LD Blog

I hesitate to report on this, as I’ve previously pointed out the concerns I have about the recommendations from the special education correspondent for about.com here and here, but I can’t restrain myself.

Learning disabled students have potential - lots of potential. Convince them of their confidence and you’re apt to see success. Hang tight to these tips and steps to support learning disabled students in your classroom.

Two problems: (a) Although complete teaching requires us to incorporate motivational aspects in lessons, simply convincing students of their confidence isn’t likely to produce benefits; these kids’ problems are not because they’re unmotivated or lazy. (b) If one follows the link embedded in the tease for the entry, one finds vapid recommendations.

Children with Learning Disabilities often exhibit a wide range of symptoms and will require additional support to ensure that the potential to learn is in place. Ask yourself the following questions to determine if the activity promotes worthwhile learning or not:

1. Copying text from chart paper, the board or a book
2. Practice writing words from a spelling list
3. Reading the same material repeatedly
4. Cutting and pasting items without an established goal
5. Tracing over numbers or letters
6. Listening to tape recorded stories while following along with the text version
7. Brainstorming all the words that have a silent vowel
8. Engaging in a computer application that promotes literacy or numeracy

It’s pretty easy to spot the activites that have minimal learning benefits.

I’m struggling here. What question should I ask? There must be something missing, but I can understand as I know no writer can claim to have made no syntactic mistakes. It must be that the reader is to ask whether each activity promotes worthwhile learning.

Anyway, I’d guess that, from Ms. Watson’s perspective, the first five are bad and the last three are good.