Teaching little kids

Strategies Teachers Use to Help Kids Who Learn and Think Differently

Your child’s teachers may use a variety of teaching strategies in their classrooms. But do these strategies help kids who learn and think differently?

There’s no one way for teachers to deliver instruction to their students. However, some strategies are backed by research and are more effective than others.

These approaches and techniques can benefit all students. But they’re especially helpful to kids who learn and think differently. They can make a big difference in how well struggling students take in and work with information. (Some may even be used as formal accommodations in and .)

Explore topics selected by our experts

School supports

You may have heard of one or more of these strategies from your child’s classroom or special education teachers. If not, you can ask the teachers whether they use the strategies and how you might adapt them to use at home.

Here are six common teaching strategies. Learn more about what they are and how they can help kids who learn and think differently.

1. Wait time

“Wait time” (or “think time”) is a three- to seven-second pause after a teacher says something or asks a question. Instead of calling on the first students who raise their hand, the teacher will stop and wait.

This strategy can help with the following issues:

Slow processing speed: For kids who process slowly, it may feel as though a teacher’s questions come at rapid-fire speed. “Wait time” allows kids to understand what the teacher asked and to think of a response.
ADHD: Kids with ADHD can benefit from wait time for the same reason. They have more time to think instead of calling out the first answer that comes to mind.

2. Multisensory instruction

Multisensory instruction is a way of teaching that engages more than one sense at a time. A teacher might help kids learn information using touch, movement, sight and hearing.

This way of teaching can help with these issues:

Dyslexia: Many programs for struggling readers use multisensory strategies. Teachers might have students use their fingers to tap out each sound in a word, for example. Or students might draw a word in the air using their arm.
Dyscalculia: Multisensory instruction is helpful in math, too. Teachers often use hands-on tools like blocks and drawings. These tools help kids to “see” math concepts. Adding 2 + 2 is more concrete when you combine four blocks in front of you. You may hear teachers refer to these tools as manipulatives.
Dysgraphia: Teachers also use multisensory instruction for handwriting struggles. For instance, students use the sense of touch when they write on “bumpy” paper.
ADHD: Multisensory instruction can help with different ADHD symptoms. That’s especially true if the technique involves movement. Being able to move can help kids burn excess energy. Movement can also help kids focus and retain new information.

3. Modeling

Most kids don’t learn simply by being told what to do. Teachers use a strategy called “I Do, We Do, You Do” to model a skill. The teacher will show how to do something (“I do”), such as how to do a math problem. Next, the teacher will invite kids to do a problem with the teacher (“we do”). Then, kids will try a math problem on their own (“you do”).

This strategy can help with these issues:

All learning and thinking differences: When used correctly, I Do, We Do, You Do can benefit all learners. That’s because a teacher can provide support during each phase. However, teachers must know what support to provide. They also need to know when students understand a concept well enough to work on their own. Think of it like riding a bike: The teacher needs to know when to take off the training wheels.

4. Graphic organizers

Graphic organizers are visual tools. They show information or the connection between ideas. They also help kids organize what they’ve learned or what they have to do. Teachers use these tools to “scaffold,” or provide support around, the learning process for struggling learners. (It’s the same idea as when workers put up scaffolding to help construct a building.)

There are many different kinds of graphic organizers, such as Venn diagrams and flow charts. They can be especially helpful with these issues:

Dyscalculia: In math, graphic organizers can help kids break down math problems into steps. Kids can also use them to learn or review math concepts.
Dysgraphia: Teachers often use graphic organizers when they teach writing. Graphic organizers help kids plan their ideas and writing. Some also provide write-on lines to help kids space their words.
Executive functioning issues: Kids with weak executive skills can use these tools to organize information and plan their work. Graphic organizers can help kids condense their thoughts into short statements. This is useful for kids who often struggle to find the most important idea when taking notes.

5. One-on-one and small group instruction

One strategy that teachers use is to vary the size of the group they teach to. Some lessons are taught to the whole class. Others are better for a small group of students or one student. Learning in a small group or one-on-one can be very helpful to kids with learning and thinking differences.

Some kids are placed in small groups because of their IEPs or an intervention. But that’s not always the case. Teachers often meet with small groups or one student as a way to differentiate instruction. This means that they tailor the lesson to the needs of the student.

This strategy helps with:

Dyslexia: Students with dyslexia frequently meet in small group settings for reading. In the general classroom, teachers often work with a small group of kids at the same reading level or to focus on a specific skill. They might also meet because kids have a common interest in a book.
Dyscalculia: For kids with dyscalculia, teachers gather one or more students to practice skills that some students (but not the whole class) need extra help with.
Dysgraphia: In many classrooms, teachers hold “writing conferences.” They meet with students one-on-one to talk about their progress with what they’re writing. For students with dysgraphia, a teacher can use this opportunity to check in and focus on specific skills for that student.
ADHD and executive functioning issues: This type of instruction often takes place in settings with fewer distractions. The teacher can also help students stay on task and learn skills like self-monitoring.
Slow processing speed: Teachers can adjust the pace of instruction to give students the time they need to take in and respond to information. In these groups, teachers can focus on the priorities of the lesson so students have the time to grasp the most important concepts. Being in a focused setting may also help decrease the anxiety students feel in whole-class lessons.

6. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) strategies

UDL is a type of teaching that gives all students flexible ways to learn and succeed. UDL strategies allow kids to access materials, engage with them and show what they know in different ways. There are many examples of how these strategies help kids who learn and think differently.

ADHD: UDL allows students to work in flexible learning environments. For students who struggle with inattention and distractibility, a teacher might allow a student to work in a quiet space away from the class. Or the student may want to wear earbuds or headphones.
Executive functioning issues: Following directions can be tough for kids with executive functioning issues. One UDL strategy is to give directions in more than one format. For instance, a teacher might give directions out loud and write them on the board.
Dyslexia: When teachers follow UDL principles, they present information in many different ways. For instance, instead of telling students they must read a book, they would be invited to listen to an audiobook. This removes a barrier for students who struggle with reading.
Dysgraphia: One UDL strategy is to give assignment choices. Kids with dysgraphia may struggle to show how much they know about history by writing an essay. But they may shine when delivering a presentation or acting out a historical skit.

To learn more about any of these teaching strategies, talk with your child’s teacher. Ask which strategies they use, whether they are evidence-based and how you might use them at home.

Key takeaways

Some teaching strategies may be part of a child’s IEP or 504 plan.
The strategies aim to give kids needed support as they learn.
Talk with your child’s teachers about the strategies they use.

Teaching All Children | Reading Rockets

Today's schools must accommodate students from different ethnic groups, language groups, cultures, family situations, and social and economic situations, with different interests and purposes for learning, and different abilities and styles of learning.

In the face of all this diversity, schools can no longer operate as if one curriculum and way of teaching will fit most of the students. Instead, students can pursue a common set of curricular goals or learning standards, accomplishing them in different ways and sometimes to different degrees of mastery.

Make sure each student gets access to knowledge, skills, and information

Such access improves the life chances, available choices, and valued contributions of every person. It is also the central purpose of education, and all the goals and activities of inclusive schools revolve around this idea and its implications for students, families, educators, and communities.

Individually tailor learning

Children learn in lots of different places and in lots of different ways. The "teachers" in these environments help children and youth to understand and make connections among different experiences. They also use different approaches and strategies that personalize learning according to each person's learning abilities, needs, styles, purposes, and preferences.

Inclusive schools make sure that each student is challenged to achieve to high standards in ways that fit what they already know, what they can already do, and how they learn best.

Use collaborative teaching arrangements

No one teacher can be skillful at teaching so many different students. She needs a little help from her colleagues. When teachers with different areas of expertise and skill work together, they can individually tailor learning better for all their students.

Collaborate with families, agencies, and other community members

Schools, like teachers, cannot do everything alone. Collaboration with other agencies to provide needed health and social services is just one way that schools can be more comprehensive and supportive of students' lives. Including community members and organizations in the day-to-day work of the school is another way that school resources can be enriched and extended to achieve more effective learning and life outcomes for each student.

Organize and structure schools flexibly

Schools need to be organized in ways that are adaptable to the needs of teachers and students. Good schools also need seamless partnerships. Families, community members, practitioners, researchers, and policymakers must work together to address real world problems and create solutions that will improve schools. Innovative schedules, school teams, mixed age teams, and other options all offer opportunities for educators to flexibly respond to student differences.

Hold high expectations for student success

People in schools must believe in, recognize, and value the contributions and talents of every student. All students are entitled to high expectations and challenging curriculum that lead to the same broad educational outcomes regardless of their race, class, culture, ability, gender, language, or family circumstances.

Such schools use lots of ways to demonstrate that students learn and use their learning. Performance and alternative assessments, student-led conferences, student goal-setting, exhibitions, and other curriculum-based measurements are all innovative ways to document and share students' learning accomplishments.

Keep improving

Schools must collect and use information that will keep improving all parts of the system. Families need information that keeps them meaningfully engaged in their children's education. Teachers need information that helps improve student learning. Policymakers need information that helps improve schools overall.

Build inclusive communities

Inclusive schools are important because they support learning and achievement. They are also important because the philosophy of acceptability and flexibility that guides inclusive schools is one that we also need in our communities.

Children and youth spend only a small part of their lives in schools. Yet after the home, the school is an important influence in shaping the lives of children, both while young and for the rest of their lives. The foundation that schooling and parenting lay lasts for life.

Inclusive schools help build inclusive communities where people's differences are valued, where each member gets supported to contribute, and where the human values created as a result support our societies to achieve our most important outcomes.

How to develop a child from birth? | Education

Many believe that a child should have a carefree, happy childhood and it does not matter whether their child learns to recognize colors, geometric shapes, letters, whether he can read, count, write, draw, and so on before school or at a desk. Others are so passionate about the development of the baby that he does not have time for doll cars.

When a child is constantly busy learning from the cradle, it discourages him from learning further at the same pace. There is no consensus on what is better: to let the boat-child go with the flow or still guide him in this endless ocean of life. We will not convince anyone and incline to any particular opinion, but simply help those who nevertheless decided to develop their child.

Where and how to start?

First you need to remember the three golden rules for developing a child's abilities:

1. Game. All children love to play, and it is in the process of playing that it is better to give them knowledge about this world and its features.

2. Honesty. Develop a child when you have a desire to do it, from the bottom of your heart. If the child does not feel your sincere desire to study with him, then he will absorb the information inattentively and without enthusiasm.

3. Fantasy. Imagine yourself for a while as a small child and perceive learning, development through the prism of a child's worldview and feelings.

For the first few months, the baby sleeps almost all the time, and eats during breaks, and he acquires his initial knowledge about this world by listening to the speech , the voice of his parents. You need to talk with your baby as often as possible and about everything that surrounds you and him.

Play with your voice: increase your intonation if you are talking about something unusual, interesting; switch to a whisper if you want to inform him of something mysterious and mysterious. Comment on all your actions, call a spade a spade, talk not only about what you see, but also about your feelings, mood. Come up with affectionate names, nicknames for your child. Any person, even a tiny one, likes to be affectionately called by name. The emotional sphere is very important for the development of a child at an early age. Photo: Depositphotos

The main source of information for the baby during the first months of life is vision and hearing . Make sure that your baby has something to look at while awake. Show bright toys, simple contrasting pictures, photos of loved ones, and even the reflection of a child in the mirror. The optimal distance for showing a child any objects is 20-30 cm.

Attention development game : gently move the toy in different directions in front of the child's face several times, then fix the toy in one position for a few seconds so that the child can see the obscure object better, then hide the toy and show it again.

In the first two months of life, children respond better to high-contrast black and white images , let there be 5-6 such pictures in your arsenal. Hang 1-2 pictures near the crib or on the wall, where you often pass with the child when he is in your arms, and change the image every 2-3 days. Drawing the child's attention to the pictures, tell in detail what is drawn on them, your opinion, feelings, make up mini-stories. In addition to showing pictures, it is useful to take the baby in your arms and arrange tours around the house. Photo: Depositphotos

To develop your hearing, it is better to use rattles with different sounds, or you can make such musical toys yourself: put various fillings in jars so that the sounds differ significantly from each other. Soon you yourself will be surprised how selective your child is in choosing a melody.

Good ear development music . From birth, put calm, pleasant music on your child - now there are a lot of discs with classical music for babies, lullabies, calm melodies, sounds of nature ... Introduce your baby to different rhythms. Listen to fast, loud, melodic, slow music.

When a child begins to consciously reach for objects, clenches his fists, you can hang a turntable or mobile near his bed. Let the baby not yet be able to grab a spinning object, but how much effort it makes! An alternative to a mobile phone can be a baby horizontal bar or a developmental rug.

It is pleasant for a child to realize that he can move toys himself, cause some sounds. Try sewing small bells or ringing rattle balls to the socks, or you can make ringing bracelets on the handles. When moving a hand or foot, the baby will make sounds, so he will develop an associative connection - movement-sound. Photo: Depositphotos

It is also very useful to develop tactile sensations : give the child objects that are different in form and content. Playing with bags that are made of different fabrics and filled with different materials (cereals, beads, rustling bags, cotton wool, sawdust, etc. - everything that can be folded into a small bag and hermetically sealed) is perfect for this purpose. In addition to such a game with bags, you can give the child to touch warm, hot, loose, hard, rough, smooth - the more diverse his sensations are, the more beneficial it will affect the development of the baby.

For the development of motor skills buy your child a sturdy small children's piano with large musical buttons - it will be your baby's favorite toy! The child can make sounds, tap the keys, look at pictures, listen to his piece of music endlessly and every time with genuine interest. For such a musical game, it can be planted on pillows, or you can put it on your tummy. We immediately develop motor skills, and hearing, and attention, and tactile sensations!

Water games are not only useful, but also interesting! As soon as the child learns to hold his head while lying on his tummy, you can send him to "free swimming": run into a bathtub filled with 10-15 cm of warm water. If the child still does not hold the head upright, support it by the chin. Let the bath have 2-3 bright toys for playing in the water, to which the child will reach, merrily slapping the water with his hands and feet. And if you take a full bath of water, then you can safely walk along the bottom, such exercises strengthen and develop the muscles of the back and legs. Over time, when the child begins to get on all fours and crawl on his own, bathing can become his favorite pastime. Photo: Depositphotos

It is necessary to develop a child constantly, increasing the amount of information given with age. If earlier you used to call things with monosyllabic primitive names, now try to clarify the details, color, shape, size, position in space, etc. In addition to simple pictures on a white background, show your child the tables, maps, diagrams hung on the walls of your house. And when the baby learns to sit, then paper pictures can be replaced with children's electronic presentations, where the slides automatically replace each other.

Explain, repeat often, show your interest in the process so that the child feels that he is just being played with, not seriously taught. Of course, the baby will not immediately understand what you are telling him so enthusiastically about, and will not remember all those pictures that you show him so often, but he will constantly feel your attention to himself, hear your gentle voice addressed to him. And most importantly, he will not discover this world alone!

Tags: baby development, ability development, Baby, attention development, child development, baby development, small children

Labyrinths and guides for children

Print and complete the best mazes for children ! Choose children's mazes by age: simple mazes for children from 3 to 4 years old; classic - from 5 to 6 years old and complex labyrinths for children over 7 years old.

How to choose a labyrinth to complete?

In mazes for children, the beauty is that the division into complexity is rather arbitrary. Children, even at the age of three or four, can go through rather complex mazes, color them and mark the paths found with a felt-tip pen ... You just need to start studying with your child in a timely manner!

The choice of labyrinths for children is wide, the section is updated periodically, you can print a color labyrinth, or you can black and white, so that the child first paints it himself. This option is ideal if you are teaching your child how to navigate mazes for the first time. The kid will be surprised when he sees that at first glance a simple coloring turns into an entertaining game before his eyes!

Logic and imagination

It is important to develop in him not only logic, but also intuition, so that at the first glance at the picture, one of the options for passing is drawn in his thoughts. However, before that, you need to go through a winding road of explanations and training, choosing more and more complex pictures over and over again.