Teaching special needs students can be a challenging undertaking. There are many types of learning disabilities, including problems with reading, writing, studying and concentrating. Dealing with these types of students takes much patience and teachers must learn instructional strategies specifically designed to help.

There are many assumptions that need to be avoided when interacting with special needs students. First, you cannot think that the students are not listening to you just because they are not maintaining eye contact. Secondly, you should not overly explain everything to students with learning disabilities, because most can certainly interpret what you are saying. Although it may be at a slower speed compared with other students, they still comprehend what they are being taught. If they have questions, they will ask. It is also important to meet with administration and get a detailed report of the specific nature of each student’s learning disability. This will be beneficial when it comes to deciding on a teaching method catered to each student specifically.

If you have an interest in working with special needs students, it will be helpful to take an online graduate credit course in the field. The chosen course will start off by teaching you the history and definitions of each learning disability that you may come to experience during your career path. Next, you will be taught how to assess each student and determine to what degree the severity of the disability is. From there, you will learn how to work with the student and curriculum through teaching methods and strategies. Lastly, you will be exposed to how important it is to develop a strong relationship with the student’s families to make sure that the school-home balance remains stable.

An important part of teaching is to test the students on what they have absorbed and processed. You will learn that once it comes time to give an exam, there are specific approaches that you should take in the structure and outline of the test itself. Exams designed for special needs students have to avoid complicated wording and theoretical thinking. The print size may also need to be adjusted, as some students find large print to help their processing ability. Take into consideration what specific disability each student has. For example, if the student has a reading problem, it is probably a good idea to have an aide read the questions to the student. If the student has a writing problem, it may be a good idea to have a scribe to translate the student’s answers from mouth to paper.

In order to learn the methodology behind these strategies and others like them, it would be a good opportunity to enroll in online graduate credit courses to become specialized in this area. This choice will be worth it, due to the fact that special education teachers generally earn a higher salary and receive benefit packages that other teachers do not. Teaching special needs students also proves to be more rewarding because of the one-on-one time spent with the students and the satisfaction received when they succeed.

Author Bio: Vince Welsh is CEO of Teacher Education Institute. TEI offers rigorous, graduate-level professional development courses for K-12 classroom teachers. For more about TEI, Teaching special needs students, online graduate credit, visit http://www.teachereducation.com

Category: Education
Keywords: teaching special needs students, online graduate credit