V.1 #3 Recommended Practices - Developing Successful Relationships with Assistant Teachers and Parap
Most special educators work with one or more paraprofessionals, aides or assistant teachers. Such relationships can be rewarding or disastrous, depending on how they’re structured, defined, and managed. Unfortunately, few teaching programs help their students master the intricacies of working with paraprofessionals, aides or assistant teachers (whom I will generally refer to as assistants). Because of their importance, I will offer some suggestions. To get the most from assis
V.1 #3 Counseling - I Can Do It!
Parents and teachers want to hear these words: “I can do it.” They’re positive. They reflect confidence, a positive assessment of ability, and a drive to accomplish something. There are other words we want to hear from children with learning disabilities. “I will try” tells us that even if success is not guaranteed, the child has confidence enough to attempt the activity. “I want to do that myself” tells us the child is seeking autonomy and has confidence that success is poss
V.1 #3 Social Development - Communication and Language Processing Skills
Often, children with learning disabilities (LD) have difficulty processing language. They may understand the meaning of spoken words, yet miss the intent of the interaction. To make communications easier to understand, they often put information in discrete categories, like good or bad. This, for example, occurs with friendly teasing and joking. By creating discrete categories, children with LD often misinterpret friendly teasing as bad; they miss the innocent fun, the innoce
V.1 #3 Early Intervention - Is Developmentally Appropriate Practice "Appropriate" for Youn
Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) is an oft-used but sometimes not-so-well understood phrase in early childhood education. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC, 1996) describes DAP as teaching children in ways that (a) meet children where they are, and (b) help them to reach challenging yet achievable goals designed to propel their learning and development forward. To decide what kinds of learning activities are developmentally appropri
V.1 #3 Spelling and Writing - The Revising Process
In a previous column I discussed how teachers can support students during the prewriting stage of the writing process. I wrote that prewriting is often termed the “getting-ready-to-write” stage involving planning, collecting, and organizing information while considering topic, audience needs, and personal reasons for writing. Now I will discuss the next stage of the writing process, revising. Because of its importance, I will devote several columns to revising. In this column
V.1 #3 Reading - Developing an Effective Program: It Begins with Asking
Twelve years ago, in stark terms, the American Educator underlined the importance of reading: "If a child in a modern society like ours does not learn to read, he doesn’t make it in life" (p. 3). For struggling readers, poor reading achievement is disastrous: failure to pass high-stakes tests for promotion or high school graduation, emotional distress or emotional illness, low paying service jobs or unemployment, no health insurance, homelessness, prison. The list goes on; th