Quick-Sheet of Ideas for Students with Disabilities

TO HELP WITH

Reading Instruction & Literature Study

Try this!

• Enlarge the text or font.
• Add pictures or rebus symbols to text.
• Use highlighting tape to draw attention to key words or phrases.
• Provide digital text and an electronic text reader.
• Provide an audio version of the text.
• Have the student listen to and retell what was read.
• Provide a summary of the text.

TO HELP WITH

• Use words from the student’s daily experience.
• Ask the student to write the first letter only during a spelling test.
• Provide magnetic letters, letter stamps, or letter cards for practicing new sounds and letters.
• Have the student use an electronic communicator rather than spelling words orally.
• Teach the spelling strategy: Say the word.
• Try a recognition-only spelling test.
• Have the student match words and pictures.
• Give students small dry-erase boards for practicing sounds, letters, or words.

TO HELP WITH

Comprehension

• Give students sticky notes to mark main ideas, answers to their predictions, and more.
• Use prediction strategies (“What do you think will happen?”).
• Provide story maps with labeled spaces for setting, characters, problem, and solution.
• Have a student give oral responses, draw pictures, or use AAC to answer questions.
• Ask a student only factual questions—who, what, where, and when.
• Have a student sequence pictures of story events rather than writing or answering oral questions.

TO HELP WITH

Written Language Tasks

• Give students pictures or illustrations as writing prompts.
• Provide stimulus questions such as “What person”

Try this!

• Provide sentence starters and fill-in-the-blank sentences.
• Pair the student with a scribe who can write what the student dictates.