Every human being is born with their own unique set of attributes. From our appearance, intellectual abilities, and emotional intelligence to our passions and interests, we are all different in our own way. Each person has their own talents and capabilities, even those we know as special needs individuals.
This is the ideology on which special education is based. Special education is the field of education that ensures students with special needs get the same opportunity to learn and thrive as their peers.
Due to their different capacity, children with special needs require specialized instruction and teaching which caters to their learning abilities. If you are a special education teacher, here are seven strategies you can use to teach your students in a manner that helps them reach and unlock their full potential!
1. Learn New Theories
One of the most important strategies to better teach your special needs students is to improve your abilities and knowledge. Education is a dynamic field with new theories and concepts being introduced daily. A post-graduate degree in special education can help you learn these new concepts, which will allow you to become a much better special education teacher.
Many post-graduate programs are available in special education at universities across the country. However, if you work full-time and don’t want to take a break from your current job to study, you can opt for an online special education degree that will allow you to study remotely while continuing to work.
2. Work in Groups
You will find that working with special needs children is considerably different from traditional teaching, and you must give personalized attention to kids at some level. However, as a teacher, separately taking out time for each student is difficult. A good way to work around this is to divide your class into small groups comprising students with similar attributes when it comes to learning.
This strategy will allow you to personalize your lessons for groups, allowing you to use tools that are effective for students with a certain type of requirement. For instance, you may have a few students in your class who have a hearing impairment and use sign language. By grouping them, you can take out time in each lesson to explain the concepts to them using sign language.
3. Rotate the Curriculum
Since you can’t fit special needs children in one boat, you must take turns taking them to the other side individually. In a classroom setting, this can be done by setting a curriculum that can be rotated between different groups. It will allow students to work at their own pace and also give you the space to try different techniques for different groups.
For instance, in English, if you’re covering definite and indefinite nouns, you can work on definite nouns with Group A while you work with indefinite nouns with Group B. Then, once the week is over, you can rotate the curriculum and work on indefinite nouns with Group A and definite nouns with Group B.
4. Set Individual Goals
One thing that is an absolute no-no for children with special needs is standardized goals. Specially abled students have different capacities and hence must be tested and evaluated on an individual basis. Setting individual goals for each child will help you as a teacher.
Although this seems like a strenuous activity, it will make your overall work easier. By setting out personalized goals for students, you can properly focus on individual learning objectives. A great way to manage individual goals is to make a chart of the learning objectives and draw individual growth lines to assess where each child needs to be at a certain point in time.
5. Make a Routine
If there’s one thing that special needs children hate, it is recurring change. Special needs individuals need stability and monotony to thrive in or enjoy any activity. Therefore, it is essential that you make a routine for your special needs class and stick to it.
You can start your class with a 10-minute revision of the previous day’s lesson and then proceed to give an introduction on the topic of the day. Here, you can divide the topic into sub-topics for each group and then lead each group one by one through their lesson. While you’re working with one group, your assistant should tend to the other groups to ensure all students are attended to.
6. Use a Range of Materials
Special needs children seldom work well with traditional learning materials such as textbooks. For different children, you need different learning materials. The Department of Education allows using various tools and techniques in special education classrooms. Therefore, use any materials you can get your hands on to improve your students’ learning experience.
For instance, children with Dyslexia often have trouble identifying letters on a board or paper. To help them identify letters and numbers properly, teachers use materials such as sandboxes where they draw the character using a pen or stick. This allows dyslexic children to learn to identify letters and numbers correctly.
7. Encourage Participation
Special needs students cannot respond to information and theories like their normal peers. Due to their different abilities, special needs students need a more participatory teaching style where they play a valuable role in the lesson.
Therefore, as a special needs teacher, you must encourage activities that require the students to participate. You can use techniques such as group discussions, role-switching, or even performance-based learning. Allowing the students to interact and get involved in the teaching process can make their learning experience much more effective and fulfilling.
Final Words
Teaching children with special needs is a noble profession, and your impact on their lives cannot be emphasized enough. As a teacher, you always want what’s best for your students, and by applying the above strategies to your teaching methods, you can ensure that the children in your class grow into capable individuals.
Additionally, while specially abled children lack several qualities and skills possessed by their peers, they have a variety of talents that make them stand out. By identifying these talents and helping these children refine them, you can help them reach new heights and live fulfilling lives.
