Ensuring Success in the General Education Setting

Scenario: A fourth grade student with learning disabilities in decoding and reading comprehension is mainstreamed in the general education classroom for all content areas. This student is currently receiving resource room services for reading.

The following is a general education teacher’s plan using the basic principals of Universal Design and assistive technology for lesson representation, student expression, and student engagement in the mainstream setting.

Universal Design allows all learners in a general education setting to access the same information. In order for this to happen, this framework adopts three crucial aspects: There must be multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement.

Providing multiple means of representation allows all learners to acquire information presented. This can be done by providing taped texts, enlarged fonts, reduced reading level of relevant content, or by having a passage read aloud by a peer. These are just some of many ways to ensure that learners access information presented by the teacher.

Multiple means of expression is the second component of Universal Design. Basically, teachers provide various types of alternatives for students to express what was taught. This can come in the form of demonstrations, oral reports, drawing, or using a computer software that provides speech to text capabilities.

Lastly, Universal Design enables learners to participate in activities with the use of various modalities. Teachers create activities that all learners can access and participate in. This can be done by ensuring activities are sensitive to the different types of learning modalities, such as kinesthetic, auditory, and so forth.

This educational framework is crucial in the success of including all learners in the general education setting. In addition, it ensures that all learners benefit from what is taught by allowing ways to address all learner capabilities. Typical, at-risk, and special needs students truly benefit, without singling out a particular group of learners.

Universal Design and the use of AT Devices for Teaching Content

1. Pair student with a trusted, social peer.
2. Minimize environmental distractions
3. Provide stories with pictures
4. Provide stories that require student interactions, interactive manner by involving kinesthetic opportunities
5. Use books that interest your students
6. Provide the use of basic graphic organizers to aid in comprehension
7. Provide an oral accompaniment to story
8. Provide the use of computer software that scans words and reads words out loud (students can repeat or provide a prompt to all learners)
9. Use various learning modalities when assessing comprehension
10. When teaching decoding, touch on both whole word approach and phonetics simultaneously