Educators today are faced with learning to implement the Common Core Standards in Language Arts and Math. Administrators are requiring grade level general education teachers/special education teachers to meet in Private Learning Communities in order to discuss the best ways to implement the CCS as well as to discuss best practices for writing…

Elementary-school learning-disabled, emotionally disabled, educable mentally retarded, and nonhandicapped students (N=122) were observed during written language instruction, to document writing tasks and student responding. Extreme variability was found in the amount of time individual students spent in writing activities or in receiving written…

This article describes the introduction of writing portfolios to elementary school students with learning disabilities in self-contained special education classrooms. It discusses getting started, contents of the portfolio, instructional goals and objectives, conferences, observations, and portfolio evaluation. (Author/DB)

This article describes implementation of a Sharing Chair as part of literacy program in a third and fourth grade special education learning disabilities class. Following free writing in their personal journals, students could share and receive feedback from a peer/teacher audience. The article presents results of analysis of videotape recordings…

A teacher describes a writing program in his self-contained seventh-grade class for students with emotional disturbances or neurological impairments. Principles such as the importance of positive teacher expectations and plenty of writing time are stressed, and use of word processing, effective class organization, a classroom magazine, and…

Collaboration between a supervisor and a teacher of nine first and second graders with hearing loss is recounted. Discussion includes reconsideration of classroom setup, expansion of the reading program to include more guided reading, documentation of student progress, more guided writing, and more shared decision making. (DB)

Discusses how hard it is to define the gifted child and the difficulty of enriching and extending gifted children in the areas of reading and writing. Recommends starting the gifted sooner or accelerating them more quickly through a program, among other strategies. (NKA)

This article examines issues in bilingual special education in the context of moving from a skills-based approach to a whole language approach. Classroom observations in a self-contained elementary classroom for students with learning disabilities revealed the role of the native language and background experiences, the teacher's role in assessing…