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[quote=Anonymous]A huge problem are actually disability advocates who champion inclusion at all costs for the past 20 years. They have lobbied and put pressure on schools to include all students all the time.

So when kids have learning disabilities and can’t read and/or years and years below grade level chances are they are NOT getting pulled out to spend 2-3 hours a day in a special Ed classroom learning to read. Instead a special Ed teacher is told to go into classrooms and support 20 or more kids in multiple classrooms and different grade levels. Then an aide is sent in to support those students and end up just reading their assignments for them and helping them complete it.

Picture how you would feel getting pulled to the back of a classroom in fourth grade to work on first grade work with a special Ed teacher who is also supposed to work that 30 minutes with a kid who needs reading comprehension or a student with autism who has other needs.

So the student being included never learns how to read AND often never learns how to communicate well because they are not raising their hand to answer questions. The general Ed teacher isn’t stopping to show them what a word means, waiting until they gather their thoughts, etc.

It is tragic but so many special Ed teachers actually don’t know how to teach reading. I taught first grade due five years then went back to grad school to be a school psychologist.

I am always puzzled why so many advocates and university professors think including a kid with a learning disability the entire day who can’t read instead of pulling them out of class in the morning so they are with a special Ed teacher and an aide or two who do small group rotations.

It seems crazy but I am at a school where the two special Ed teachers do this and we have to keep it quiet. We put second, third and fourth graders who can’t read into the special Ed classroom for three hours a day. A sped teacher and two aides have the kids rotate and they do intensive phonics, sight words, spelling, fluency, comprensión and writing. They are grouped by academic ability and what they do in class they get the sand or similar homework to reinforce the skill. They get stickers to earn prizes all the time because we know many of them are angry and frustrated they can’t read. So many others are just so quiet because they never speak in class because they are so behind. But in groups of 3-6 students they get so many chances to communicate. They learn to read and then their minutes outside the class are reduced.

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