Individualized Instruction for Students with Special Needs Who Present Challenges with Regard to Organizing Materials

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices. Accordingly, our mentees should know how to individualize instruction.

Below you will find several modifications to individualize instruction for students with special needs who have challenges with regard to organizing materials.

Specific Learning Challenge	Some Suggested Modifications to Individualize Instruction*
Organizing materials	· Only give him/her the materials for one step at a time.** · Provide a workspace where only materials needed for a given task are available at that time. · Color-code materials so students have an easy reference cue. **

*This is taken, with permission, from the website of the Union of Reform Judaism (URJ), special needs menu, http://urj.org/educate/specialneeds/. Retrieved January 30, 2009.

** The double asterisk denotes an activity that can be done by a teaching assistant, a trained madrich, a trained parent volunteer, or the student or co-teacher.

In the next post we will discuss the IEP and the ILP.