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21 Tips for Teaching Students with Learning Differences 

By Cheryl Swope

Children with various learning challenges require more intentional thought and attention whether in the home or at school. We share these 21 tips specifically for our fellow homeschooling families. In most cases, these tips were learned by our family over many  years. 

When I remember and follow these strategies, my children achieve more readily and contentedly. Both children, adopted twins, have ADHD, autism, speech or language difficulties, and mental illness (schizophrenia), as did their biological mother. You may know our story from Simply Classical: A Beautiful Education for Any Child. 

1. Be Active 

Teach in short bursts, alternating between physical activities and seated activities. Low muscle tone or distracted minds can lead to fatigue. Provide movement or snack breaks to  prepare students for the next activity. 

2. Be Brief 

Communicate your instructions clearly and speak concisely. Shorten assignments. Work toward step-by-step accomplishments. End on success. 

3. Be Concrete 

Ask Who?, What?, When?, and Where? questions with visual cues. Allow more advanced students to answer How? and Why? questions. Discuss these with manipulatives or illustrations to nudge students toward more abstract pondering. 

4. Be Demonstrating 

Use money, objects, and play-acting. Show with real apples: “Sarah has three apples. She gives two away.” Role play, illustrate, or demonstrate the actions within narrative language or word problems. Assign fewer practice items to allow extra time for demonstrations. 

5. Be Engaging 

Link personal interests to the topic whenever possible to promote interest. Include the student’s first and last names for speech articulation practice, in penmanship, or sentence  writing, and in story problem examples. 

6. Be Foolproof 

“One-and-done” is not to be expected with students who have an intellectual disability or other special needs. Provide repeated practice with the lesson, preferably later in the day and throughout the year. 

7. Be Giving 

Give of yourself. Teaching a student with challenges is a matter of love and of art. Give tips to other caregivers, teachers, and therapists to create generous teamwork. Give generously also to your student, in quiet moments, such as a heart-to-heart talk after social difficulties, or by a deep hand massage after extensive writing. 

8. Be Health-Oriented 

Respect dietary, olfactory, or allergic sensitivities and difficulties with impulse control. Secure unsafe items and provide safe boundaries. Know and anticipate a student’s temptations. Give space for movement. Review and update notes regarding the student’s  physical and medical challenges. 

9. Be Incremental 

Give the “big picture” but also break lessons down into small steps, whether shoe-tying or  long division. Allow for mastery before introducing next steps and review mastered steps until they are integrated into the whole. See SimplyClassical.com

10. Be Judicious 

Give encouragement to students who need it, but avoid indulging with reward or praise for minimal effort. Expect students to rise to the standard of becoming increasingly diligent, thoughtful, and self-governing. 

11. Be Kind 

Watch how you respond to a struggling child. The child himself – and any child overhearing – will witness how you react. When handled with kindness, such moments can encourage students to imitate gentleness. 

12. Be Lasting 

Whether you teach one hour a week or every hour of every school day, remember the lasting impact of overcoming your own resentment, trials, and inconveniences to give a student nourishment for both body and soul. 

13. Be Masterful 

When possible, craft the day as you would a work of art. This may require periods of rising early or reflecting late. Whenever you fall short, refresh, recover, and begin again. 

14. Be Need-Aware 

Provide time in your school day to teach the necessities, such as washing hands, eating neatly, using a napkin, speaking politely, and other daily needs. Allow a quiet area for sensory load reduction and calming as needed. 

15. Be Observant 

Notice early signs of the need to become more vigilant, more flexible, more compassionate, more matter-of-fact, or more directive. Observation and prevention can be far more effective than merely reacting. 

16. Be Persistent 

Do not give up. Teaching takes time. For example, reading cannot be reduced to memorization of sight words, so persevere with phonics instruction and practice.  Sometimes, as the child matures, lessons become easier to grasp and to integrate into reading, spelling, or writing. 

17. Be Questioning 

Ask the student to show or paraphrase your instructions. Pause to ask simple “repeat-back” questions during your lesson. Use simple recitation to accustom students to question answer format for both pragmatic and academic language. 

18. Be Reasonable 

Set expectations to expand rather than outstrip the student’s capabilities. Reasonable requests respect honest struggles and engender willingness to persist in the effort. 

19. Be Supportive

Consult physical and occupational therapists for seating or writing support such as a slant  board, sloped desk, foot wedge, textured cushion, slate, mini whiteboard, or other physical  and therapeutic aids. 

20. Be Transition-Minded 

Assist students with transitions. Post picture schedules with clear left-to-right or top-to bottom sequences. Review these. Use the same words “first, next, then, last” each time to  impart predictable order and to promote smooth transitions. 

21. Be Undaunted 

Teaching special needs can be daunting, but preparation eases the challenge. Enlarge print  from workbooks, design flip charts to accompany recitations, or create a wall number line  for demonstrations. Be undaunted, if only because of your love for the student. 

You are more qualified than you think.


AUTHOR

Cheryl Swope

Cheryl Swope, M.Ed., has a master’s degree in special education (behavior disorders and  learning disabilites) and is the author of Simply Classical: A Beautiful Education for Any  Child (Memoria Press). Her Simply Classical Curriculum is consistently voted “#1 for Special  Learners” by homeschoolers and has received numerous Excellence in Education awards  (SimplyClassical.com). Cheryl and her husband homeschooled their adopted twins from  the children’s infancy through graduation. The family lives in a quiet lake community in  southeast Missouri. www.memoriapress.com

Copyright 2023, The Old Schoolhouse®. Used with permission. All rights reserved by the  Author. Originally appeared in the Spring 2023 issue of The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, the  trade publication for homeschool moms. Read The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine free at  www.TOSMagazine.com, or download the free reader apps at www.TOSApps.com for mobile  devices. Read the STORY of The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine and how it came to be.


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