Pull-out is not the only answer.

Some teachers in DC schools complain that inclusion is not working because there are not enough SPED teachers in a school, and you can't be in two places at once.

I know there's a dearth of training and information in DCPS about how inclusion should theoretically work. Also, I don't doubt that many schools don't have enough teachers. Nonetheless, inclusion requires more than just having more SPED teachers. I was in a school that tried to do inclusion, and appeared to me to have plenty of SPED teachers - who all had no clue about what the inclusion model looked like.

They tried, though. They went into classrooms and pulled SPED kids to a back table and tried to teach them there. They seemed to think inclusion meant "just do what you normally do, only do it around the GEN ED kids." Their intentions were sincere.

At several schools and in many IEP meetings I heard general ed and special ed teachers say, "What he needs is more one-on-one and small group instruction." That suggestion seemed to be the main intervention used in East of the Park schools that I worked in. Yet, many kids didn't progress even when placed in smaller settings.

I'm learning that there's more to educating a child with disabilities than separation from the rest of the class. Educators should focus on what STRATEGIES teachers will use. At one school that I worked in, a 4th grade boy could not read the word "the" and his SPED teacher had no success teaching him. When he reached 5th grade and got a new SPED teacher, he read around the 2nd grade level by the end of the year. Same pull-out setting, only the 5th grade teacher had STRATEGIES for teaching reading.

Today I felt success.

All week I've been helping four fourth graders complete social studies reports just like the rest of the class. Today, children were placed into groups, given tri-folding boards, and allowed to put their groups reports into an attractive display. The SPED kids blended right in.

All week long, I helped in several ways. BR has a motor disability and struggles to write, so I typed his report on his word processor, then wrote out his notes on a notecard (for when he has to orally present his findings).

Two of the students had trouble organizing their research, so I showed them how to draw a graphic organizer on their papers and organize their research. Then we took the graphic organizers and placed the thoughts into complete sentences and paragraphs.

JO organized his research on his own and created good paragraphs, but needed help with creating topic sentences. We practiced "recycling the question" and listing related words that we might want to use in a good topic sentence.

We had Open House at our school today, so groups of parents came by the room while children were working like excited little busy bees on their board projects. The parents had no clue that I was the special education teacher and they had no clue that there were 4 special needs children in the class - children with Aspergers, writing impairments, dyslexia, ADHD, and learning disabilities.

I hope through this blog that I can help you discover strategies to use in your own classroom to include children with special needs successfully.