Accommodations in Education

March 29, 2023

Accommodations in Education


Many classroom teachers and homeschool parents have the opinion that all students should be treated the same. While this sounds great in theory, it is not practical. Children are different. Strengths and weaknesses can vary greatly among siblings, not to mention a classroom full of children from numerous different backgrounds.

 

I remember when I learned this. I had always tried to treat my students the same way, which is fine in the areas of kindness and respect for all. When teaching reading, students were assigned a reading group according to their ability to read. Doing this showed me how some students would be able to read other text books and some would need a lot of help in those other areas. There was no way to treat them all the same. What was right and fair for one student was not necessarily best for another. Because I was teaching in a Christian school at the time, I was able to let the class know that God created everyone with different strengths and weaknesses, so what was fair for one might not be fair for another. My goal in class was to do whatever I could to ensure that everyone would learn. Children need a variety of methods in teaching for everyone to have the opportunity to be successful. I had some students who were poor readers, but excelled at learning when we were doing a hands-on project. Some students hated hands-on projects. They were much happier just reading the text or writing a paper.

 

It is important to look at each student as an individual, and to make sure that a wide range of assignments are given to play into the strengths of everyone whenever possible. Realistically, this is not always possible when a teacher has 30 students in a class. For example, the effort should be made to include reading, writing, hands-on projects or art, and maybe computers and possibly some math when teaching a Social Studies unit. Most students will be good at and hopefully enjoy some aspect of learning in this unit.

 

Another way to help a student who struggles in reading is to read a test to them. If they are taking a math test and there are word problems, read those questions to them. The purpose of the test is to see if they can calculate the problem, not read the words. The same is true with science. Tests or answering questions at the end of a chapter is intended to assess their science knowledge, not to see how many of the words they can read. This is true of most subjects. They should receive a reading grade only for reading, not other subjects. While they are learning to read, it is important that they DO NOT fall behind in learning general knowledge subjects. When working with a dyslexic student, you might be surprised at their ability in math and science.

 

Another problem might be spelling. During my in-person tutoring days, I was able to get most teachers to accept the spelling words that we were working on along with the reading program. At the end of the week, I would give them the test during a tutoring session, score it, and make a copy of the test for the student to bring in to the teacher. This worked great.

 

If you are homeschooling your child, you will be able to adjust your teaching to your child’s learning style. If you are homeschooling multiple children, it won’t take you long to know who can be successful with independent work and who will need much more individualized attention. Remember, each child is unique. One size never fits all.

Here are a few of my favorite examples:

 

1. If a child has trouble with labeling geography maps in Social Studies because they can’t figure out which part is land and which part is water, help them out by lightly shading in the water with a blue colored pencil. I had a student one year who could fill in the entire map correctly if I made this one simple accommodation.

 

2. In 5th grade, many students learn where each state is located. They are asked to fill out a map of the United States with the name of each state. Either make this a matching test, so it’s NOT a spelling test, or better yet (and more fun), I had a very large felt map that students could label with the state names printed on felt strips. If they were learning state capitals, there was also a set of capitals on felt strips. All they needed to do was place them on the map. I also used this for a game in class.

 

3. In math, teach them how to build a model of something to scale. Again, just because reading is a struggle doesn’t mean that numbers are a struggle also.

 

4. Work art and creativity into otherwise “dry” subjects. During the time that I taught junior high, we took over the responsibility for the fall carnival. Whatever we were learning about in Social Studies/History at the time became the theme for that year. My students built and painted carnival game booths, dressed in character, wrote a creative story, and worked the event. By the time the carnival was over, they all knew more than they wanted about that time period or event.

 

5. Use cooking to teach measurements. Teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, pints, quarts, and gallons as well as weight measurements such as grams, ounces, pounds, etc. can be learned in the kitchen.

 

6. Reader’s Theatre is a great way for reluctant readers to participate in class. Give the strugglers the characters that have a very limited number of parts.

 

These are just a few ideas. Lastly, remember that students learn in many different ways. The goal is to find what works best for your student while you keep working on reading fluency.

How to Help Your Child Read with Word Games While Fixing Dinner

February 4, 2025
Many parents know that finding an adequate amount of time to help their children succeed in school is difficult at best. Having been a classroom teacher for more years than I care to admit, I know that as hard as the teacher tries to meet all of the needs of the students in her class, the students that seem to do the best are the ones whose parents are actively involved with their child’s education. So the big question is, “How do I find the time?” When I started teaching, I was not married and had no children. Life was not too complicated. As time went on life changed. With a husband and a child in the picture, I found myself dealing with the role of a teacher and a parent. My child needed extra help just like most other children. I started figuring out ways to help my child while we did other things. One of my favorites was word games. One doesn’t need to be a super multitasker to do these with their child while fixing dinner. Hence: Small Bites. This doesn’t take the place of sitting with your child one-on-one if they are really struggling, but it is a very useful way to keep your child thinking and learning while you are cooking. Game #1 “Rhyming Words” The beauty of this simple game is that it helps a child with reading sounds. If they can read one word with the end sound, it actually opens up a whole chain of words that they will be able to read by just changing out the beginning sound. Maybe your child’s job is to feed the cat, so let’s start by coming up with as many words as you can that rhyme with cat. Remember, they all must have the at sound at the end of the word. (Examples: bat, brat, chat, fat, flat, gnat, hat, mat, pat, rat, sat, scat, slat, splat, that, vat) If your child feeds the dog, then you can rhyme words with dog. (Examples: bog, clog, fog, frog, grog, hog, jog, log, smog) Goats seem to have become popular again. See how many words you can come up with that rhyme with goat. Notice that all of the words do not end with the same letters: oat and ote . (Examples: bloat, boat, coat, dote, float, gloat, moat, note, oat, quote, smote, throat, tote, vote, wrote) Since I’m on a roll with animals, how about words that rhyme with pig. (Examples: big, brig, dig, fig, gig, jig, rig, sprig, twig, wig, zig) Game #2 “Sounds to Words” This game is intended for beginning readers who are working on putting sounds together to form words. Start by giving 3 or 4 sounds such as / d // o // g /. Have the child repeat back the 3 sounds and then put them together to make the word dog . Obviously, the words are endless, but I’m giving you a few so you can concentrate on fixing dinner. / f // u // n / fun / h // a // t / hat / r // a // t / rat / m // o // m / mom / d // i // g / dig / j // u // m // p / jump / s // w // i // m / swim / r // e // d / red This game can be played until you or the child are tired and want to stop. Sometimes when you are doing word games, it’s better to keep them short, especially at the beginning. The length of the game is totally up to you. Game #3 “Geography Chain” This game is better with children who are a little older, and was one of my family’s favorites. Acceptable answers include the names of: countries, states, provinces (Canada), cities, etc. Set the rules of what’s acceptable before you start. Start with the name of one of the above categories such as: Spain . Because Spain ends with the letter N , the next geographical place would need to start with the letter N , such as New Mexico . This ends with an O , so the next response might be Ontario . Another location that starts with O could be Oregon . We could use New York and so on. Take turns and when someone cannot think of a place to continue the chain, they can drop out if more than 2 are playing or you can start over. Another chain might look something like this: K entucky, Yemen, Nigeria, Alaska, Antarctica, Alpine (city), Escondido (city), Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc. As you can see, many places end with an A or an O . It is helpful if you try to think of places that don’t end with one of these letters. Word to the Wise These untimed interactive games work well for learning math facts also. Through my many years of experience, memorizing addition facts, subtraction facts, multiplication facts, and division facts are a major key in being successful in math. Memorization of multiplication facts are the most important. Without actually memorizing these, all other math becomes tedious and frustrating in elementary school, and we want are kids to love math without the frustration that it can bring. When I have had kids in my classes who are totally frustrated with math, the main cause is not learning multiplication facts by the end of 3 rd grade. If your child is past 3 rd grade and they have not memorized these facts yet, do not despair, it’s never too late to work on this skill.
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