Specific Learning Disability (SLD)

Strategies

It is important to implement strategies that address the needs of the individual.  We recommend that you apply these strategies across home, school, and community contexts.

Academics & Organization
  • Break learning tasks into small steps.
  • Probe regularly to check understanding.
  • Provide regular quality feedback.
  • Present information visually and verbally.
  • Use diagrams, graphics and pictures to support instruction.
  • Provide independent practice.
  • Model what you want students to do.
  • Clearly define and post classroom expectations for work and behavior.
  • Explicitly teach study and organizational skills.
  • Teach student how to use planner or agenda to record assignments and due dates.
  • Provide prompts of strategies to use and when to use them.
  • Ask process-type questions such as “How is that strategy working?
  • Use Direct Instruction.
  • Provide simple instructions (preferably one at a time).
  • Sequence slowly, using examples.
  • Speak clearly and turn so students can see your face.
  • Allow time for students to process requests and allow them to ask questions.
  • Use graphic organizers to support understanding of relationships between ideas.
  • Use adaptive equipment if appropriate (books on tape, laptop computers, etc.).
  • Ask questions in a clarifying manner, then have student describe understanding of the questions.
  • Use an overhead projector with an outline of the lesson or unit of the day.
  • Reduce course load.
  • Provide clear photocopies of notes and overhead transparencies.
  • Provide a detailed course outline before class begins.
  • Keep oral instructions logical and concise and reinforce them with brief cue words.
  • Repeat or re-word complicated directions.
  • Frequently verbalize what is being written on the board.
  • At the end of class, summarize the important segments of each presentation.
  • Eliminate classroom distractions (e.g. excessive noise, flickering lights, etc.).
  • Give assignments both in written and oral form.
  • Have more complex lessons recorded and available to the students.
  • Have practice exercises available for lessons, in case the student has problems.
  • Have student underline key words or directions on activity sheets (then review the sheets with them).
  • Provide and teach memory strategies, such as mnemonic strategies and elaborative rehearsal.
  • Write legibly, use large type, and do not clutter the board.
  • Assist the student in borrowing notes from a peer if necessary.
  • Clearly label equipment, tools, and materials, and use color-coding.
  • Consider alternate activities/exercises that can be utilized with less difficulty for the student, while maintaining the same or similar learning objectives.
  • Review relevant material, preview the material to be presented, present the new material, and then summarize the material just presented.
  • Provide a peer tutor or assign the student to a study group.
  • Allow the student to use a tape recorder.
  • Use specific language and state expectations.

Reading
  • Provide a quiet area for reading activities.
  • Use books on tape, and books with large print and big spaces between lines.
  • Provide a copy of class notes to student.
  • Allow alternative forms for book reports.
  • Have students use both visual and auditory senses when reading text.
  • Present material in small units.
  • Use graphic organizers to connect ideas.
  • Read and share stories with students.
  • Provide students with chapter outlines or study guides that highlight key points in their reading.
  • Announce reading assignments well in advance.
  • Offer to read written material aloud, when necessary.
  • Share informational texts and invite students to wonder about the new ideas presented.
  • Point out ways in which reading is important in everyday life (e.g., on labels, instructions, and signs).
  • Teach students how books are organized.
  • Use stories that have predictable words and words that occur frequently in the text.
  • Label objects in classroom.
  • Help students notice the letters in the environmental print that surrounds them.
  • Engage students in activities that help them learn to recognize letters visually.
  • Teach students to attend to the sounds in language.
  • Model and demonstrate how to break short sentences into individual words.
  • Have students clap out syllables and listen for and generate rhymes.
  • Focus on activities that involve sounds of words, not on letters or spellings.
  • Model specific sounds, and ask students to produce each sound in isolation.
  • Teach students to blend, identify sounds, and break up words into sounds.
  • When teaching the letters of the alphabet, activities should be explicit and unambiguous.
  • When teaching decoding, begin with small, familiar words.
  • Model sounding out words, blending the sounds together, and saying the word.
  • Have students read new stories and reread old stories every day to build fluency.
  • Engage students in discussion of reading topics that are of interest.
  • Provide high interest reading selections whenever possible.
  • Model comprehension strategies and provide students with guided assistance.
  • Point out how titles, headings, and graphics reveal main ideas and tell what a book is about.
  • Teach students to identify main ideas presented in the text, as well as the supporting details.
  • Point out unfamiliar words, revisit them, and explore their meaning.
  • Teach students to use contextual clues to figure out meanings of unfamiliar words.
  • Build background for reading selections and create a mental scheme for text organization.
  • Set a purpose for reading – to gain meaning from text.

Writing
  • Use oral exams in place of written exams when possible.
  • Allow use of tape recorder in class.
  • Assign a note taker for student.
  • Provide notes or outlines to reduce the amount of writing.
  • Provide a partially completed outline that allows student to fill in details under major headings.
  • Allow use of a laptop or other computer for writing assignments.
  • Provide computer with spell check, grammar, and cut and paste features.
  • Reduce copying that the student is required to do (e.g. offer pre-printed math problems).
  • Have wide rule paper, graph paper, and pencil grips available.
  • Provide alternatives to written assignments (video-taping or audio recording).
  • Use mnemonic devices to teach writing process (e.g. COPS:  Capitalization, Organization, Punctuation, Spelling).
  • Teach students spelling conventions systematically, such as the “silent e” rule.
  • Allow the student to use print or cursive.
  • Teach pre-organization strategies, such as use of graphic organizers.
  • Use a speech recognition program combined with the word processor so students can dictate rather than type (for older students).
  • Do not count off for poor spelling on first drafts, in-class assignments, or on tests.
  • Have student proofread papers using a checklist (not immediately after writing).
  • Shorten writing assignments and allow extra time if necessary.
  • Have students complete writing tasks in small steps.
  • Stress or de-emphasize certain task requirements during a complex assignment.
  • Allow use of abbreviations in writing assignments, and have student keep a list of appropriate abbreviations available.

Mathematics
  • Allow use of fingers and scratch paper.
  • Use diagrams and draw math concepts.
  • Present activities that involve all sensory modalities – auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic.
  • Arrange peer assistance and tutoring opportunities.
  • Have graph paper available so students can align numbers in math problems.
  • Use colored pencils to differentiate problems.
  • Offer manipulatives throughout instruction.
  • Teach students to draw pictures of word problems.
  • Use mnemonic devices to teach steps of a math concept (e.g. order of operations: “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally”).   
  • Use rhythm and music to teach math facts and to set steps to a beat.
  • Schedule computer time for drill and practice with math facts.
  • Practice new strategies until students are comfortable with them.
  • Explain why learning math strategies are important while teaching, and match strategies with the material.
  • Encourage and monitor use of strategies to ensure correct usage and generalization.
  • Teach students to understand the problem, develop a plan to solve the problem, carry out the plan, and look back to be sure the answer solves the problem.
  • Use materials such as games for practice, which are interactive and motivational.
  • Use distributed practice, meaning practice in small increments (e.g. two 15-minute sessions per day, rather than an hour session three times a week).
  • Use small numbers of math facts per group for mastery, and frequently practice with mixed groups.
  • Emphasize "reverses," or "turnarounds" (e.g., 1+ 2/2 + 1, 1x2/2x1) in vertical, horizontal, and oral formats.
  • Have students self-chart progress by keeping track of how many and which facts are mastered, and how many more there are to go within a unit.

Testing & Accommodations 
  • Avoid overly complicated language in test questions and clearly separate items when spacing them on the exam sheet.
  • Consider other forms of testing (oral, hands-on demonstration, open-book etc.).
  • Eliminate distractions while students are taking exams.
  • For students who may have difficulty transferring answers, avoid answer sheets.
  • Allow student to write answers on the test.
  • For students who have reading difficulties, have a proctor read the test to the student.
  • For students with writing difficulties, have someone scribe the answers for them or use a tape recorder.
  • Provide study questions for exams that demonstrate the format along with the content of the exam.
  • Teach students how to proofread assignments and tests.
  • Allow students to use a dictionary, thesaurus, or a calculator during tests.
  • Develop a scoring guide, share it with students, and provide models of examples of each level of performance.