Supporting kids with special needs works best when both regular education and special education staff work together. That’s why it is helpful for all teachers to understand how they can modify and accommodate for students in their classrooms. For newer teachers, learning that you need to modify work for kids of various levels can be a bit overwhelming. Even teacher who are highly experienced might struggle with how much to modify. It’s really a balance because you are constantly trying to find out what is “just tough enough” to push your students, with it still being at an appropriate level that can help them grow. Too easy and the work doesn’t really challenge them. Too difficult and kids might shut down, causing them to not learn anything at all. It’s okay (and actually good) to fine-tune your level of modifications over time.
Most importantly, if a child requires a modification according to their IEP, the teacher needs to provide it. The IEP is a legal document and those modifications and accommodations were agreed upon the child’s planning team. Some modifications are specifically listed, such as having a word bank or being able to use a calculator. Other times, modifications are left up to the discretion of the teacher. If there is something you are unsure about in the child’s list of modifications, talk to the spec
ial education teacher and get further clarification.
Here is a quick reference list for some ideas to pull from when you need to modify for a child’s assessment, homework, or other assignment:
Reduce the Workload:
- Assign even or odd problems only – This is a great strategy for homework. It’s simple and quick for the teacher, but still gives the child similar practice to everyone else.
- Select specific problems and omit extra ones
- Give 1 essay question instead of 3 or 4
- Give choice – Let the student select 10 problems to do or let them pick whether to do the front or back of a worksheet. This will help with motivation, too, since the child sees they have a choice in the assignment.
- Put fewer problems on each page – This will be less visually distracting.
- For matching, reduce the number of items to match or break them in half
- Reduce the number of multiple choices – There will be less to select from. For example, if everyone else has a quiz with 4 possible multiple choice answers, your student might only have 2 or 3 options to choose from.
- Eliminate true or false questions – These questions can be extremely tricky, especially for kids with language-based disorders.
Modify the Content:
- Give a similar but different assignment with lower grade level material in area of weakness (math, reading, or writing) – For example: if the topic is computing with fractions, the student might be drawing fraction pictures. This will also help you target the “most important” concepts for the child to learn at the time.
- Provide an alternative assignment – This can be a research project, hands-on project, lab experiment, or making a poster to show understanding of a topic.
- Align student interest to the content – For example, you might focus on reading strategies while learning about trains.
Provide Supports:
- Give a word bank for fill in the blank or when writing an essay
- Allow students to type or orally report their responses
- Give a specific list for steps to complete a task
- Provide concept cards with an assignment
- Allow the student to use their book or notes
- Provide specific examples
- Highlight tricky or key words in questions
- Allow extra time
- Allow student to work in quieter setting
- Allow calculators
- Allow for brainstorming prior to the assignment
- Have adult read assignment to student
Learning to modify can be hard work at first. It’s best to give it a try even if you are not entirely sure it’s the right modification. Remember that you can always tweak your modifications as the year goes on. Most likely, you will need to continually reassess modifications and supports, since your students will be growing and making progress. And when in doubt, work with your special education staff to ask for feedback, support, and ideas.
If you are a special education teacher in need of a toolkit, consider the Special Education Teacher Binder. It is a huge compilation of special education resources.
Materials focus on IEPs and team meetings, progress monitoring of academics and behavior, classroom materials, building a classroom community, planning, lessons, organization, and other forms to help make the life of a special education teacher a little bit easier.
I was wondering if you have any examples of how to provide a word bank for an essay at the high school level? I’m having a hard time figuring out how to provide words that answer either short answer questions or essay questions that typically require sentence answers.
Hi Joy- I would provide my students a separate sheet of paper with words and phrases that might be helpful to them. For example, if the essay is on the industrial revolution, I might include terms like: industrialization, labor, working conditions, migration, etc. Giving these vocabulary words would help students remember vocabulary and guide them in the right direction without steering them one way or another. Hope that helps!
I even split up word with their questions into chunks of 5-7-10 and then chunk the correct answers with those chunks of 5-7-10
So for example in a Voacb test the first five words would match the first five questions, the next 5 words would match the questions 6-10.
The students seem to really benefit from this.
I insert a text box for a word bank for some modified exams.
I’m curious how you might modify for chemistry, algebra II, or those other tough HS classes. We really struggle with that in our district.
Hi Stacie! A lot of the strategies really work well for any content area, even in high school. Students who struggle with reading can learn about the same material that is written with a simpler text or vocabulary words that are defined for them ahead of time. For math, one strategy that worked for some of my learners was creating guide cards for them. I would give step-by-step examples for how to solve a certain type of problem. Kids could use these cards on quizzes or tests many times if they needed because it wasn’t giving the answer- just a guide to help them remember HOW to do the steps. Visuals are extremely helpful for any subject as well. For tests and quizzes, reduce the number of essay questions or problems and focus on what is most important. This can help kids who get fatigued. Let them focus their energy where it is most important! Also, chunk the information together (for example, if you have a test on multiple types of math concepts, keep all similar concepts together). Hope some of those ideas help! As always, every child is unique and you have to sometimes test out what works for them!
For math in particular, I have used “doodle notes” created by Melanie Ellsworth that I purchased on tpt. The notes are fill in the blank and most of the concepts are already illustrated giving the students the chance to following along with the lesson rather than worrying about catching the finer details.
These are some great tips for modifying special education for a student. Thanks for sharing.
Could you please clarify if Inclusion Teachers are allowed to read assignments and testing materials to students. (Not during STAAR or State wide exam but regular classroom testing, assignments or homework)?
We are saying that when given a general ed test to the SPED students that we can modify the wording for better understanding of the questions for the student. If you have any resources to confirm this, please email it back to me.
Hi Thelma, I would think the best way to show this is to refer back to the student’s IEP. This is really another reason why it’s so helpful to be specific in IEPs. But even if it is not in the IEP, I think it’s just a best practice to rephrase or reword directions if a child doesn’t understand- on an IEP or not! If you are having a disagreement with the general ed teacher about it, my best suggestion would be to conference with them and offer to write a differentiated test together for your students. Ideally, the general ed teacher could be making 2 versions of the test: one with more complex wording for higher kids and one with more simplified wording. Both would allow kids to show knowledge of concepts. I’ll try to see if I can find some documentation on this. It’s a GREAT question. -Kris