Curriculum for Students with Special Need

           

Being a new teacher to this district and this field in a new position at these schools has been a struggle of mine to incorporating the general education curriculum with my students and their needs. The current curriculum that my school district just adopted is a tough one. It is a curriculum that our regular education students are having a really hard time adapting to let alone the students with special needs. The time is takes me to modify each and every curriculum is overwhelming and exhausting. It is my goal for my students to learn the most they can while in the general education classroom. A few things that I have don’t to help me and my students with this process are as follows:

1.     Peer Buddy- It is always a good idea to have a peer buddy with these students. This buddy has to be picked very diligently. It needs to be a student who can multi-task and still pay attention to what the teacher is saying. It needs to be a good role model. It also needs to be a student who can understand the student’s disability and work through things with them with guidance from the special education or general education teacher.

2.     Para Support- Although this is a really hard solution to get, this is a great way for the student to be involved in the general education classroom. The para would be there to talk the student through the tasks and may break them down if needed.

3.     Classroom support with pullout time- This is the way that we end up needing to do most of the general education classroom with the higher special education students.

When I am sticking one of my severe needs students in with the general education classroom, I get a lot of questions from the teachers, such as, why should they be there when they don’t understand any of the information being presented. My response to this is it doesn’t just teach the students academically, but it teaches them socially. This is a time for these students to learn how to sit in a classroom and what is socially acceptable and what’s not. Those are some thoughts on inclusion and some solutions to keep in mind.