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Effective Teaching Strategies: including reading lesson plans.

Different Teaching Strategies for Disabled Students

Teachers across the United States may soon take on slightly different teaching strategies for their students with severe learning problems. That’s because Education Department officials in Washington have come to the conclusion that children with the most severe learning problems can now be held to a different academic standard than their peers. This move will require teachers to develop different teaching strategies for these children, while easing pressure on schools struggling to make yearly progress. Although nothing is finalized as of yet, lesson plans from reading lesson plans to social studies lesson plans may soon be re-evaluated for these students.

This new rule will allow students with “significant cognitive disabilities” to be tested against standards more appropriate for their intellectual development. Their scores would then be counted as part of their school’s performance, which would otherwise be negatively effected when being considered for federal aid. In the past, even with creative teaching strategies, many schools have failed to make annual progress because their students didn’t score high enough on tests or because too few of them participated. Now schools and educators will try to find a balance through recognizing the need for different standards in limited cases. So, for example, reading lesson plans for these students might vary slightly than the one used for the more proficient students.

Although this seems to be the right balance, there is some controversy. Not only may the work load for teachers increase, as they implement different teaching strategies and reading lesson plans for students at different levels, but also the education standard might be lowered for all students.