Planning+Curriculum+for+the+SpecEd+Population

====Dr. Schwarz's article presents readers with the notion that using the Orton-Gillingham method is the best way to teach SpecEd students a foreign language. Dr. Schwarz describes this method as one that is used by teaching students "sounds [that] are presented in a highly structured fashion with a great deal of visual, kinesthetic and tactile practice and input" in order to help the student understand the dynamics of how the foreign language works. However, before a teacher can instruct students on how to learn the foreign language, the student must understand the mechanics of their native language first. This idea is in direct relation to Dr. Cummins notion that if a student understands their L1, they will be better equip to understand their L2. If the instructor teaches the students about phonological skills in their native language first and then applies it to the foreign language, the student will be able to make the connection between the two languages. ====

With this method in mind, an instructor must also be mindful of what needs each SpecEd student has in order to create lessons, activities, and assessments that can serve each student's unique learning style and needs. One cannot differentiate if they do not know what they are differentiating for!

Assessments, then, should reflect the learning that has taken place and call on students to demonstrate their understanding of the learning. For a Special Needs student, the type of assessment should not only reflect the way in which lessons where differentiated for them but the assessment itself should also be differentiated in such a way that will allow them to show what they have learned in a way that is easiest for them to accomplish. Sometimes a multiple choice, fill-in, or short answer exam format simply will not do as the questions are too advanced or too high in the Bloom's Taxonomy skill level for them to achieve. The solution is simple: tone your questions down to tasks that are lower on the Bloom's Taxonomy skill level. Matching, drawing, counting, and identifying are perfectly fine alternative test question, so long as the content within the assessment is measuring what you taught. For instance, if I taught my students how to conjugate verbs, I may ask my regular education students to take an incorrect sentence and re-write it so that the verb that was written incorrectly can be charged to its correct form. As a modification, I could ask a student to match the correct verb endings to the correct subject pronoun instead. The modification is easier than correcting a sentence, but it still nevertheless determines whether or not the student understands that each subject pronoun has a specific verb ending.

Once an instructor has found the best form of assessment that fits the needs of the student (please read "Assessment Strategies"), the results of the assessment can help the instructor decide the next course of action, including:
 * 1) Comparing the Special Needs student's work to the others to see if the results were similar and if material needs to be re-taught
 * 2) Using results to help indicate what areas may need more direct instruction or practice. In my case, if I see a student struggled to understand vocabulary words then creating more lessons and application activities that call for students to use the vocabulary more then it is possible that on the next assessment the student will perform better based on the fact that they had more time to work with the material.
 * 3) Deciding on how to make future assessments not necessarily easier, but more informative of a student's progress, in the future if the instructor feels that the assessment did not do the student justice.