Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an approach to teaching aimed at meeting the needs of every student in a classroom. It can be helpful for all kids, including kids with learning and attention issues. But UDL takes careful planning by teachers. Here are just a few examples of how UDL can work in a classroom.
Many struggling and special needs students have a print disability. Teachers can meet these students’ needs by translating the three principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into practice. Learn about the seven features of “born accessible materials” and how to select these materials for your school and classroom.
As you teach content areas to ELLs of diverse backgrounds, you may find that they struggle to grasp the content, and that they approach the content from very different perspectives. Drawing on your students’ background knowledge and experiences can be an effective way to bridge those gaps and make content more accessible. This article offers a number of suggestions to classroom teachers as they find ways to tap into the background knowledge that students bring with them.
Learn about American Sign Language (ASL)/English bilingual programs to support the acquisition, learning, and use of ASL and English to meet the needs of diverse learners who are deaf and hard of hearing.
The law requires that public schools develop appropriate Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for each child. The IEP is a written plan for educating a child with a disability. The IEP describes the student’s specific special education needs as well as any related services, including assistive technology.
Learn about three common terms and descriptions related to reading instruction that may help give you a better understanding of what’s happening in your child’s classroom and what it means for your young learner.
After reviewing the research, the What Works Clearninghouse recommends that in tier 1 of Response To Intervention, schools provide differentiated reading instruction for all students based on assessments of students’ current reading levels.
Three patterns of reading difficulties are common. This article explains how recognizing these three patterns can provide a valuable starting point for planning reading instruction and interventions.
This study describes a second-grade science curriculum designed to individualize student instruction so that students, regardless of initial science and literacy skills, gain science knowledge and reading skills. The instruction incorporates flexible, homogeneous, literacy skills-based grouping, use of leveled science text, and explicit use of discussion and comprehension strategies.
Timelines are graphic representations of the chronology of events in time. While they are often used as a way to display information in visual form in textbooks as an alternative to written narrative, students can also become more actively engaged in learning the sequence of events in history by constructing timelines themselves.
Differentiating instruction is more complex than just providing different students with different learning experiences. Learn about this distinction by reading classroom examples that contrast differentiated literacy instruction with simply different instruction.
Differentiated instruction is based on the premise that instructional approaches should vary and be adapted in relation to individual and diverse students. This brief looks at how differentiation strategies applied to reading can be designed to help students learn a range of skills including, phonics, comprehension, fluency, word prediction, and story prediction.
Differentiated instruction, also called differentiation, is a process through which teachers enhance learning by matching student characteristics to instruction and assessment. Writing instruction can be differentiated to allow students varying amounts of time to complete assignments, to give students different writing product options, and to teach skills related to the writing process.
Children work at different paces. Here are some suggestions for how to keep your speedy workers occupied while their classmates finish their assignments.
Find out how to help your students improve their writing through activities and tools that support the drafting stage. Show your students how to use technology tools to create, revise, and store their drafts in a digital writing portfolio.
Learn how technology tools can support struggling students and those with learning disabilities in acquiring background knowledge and vocabulary, improving their reading comprehension, and making connections between reading and writing.
Research shows that students need at least 90 minutes of uninterrupted reading instruction each day to become strong readers, and that this instruction must be systematic, explicit, scaffolded, and differentiated across the classroom.
This Bright Ideas article recommends five specific and measurable actions teachers can implement to assist ELL learning in the upcoming year. The resource section has links to helpful articles and websites for further support.
There are a variety of grouping formats that are effective for teaching reading to students with learning disabilities: whole class, small group, pairs, and one-on-one. Learn more about the research and implications for practice for using each format in the general education classroom.
All students learn in different ways, and ELLs are no exception. Creating opportunities for hands-on learning in the classroom can provide another way for students to grasp difficult concepts.
Teachers are often asked to modify instruction to accommodate special needs students. In fact, all students will benefit from the following good teaching practices. The following article takes the mystery out of adapting materials and strategies for curriculum areas.
Three research based practices help students with learning disabilities improve their writing. Read this interview with Steve Graham, author of Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High School who explains how you can help your students succeed in communicating through the written word.
