Tips for Dealing with Students with Disabilities

Success for the student with learning disabilities requires a focus on individual achievement, individual progress, and individual learning. This requires specific, directed, individualized, intensive remedial instruction for students who are struggling.

• break learning into small steps;
• administer probes;
• supply regular, quality feedback;
• use diagrams, graphics and pictures to augment what they say in words;
• provide ample independent, well-designed intensive practice;
• model instructional practices that they want students to follow;
• provide prompts of strategies to use; and
• engage students in process type questions like “How is the strategy working? Where else might you apply it?”

Whether the student is in the general education classroom or learning in a special class setting, focus the activities on assessing individual students to monitor their progress through the curriculum. Concerns for the individual must take precedence over concerns for the group or the curriculum or for the organization and management of the general education classroom content.