Teaching Students With Language and Communication Disabilities

On the first day of fourth grade, Hank’s teacher assigns a five-paragraph essay, “What I did on my summer vacation,” and he knows he’s in trouble. It has always been difficult for him to read, write, and spell so he decides to “build” his assignment instead — to “bring Niagara Falls into the classroom, water and all.”

As a result of NCLB legislation and the reauthorization of IDEA 2004, Response to Intervention (RTI) is now a mandated process for documenting the existence or nonexistence of a learning disability. For educators new to the RTI approach, Response to Intervention presents an overview of key concepts with guidelines for accountability practices that benefit students in inclusive classrooms.

A touching account of one youngster’s struggle in learning to read and the painful journey that he took to gain self-confidence, self-respect, and tremendous success as a human being, as a student, and as an athlete. Benny’s story stands as a tribute to the human spirit and should serve as an excellent resource for students with dyslexia, their parents and their teachers.

Until the 1960s a learning disability was a hidden handicap wearing many guises and treated ineffectively. Today, shows the author, founder of the unique Lab School in Washington, D.C. , and herself the parent of a learning-disabled child, there is growing evidence that such difficulties can be either overcome or modified by teaching strategies that address the student’s specific strengths. The stories of adults—some of them celebrities like Cher, who suffered from undiagnosed dyslexia—who coped with learning problems throughout their school days illustrate the depths of the disability said to afflict more than 25 million Americans. Distilling her experiences with learning-disabled students, their parents and teachers, Smith demonstrates that a variety of approaches to learning can yield later career success, thus offering hope to children and adults so burdened.

Every parent eagerly awaits the day his or her child will speak for the first time. For millions of mothers and fathers, however, anticipation turns to anxiety when those initial, all-important words are a long time coming. Many worried parents are reassured that their child is “just a late talker,” but unfortunately, that is not always the case.

Dale Borman Fink, the author of the only book on inclusion of youth with special needs in after school child care, now presents the first book to examine the experiences of children with disabilities participating in youth programs alongside their typical peers. Using a case study technique, he probes into the issues and dynamics that influence the increasing participation of kids with disabilities in such activities as Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and park and recreation programs.