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.