Tips for teaching students with and w/o LD

[Stark Reality]

What are some tips to teach students with and without learning disabilites about learning disabilites? Thanks...

[SpEd guy]

It's rather old bu the F.A.T. City workshop is a decent videohttp://www.shoppbs.org/search/index.jsp?kwCatId=&kw=f.a.t.&origkw=fat%20city&sr=1

[mopar]

I agree about the FAT city video.

Also try using graphic organizers and cloze activities. Colors and steps help as well. For instance, I have my students write the thesis sentence in blue and all their topic sentences in green. This makes it easy to see that their ideas fit together. For math, I have my students write the steps for math problems. Then I can ask them if they used all nine steps or missed step five.

Using an assignment notebook is very important.

[Boxcar]

I don't know if this is what you are looking for, but I'll give it a try.

You could try little activities to show the children the different ways people see things. To teach about reading difficultes, hand out a worksheet with the letters scrambled and really big words thrown in. For math issues, stop using the Base-10 system and teach a few classes in Base-8 or something similar. For motor/writing problems, have the children write with their non-dominant hands. To teach about attentional disorders, turn on a TV, put on a radio, and have two volunteers carry on a conversation in the back of the room while you teach. Teach a lesson in another language to show what someone who does not speak English encounters. You can make up the language if you don't know another one. Finally, show how gifted children feel by teaching a very boring lesson to the class. For example, spend a half hour talking about the names for the different shapes or what the seasons are. Make the children believe that they are required to learn the material under these different circumstances, if you think your group is capable of handling that. The children wiil definetly get a taste of what their peers with learning differences go through. Once the children experience each situation, you can tell them the name of the special need. Depending on the developmental level of the children, you can try to explain briefly the scientific cause as well. Then, have the children participate in brainstorming ways that a child with each issue could be helped. Try and highlight similarities between all the children as well as pointing out the differences.

Those are some of my ideas. You probably will only want to do one a day.