Special Education Day: 5 Classroom Strategies for Leaders and Teachers

Celebrating Special Education Day 2022

December 2nd is National Special Education Day. This date recognizes the legislative changes that led to the nation’s first special education law.

Today, we also celebrate and honor students with disabilities and the educators working to help them learn and grow! We’ve gathered a handful of our useful classroom strategies. These are either designed for the special education classroom or have a featured section for special education modification. All you need to access is a free BetterLesson Lab login. Enjoy!

For Leaders: Student of Concern Meetings

Using Student of Concern Meetings to build relationships, problem solve and identify supports for students is a foundational tool teachers can use to support all students with disabilities.  In particular, it is a crucial tool in supporting students with emotional and behavioral impairments as they often disproportionately struggle in traditional classroom settings and struggle with proactive problem solving

For Lower Elementary: Segmenting Instructional Practice

Use of Segmenting Instructional Practice is an excellent way to engage in content for students with disabilities.  By helping students understand the individual sounds and syllables that make up words in order to read the word as a whole, teachers will help build their toolbox to engage with content to begin helping them build overall investment in their learning.

For Upper Elementary: Workshop for Student-Centered Learning

Workshops are a great way to engage students with disabilities because they provide a choice of how they learn, practice, and master the content while also holding them accountable for their choices.

For Middle School: Pulse Check

Using a Pulse Check tracker is an excellent way to support students with disabilities to keep track of their own mastery and help them build self advocacy skills.

For High School: GOAL Journaling to Reflect and Grow

Building in time for goal setting and reflection supports students with disabilities. This strategy provides a safe, structured opportunity to develop goal setting and reflection skills and to more concretely identify their areas of growth to build ownership in their learning.