Teaching Strategies Essential for Teaching Students with Special Needs Use Scaffolding strategic leads, prompts and

supports given to students in the form of modelling, sharing, guiding and conferencing, controlling the difficulty of the task, pointing out critical features, maintaining learners interest, providing feedback, using partners. Scaffolds remain in place until the student has mastered the task.

Use Graphic Organisers anything visual that helps a student organise and process information. Graphic organisers, such as a table, mind map, flow chart, timeline or Venn diagram, assist a student to think logically and to identify the main concepts being taught. Chunk Information is the process or result of grouping or reorganising smaller units of work into larger more meaningful ones. Chunking information makes the learning accessible and provides a variety of ways that a student can contribute to and connect with the learning. Practising a teaching and learning practice involving many opportunities for the review and rehearsal of a skill or strategy. It is essential to reiterate and revisit new information/skill/strategy in various contexts to allow for the acquisition of the new concept. Less able students need at least five opportunities to engage with a new concept on different occasions.

Explicitly identify key words are important words to do with lesson content, or instructions for activities. Write these of the board for each lesson and highlight them in assignment instructions. Mnemonic to remember the definition of a key word get students to think of a similar sounding word that has a strong visual image. Use clear, well-spaced font This assists students with learning difficulties or low literacy. When used together with headings, colour and images in a well organised page it makes information more accessible. Vision Australia recommends Comic Sans. Use colour coding is the use of colour to separate or group ideas together. Use a different colour for editing.

Use concrete materials whenever possible the use of objects that provide tactile experiences which assist students to interpret information and the skills they need for abstract thinking Use flow charts the visual presentation of information in a sequential order. Schematic representations of processes all the elements required to complete an assignment, the steps in a science experiment. a reading procedure typified by the teacher selecting and reading a text to students and thinking aloud selected processes being used a procedure where teachers guide small groups of students as they read a common text assigned by the teacher with the aim of teaching and practising

Modelled Reading

Guided reading

CGS Department of Teaching and Learning Support

reading strategies. When introducing new or unfamiliar text the teacher helps to unpack meaning. Modelled Writing the explicit demonstration of writing behaviours and verbalisation of the thinking processes used by effective writers a procedure where teachers guide the construction of a text with the aim of teaching and practising writing strategies

Guided writing

Guided speaking and listening a procedure where teachers guide small groups of students as they construct spoken texts with the aim of teaching and practising oral strategies

CGS Department of Teaching and Learning Support