By Sara Finegan

I’ve written about what inclusion most definitely isn’t, and about what special education most definitely should be, and even made some comments about what special education instruction in a general education environment is supposed to look like.

That’s all well and good, if you’re looking to get a taste off of the menu that is Special Education, but it doesn’t constitute a meal, nor, more importantly, does it give you the recipes with which to create one.

What we all really want to know these days is what “Accessing Grade-Level Standards” looks like, whether it takes place in a separate classroom or in a general ed class.

Let me give it a shot, via a hypothetical set of students with IEPs.  Let’s follow this mythical cohort through the fourth and fifth grades, not because those grade levels are the most typical or constitute a more crucial pair of years than any other, but because that’s what I’ve been looking at for the last month, and unless there’s an offer of chocolate, we’re all going to look at things for the next few pages through my eyes.

The Cast of Characters

We begin with the diverse mix of students, whom we encounter at the beginning of the fourth grade:

Matt is a cheerful, restless student with mental retardation.  He knows 50 sight words, can count to 30, and likes to listen to stories.  He has limited social skills, and needs a high level of structure in order to be able to participate in any large-group activities.  Matt, who has limited verbal skills, loves to identify and label things and has an excellent memory for the names of things he’s learning about.  He can copy words and sentences, but does not construct sentences of his own without a great deal of support.  Matt is easily frustrated in a large-group environment and often disrupts class by knocking objects off desks and chewing on other students’ zippers and hoods.

Alex is a highly-functioning student with autism and ADHD.  He has difficulty with visual tracking and this, combined with his attention deficits, makes reading extremely difficult.  He reads reluctantly and is easily distracted from the text.  He has an enormous vocabulary and can dictate complex paragraphs, but the mechanics of writing is difficult for him due to dysgraphia.  Alex has excellent cognitive and reasoning skills and can apply what he’s learned across multiple subjects.  He is easily overwhelmed in large groups, needs a lot of repeated drill and small group, guided work in order to learn new skills, and needs to keep moving.  If he sits for more than five minutes, he begins to “zone out” and gets lost in his own world.

Freddy has moderate-functioning autism and mild mental retardation.  He perseverates on whatever he was watching on television while he ate breakfast.  He is anxious to please adults and, while he enjoys being with his classmates, has few friendships and doesn’t show much interest in others’ needs or likes and dislikes.  He remembers every new word he learns in his reading, and as a result, his sight words vocabulary is enormous.  His decoding skills are less strong, but he is currently reading at about the beginning second-grade level.  Fred loves to take the morning survey in class, and carries his clipboard around to each student, tabulating their responses to the day’s questions.  He can write a sentence describing the results of the survey.

Ben is an English Language learner with expressive and receptive language deficits, auditory memory deficits, and working memory deficits.  He has many friends, encourages people to do their best, but is also easily distracted and can disrupt his table by making faces, tossing paper wads, and chatting when lessons are going on.  Ben’s writing skills are very limited:  he struggles to be consistent with singulars and plurals as well as verb tenses, and uses very bland, generic vocabulary.  His thinking is not particularly organized and he jumps from topic to topic in conversation and writing.  Ben reads at the second grade level and has good literal comprehension.

Martina is the class artist.  She spends hours working on craft projects and can be found drawing and making costumes for paper dolls in her spare time.  She works extremely slowly at academic tasks, which in the past frustrated her general education teachers, and, as a result, caused her to lose confidence in her own abilities.  She reads at the third grade level and has excellent critical thinking skills.  Her writing is less strong, as she lacks organization and structure, and her spelling is poor.  Like Ben, Martina’s primary language is Spanish.  Martina takes three times as long as anyone else to complete assignments, but is thorough and methodical and neat, and rarely makes mistakes.  She excels at social studies and invariably wins the class Jeopardy! Games.

Toby is an excellent reader and thinker who lacks executive functioning skills.  His desk is a mess, his work is all over the room, he loses everything, and he forgets his homework four days out of five.   He is three grades behind in math and reads at grade level.  He rushes through most assignments and pays attention to about 45% of what is going on during instruction.  He is articulate, uses powerful vocabulary in speech and in writing, and participates actively in class discussions.

Amanda is  a very bright kiddo with a bubbly personality.  She struggles with multiple-step tasks and her working memory is extremely limited.  She has low numeracy and, despite years of work, doesn’t know what makes ten, cannot remember her multiplication facts, and cannot do grade-level math.  She reads at the third grade level and, although her spelling is atrocious, writes descriptive pieces about topics that interest her.  When it comes to narrative writing, she exhibits less skills – her tendency is to skip details and important parts of the story, leaving the reader to try to figure out what’s going on.  Amanda is very emotional and struggles with friendship skills – she prefers to play with kids who are 2-3 years younger than she is.  She has severe ADHD and medication helps a bit, but not as much as for some other kids in the class.

Sam has Asperger Syndrome (which is now considered a mild version of Autism Spectrum Disorder) and ADHD.  He also is a profoundly anxious child with limited social skills.  He is easily frustrated by academic tasks and has difficulty paying attention and understanding what is going on in class.  He loves science and sports, and will listen to anyone read stories for hours on end.  Sam needs repeated review and drill on a daily basis in order to master new skills or understand new concepts.  After 20 minutes or so in a large-group, fast-paced setting, Sam often has a melt-down, and either tantrums or cries, which causes his peers to make fun of him.

Grant has moderate-functioning autism with accompanying hyperlexia. He can decode any text but doesn’t understand much of what he reads.  He loves Sponge Bob and The Doors, and marching to his internal beat.  Grant doesn’t do well in groups or cooperative learning activities but is an excellent sight words and spelling coach.   When it comes to auditory processing, you can forget it:  Grant doesn’t process much of what he hears, but has amazing visual perceptual skills and remembers everything he sees.

These nine students can and will learn grade-level science and social studies in the fourth and fifth grades.

Fourth and Fifth Grade Science and Social Studies Standards:

Minerals

In California, fourth grade science includes a unit on Magnets and Electricity, one on Rocks and Minerals, and one on Biomes and the Food Chain.  Social Studies focuses on the history of California.  Fifth grade science involves learning about the human circulatory, digestive and respiratory systems, water and the water cycle and the weather.   In Social Studies, students learn about American history, from the Meso-American civilizations to just before the Civil War.

Whether the kids are in a Special Day Class or mainstreamed into a general education class, they will need differentiated instruction and assignments.  This is what the fourth grade science class might look like:

Rocks, Minerals  and Erosion Unit:

Types of Rock:

• The entire class sings the Rock Cycle Song every day at least once.  The lyrics, sung to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, provide an excellent way of memorizing the facts about Sedimentary, Igneous and Metamorphic rocks.
• All of the kids have the opportunity to work on three hands-on projects:  Make your Own Sediment; Sedimentary Rock In A Bottle; and  Make a Metamorphic Rock.
• Matt, Freddy and Sam read easy-reader books such as “Rocks”, and “Crystals”.  Grant, Alex, and Ben participate in a guided reading group to read “The Rock Family” and “Digging for Dinosaurs.”   All of them gather with the class for a read-aloud of “Dinosaur Hunters” and Martina and Toby serve as table leaders when the class discusses fossils.
• The teacher has prepared two sets of sorting cards with photos of different kinds of rocks (limestone, sandstone, slate, agate, quartz, etc) and cards with the names of rocks.  Every day, kids get together with a partner to match the words to the photos, or to use the cards for a Memory game.  Students use a classroom chart or, in the case of Toby, Ben, Alex, Martina, Amanda and Grant, their “rocks and minerals journal” in which they’ve filled in graphic organizers about different types of rocks and minerals.
  

  Sorting cards

• Freddy, Sam, and Matt like to take the teacher’s collection of small rocks and minerals and sort them, putting them in labeled squares on a 3×3 piece of wood.   Amanda and Martina and Toby often supervise, prompting the three boys to speak in complete sentences about at least three of the rocks they sort.  (ex: “This is a piece of quartz.  It is pink.”;  “Sandstone is a sedimentary rock.”)
• Matt, Sam and Freddy complete a sequencing activity based on the text “A Rock Collection”, which the teacher has copied, cut up, and laminated.  After listening to a peer or an aide read the story, they work independently or together to put the story parts in the proper order.  In the meantime, Martina, Amanda and Toby, having read the story, write a summary of it.  Alex and Ben also write a summary, but they use a word list provided by the teacher and a sentence starter for each paragraph.

Erosion and Changes to the Earth’s Surface

• All of the students listen to several read-alouds by the teacher using picture books about glaciers, volcanos, and earthquakes.
• Freddy and Sam sit with an aide and read “After the Flood” together.  The aide helps them make a list of things that floods and water do to the earth’s surface.
• The kids watch a short film about the San Francisco Earthquake.  A peer or aide reads from the textbook to the kids about earthquakes and the earth’s surface.  The higher level kids work in partners to answer questions from the textbook, while the lower level kids start working on sorting cards and sight words using the vocabulary for the unit.
• Matt, Freddy, and Sam read about what to do in an earthquake.  They work with an aide to make posters to display in the classroom telling people what to do.
• The kids watch a short film about the Grand Canyon.  The higher level kids create a thinking map in their journals about what they learned about water and wind erosion.  The lower level kids get coloring pages about the Grand Canyon to color and, when they’re done, write a sentence about each picture at the bottom.
• The higher level kids complete a cloze activity about glaciers.  All of the kids work on daily review activities, identifying types of events and weather that affect the earth’s surface and whether they are fast or slow influences.
• After a mini-lesson about how water affects the Earth’s surface (weathering, transport, and deposition), the kids participate in a variety of activities in which they identify which part of the process pertains to a photo or event.
• All of the kids do a culminating report on either volcanos, wind and water erosion, glaciers, or earthquakes.
  • The higher level kids work in small groups to complete graphic organizers as a pre-writing activity, and then, once they’ve completed their first drafts, participate in editing and revising activities using a class-generated rubric.  They are expected to type their reports on the computer and use spell check and  any other aids such as a thesaurus and grammar check, if available.
  • The lower level kids use templates which pictures to identify and sentence starters about each of the different things they’ve learned.  All but Matt are expected to write one general statement and give 2 supporting details for each fact about their topic.  Matt gets a set of labels on which the teacher has typed vocabulary words for his topic and he sticks them underneath the pictures on his graphic organizer template.

accessing grade-level · ADHD · autism · decoding · differentiated instruction · dysgraphia · executive functioning · expressive language · grade-level standards · hyperlexia · Inclusion · low numeracy · modifications · receptive language · Sara Finegan · science · social studies · sorting cards · standards · vocabulary

By Sara Finegan

         I’m a big fan of homework, but it has to be meaningful homework, and it has to be customized to fit your learners and their current skill levels.  Here are my thoughts about designing home practice in a demanding classroom:

It must be purposeful.

         Homework for the sake of homework is detrimental to a struggling learner. Kids aren’t stupid, and they know on some level, no matter how old they are, if you are just making work for them because you think that’s what teachers are supposed to do.

         The purpose of homework in a demanding classroom is to:  

• give the child additional practice in a newly-learned concept or skill and
• to provide a structure for a task they should be doing on a regular basis.

         When it comes to additional practice, a demanding classroom teacher designs a set of practice problems or questions that address what was worked on that day in class.  Examples might be: 5-10 addition problems; a set of similar word problems that require the child to set up an equation; comprehension questions that pertain to one or two plot features; practice making inferences based on short pieces of text.

         There are some excellent workbooks available in stores and online that provide practice problems in many content areas.  There are also some awful ones.  I remember a child I worked with in an after-school program who had a reading homework packet that was obviously written in the 1960’s: it was dry, pedantic, and completely uninteresting to me and the student.

A goal should be to establish a sense of competence.

         I do not want my students to have their parents do their homework, spend hours with their child struggling to get it done, or to leave the kitchen table feeling utterly drained and unskilled.

         I want my students to leave the homework table feeling like they get it, or are on the way to getting it. I want them to feel able.  Now this is not going to happen all the time, particularly when we’re learning new skill sets.

But if, over time, the student is confident that in general, he or she is going to be able to master the skills, or retain the information, or do the task fairly well, most kids will be willing to struggle a bit from time to time at home.

A homework routine should create study habits.

         Almost every school urges children to read for 30 minutes or more per day at home.  Thirty minutes is a lot for a child who has little reading stamina, or who struggles mightily with decoding or comprehension. This kind of assignment, without any other components, isn’t going to help a child with learning disabilities as much as it could with a few modifications.

         If a child is not able to read for 30 minutes in class without losing focus or melting down, do not require it at home.  Build stamina slowly.  A student who can only read for three minutes should be given a 3-5 minute reading assignment for home, followed by a book on tape or a story a parent is willing to read out loud. (Reading homework is not always just about reading skill, but also about our relationship to text and how we think about stories – books on CD, tape or read aloud can do just fine.)

         At a certain age and stage, kids can be taught how to write a reading response.  This is an extremely important skill and needs to be built in layers, slowly, with lots of practice.  The practice can be done at home, provided that you give the child examples to follow or a formula to use in the initial practice stages.  In early grades, a reading response can be an illustration with two or three sentences about a character or your opinion about the book.

          My fifth and sixth graders are currently, in the fall of the year, writing three-paragraph responses: a summary of what they read; a description of a character or the problem; a connection that they are making to the story or to a character.  By the end of the year I hope they will be doing deeper thinking and writing, but we are taking it one step at a time. Right now, their daily reading homework includes writing the response (yes, daily, though at least one child dictates to his grandmother because the act of writing is driving him crazy) because I want it to become an automatic habit for them in preparation for middle school.

As much as possible, coordinate, communicate, and negotiate with your partners: the parents.

         We don’t want parents doing the homework, but we want them to support it.  Nobody knows a child better than his or her parents, and we need to be responsive to them with regard to the work we send home.

          Right now, I have a couple of students who have major difficulties with attention.  One of them has autism and ADHD; the other has ADHD.  Both of them have parents who are excellent about notifying me when homework is just too much.  In these kinds of cases, we need to make accommodations and reduce the amount of homework in one or more ways.

• We might limit the number of problems to solve on a math set, or require less reading.
• We might change the type of work to be done.  Multiple choice or short-answer, fill-in-the-blank homework works better for these kids than other kinds of comprehension or social studies assignments.
•  We might change the way the homework needs to be done.  Both of my students are allowed to dictate their reading responses to a parent or grandparent, because getting them to sit down and write after school, when meds are wearing off and the brain is tired is not going to be a pleasant experience.
• We might give choices.  One of my students, who has moderately-functioning autism, fought homework at home for a long time.  When he came to my classroom, I provided three to four tasks to be done at home – and instructed him to pick two.  This gives him the power over the work, not me over him, and has made him voluntarily do his homework, without difficulty, when he gets home.

A goal should be to build internal drive and the self-discipline to get the practice done.

         I don’t want my students’ parents to spend hours fighting with their kids to get work done.  I also don’t want students neglecting their home practice.  Home practice needs to become a routine, a habit.

          In a demanding classroom, this is done with incentives as well as consequences.

          An immediate, automatic, small reward needs to be given to kids with learning disabilities when they turn in their homework.  As homework is checked in, kids can receive a sticker, a punch on “daily work index card”, a raffle ticket (dollar store prizes at a drawing once a week or every two weeks) or some other desired privilege.  It should be automatic and not served with effusive praise unless the child has a history of not turning in homework, in which case positive comments are a good re-enforcement.

         If you have other students check in homework, kids will be far more invested in getting it done. It’s hard to face a teacher or aide and explain why homework was not done, but for some reason it’s even harder to face your peers when all of them have been working hard.  This can be especially true if there’s a class-wide reward for 100% homework turned in, a ploy I use every now and then ($5 pizzas from Little Caesars work every time).  In general, the incentives should be small and cheap.

         Consequences are more complicated.The traditional “you miss recess” consequence is not a good idea in most special education classrooms, where kids need to get outside and move around as a kinesthetic break from the intellectual activity you’re piling on.

         I’ve been experimenting with a form letter that goes home, filled out by the student, for parents to read and sign.  It’s on bright orange paper, and can’t be missed by anyone coming even close to a backpack, and it requires the student to acknowledge work that wasn’t done and ask for help creating a plan to do it.  I keep all of them in my students’ portfolio folders, and it’s a great visual – neon orange is eye-catching.

         Restriction of free time until the homework is made up is a pretty good consequence, though again, many students, particularly those with autism or who have sensory issues need to have some minutes of free time between tasks in order to keep their minds working well.

         I’m inclined to use restriction from weekly class-wide fun activities as a consequence for not doing homework.  If the last ½ hour of class on Friday is reserved for cupcakes or a great game, kids who didn’t do homework during the week can sit in another classroom or in the office to make up their work.

         The combination of incentives and meaningful but not devastating consequences in a demanding classroom helps students learn good work habits at home and in school.

accommodations · ADHD · assignments · attention deficits · autism · consequences · demanding classroom · high expectations · home practice · homework · incentives · learning disabled · modifications · parents · purpose · reading response · reading stamina · restrictions · rewards · rigor · rigorous instruction · Sara Finegan · special education · standards