities.
- Identify and address academic and non-academic stumbling blocks such as behavior or social problems in the classroom.
- Take advantage of technological tools for writing.
Direct instruction commonly refers to:
1. The identification and instruction of specific academic skills and
2. The use of teaching techniques that have been empirically demonstrated to be effective with students with learning disabilities
Direction instruction teaching methods address the organization and presentation of instruction. The approach is very teacher-directed and includes an initial presentation based on the teacher first modeling the skill or response, then providing guided practice (leading), and, finally, eliciting independent student responses (testing).
Source Retrieved 4/21/2012