Using Visual Aids to Motivate Students with Special Needs

[carol bergin]

Although I have had many years experience of teaching grades 2-6 in the general ed setting, special ed is a relatively new venture (and adventure).

 

Four of my six years of special ed were in resource - with four months teaching developmental kindergarten, and last school year in Strategies.

 

Resource assignments, grades, and subjects can change each year.  This year, I've taught language arts (reading, spelling, grammar, creative writing) to seven 6th graders.  They're students in our small resource room from 9:00 to 11:00 daily.  Some of these students (all catergorized as learning disabled) have been together three to four years.  There's much social interaction among the three girls and four boys; leaders are established and challenged, and personal views are shared and discussed often.

 

From 12:00-1:00 daily, I push in to the lowest-performing 6th grade math class.  This gives me the perfect opportunity to observe how different the students are in their general ed setting.  They are so reluctant to contribute - almost preferring not to be noticed by teachers or peers.

 

It's quite different when they're in our resource room.  They enjoy speaking, acting out vocabulary words, spelling words for others, and being "secretary" in charge of the white board.  I've found that various visuals actually encourage academic performance - in-

cluding writing.

 

My best practice presentation and research (still in infancy), will include cartooning, sequencing, graphic organizers, and developing a play - with the goal of helping students to be inspired, comfortable writers.

[Natalie Russell]

Hi Carol,
I'm really looking forward to your presentation! I teach college students, but many of them have learning disabilities, and I've realized more and more how many of them are mostly visual learners. I've been wanting to incorporate more visual aids in my classrooms to enhance the learning and add more creativity and energy into the classes. I have my reading classes do "word walls" that I think many elementary school language arts teachers also use, and I've found these to be a great visual addition to our literarcy studies and to the blank brick or white walls that are part of having 5 different classrooms that don't really belong to us. Those of us who put up the words and a related picture on an oversized "post-it" type of paper have gotten mostly great feedback from teachers in other disciplines as well who also use them to help teach discipline/content-related vocabulary words that students often struggle with. I don't feel like a creative person, and I've never considered myself a visual learner, so I've struggled with developing other visual teaching techniques that I can "sell" to my students in authentic ways. This is definitely one area I'd like to develop in my teaching, so I really appreciate you sharing your expertise and experiences! I haven't received any formal training in working with learning-disabled students, yet I'm expected to be able to teach students with multiple kinds of disabiliies just as effectively, and I know they have some different needs. Thank you for helping all of increase our awareness of these special needs students have! It sounds like you have a challenging but interesting and engaging environment to teach in!
Natalie

[Torrey Palmer]

Hello Carol!
I am so interested in your presentation. While I am a general ed teacher, I am certain that I do not do an adequate job in reaching my resource students. What powerful opportunity to both push-in (with your 6th grade math) and pull-out the small group for language arts-- and to see the behavioral differences. It makes me realize that I should request time to observe my students when they are in resource (even just once!) as I think I would learn so much about who they are as learners.
I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say!
Torrey

[Sandra Madura]

Carol,

I'm so excited for your work with special education teachers to be shared. I think most general ed teachers struggle to know how to best meet the needs of our most challenged students. In the end, what is good for this population turns out to be best practice for all students. Marzano's work supports the use of graphic oranizers and visual representations. Your demonstration will go a long way in showing us how alternative formats can be a vehicle for insightful and heartfelt writing.
Sandy