Psicopedagogia

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Accommodations and Instructional Techniques for Students with Specific Learning Disabilities

The prevalence of students with specific learning disabilities in the classroom is on the rise as inclusion becomes the norm. Read this article to learn accommodations and instructional techniques that can be used forstudents with specific learning disabilities

Strategies and Accommodations

In today’s classrooms, more and more students are being educated in the regular education setting. As the prevalence of students with specific learning disabilities increases, both special educators and regular educators need to modify our teaching strategies to match the needs of the students. We also need toprovide these students with the necessary accommodations in order for them to be successful across the curriculum.

I remember back when I was in school every teacher tended to teach the same way. They either read notes from a podium or wrote notes on the board, and that is how we had to learn. Teachers didn’t teach to the various learning styles or change the way they taught based on what thestudents needed.

Today’s teachers need to do this in order for their students to be successful. Teaching orally is not the only way to get students to learn. We need to teach to the visual learners, the auditory learners, and the kinesthetic learners all at the same time. How can we meet the needs of all our students when we are teaching?
An easy way to start is when teaching speak orally and inwritten form, whether it be on the whiteboard or overhead projector. This allows students to not only see the information but hear it as well.

Another good teaching strategy is to let students work in groups. Students sometimes learn more from each other. You do not have to do group work every day, but do it often enough so that students who don’t learn as well listening to just the teacher.When working with students with specific learning disabilities, it is important to not overwhelm them with too much information. A good way to avoid information overload is to teach information in chunks. Let’s say we are teaching a lesson on adding fractions with different denominators. Teach the students how to get common denominators then let them practice that. After they have grasped thatconcept, then teach them how to add the fractions, practice that, then later on work on reducing fractions to lowest terms.

An additional strategy that is beneficial when working with students with specific learning disabilities is to allow them to start homework in class. I know that many teachers believe that all homework should be done at home, but for students with learning disabilitiesthey can easily forget the information until they get home or actually forget that they even have homework to complete. By allowing them to start their homework in class, the teacher can check to make sure that they really understand the material, and may possibly have to adjust their lesson plans for the following day.

Accommodations are the little changes that we can do to make the jobs of thestudents just a little easier while allowing them to receive the exact same education as the students without disabilities receive.
There are several accommodations that teachers can provide for testing. The most common one is allowing students extra time to complete tests and quizzes. Many of these students have anxiety when it comes to taking a test; so allowing them additional time takes someof the unnecessary stress off of them and really allows them to focus on the content.

Also, when it comes to testing, only test them on the most important information, not the extra, unneeded information. Some students may need tests read to them, or can be allowed to answer questions orally, particularly essay questions. It may also be a great idea to provide students with word banks for...