Which Accommodations are Appropriate?

So if you have or know of a child who is struggling academically - hopefully, they’ve been able to move through the first step of our 3-Step Assess - Design - Implement process.

Once a student has been assessed, we can begin to design an appropriate plan. If the child has not yet gone through the assessment phase and you would like more information on what these assessments should look like, click here.

When we look at designing an appropriate learning plan we want to look at two things:

1. How do we level the playing field for struggling learners?

   and….

2. How do we close the gap for struggling learners?

When we look at leveling the playing field for struggling learners, we want to give them access to the tools and resources they need to be successful in the classroom while they are working on gaining the skills they need to catch up to their peers.

Typically we do this through -

Accommodations and Modifications

Simply put, accommodations are things that can be provided in the general education classroom so that students can access the classroom-based curriculum.

Accommodations may look like:

• Extra time to complete tests or assignments

• Access to speech-to-text or text-to-speech

• Larger print books

• Access to a class schedule for a student’s desk

Modifications are ways in which we adapt or change the curriculum to meet the needs of a struggling student within the classroom-based curriculum.

Modifications may look like:

• Reduced workload

• Books provided at an easier reading level

• Math problems presented at an easier or more basic level

The list really goes on and on. There are so many accommodations and modifications that could be appropriate but they aren’t the same for every student and they need to be designed thoughtfully based on individual strengths and weaknesses. All too often we see a laundry list of accommodations and modifications that are put in place that don’t fully address a student’s needs. The idea is to pick a handful of accommodations and/or modifications based on what’s going to be necessary to help support an individual student.

When choosing which accommodations are best we need to look at two things:

1. Assessment results -

   We absolutely must have assessment results to put together strategic accommodations. We need to know - how did the student perform in specific areas of language, working memory, processing speed, reading, writing, math, executive functioning (e.g., study skills/organization), etc. in order to begin to consider the best possible accommodations.

2. Parent & Teacher Report -

   Ultimately, parents are the true experts on their child. They see what goes on at home and have the longest picture of ups and downs for their child. Parents need to be a major part of this conversation because they see what happens at home when children are trying to complete their homework - and at this time children are just done with “holding it together” as they tried to do in the classroom. But, we have to keep in mind that as a parent, if we don’t have the background in this field, we don’t know what’s available. This is where teacher report comes in critical, teachers can be the link between what’s going on with the student and what’s available in terms of support.

So there you have it, it’s the marriage of assessment results and parent/teacher reports that helps us determine which accommodations are most appropriate.

>>>Click here to grab our accommodations and modifications list specifically broken down by student need!<<<

For more information on the third piece (implement) of our assess, design, implement framework, check out our FREE course, 7-Steps to Reading Intervention that Works!