Amy Vickrey, MSE, MEd

 

Accommodations are a frequently used word when children struggle with academics, but it can be challenging to know what the right accommodations are for each individual child. An accommodation is simply changing the way a child accesses the information they need to learn. Information to consider for determining accommodations should include any annual testing, psycho-educational assessments, therapy assessments, parent observations, performance on schoolwork, behaviors that arise when in a specific situation, i.e., sitting for a long period of time, or during a certain academic subject. Accommodations can ‌address needs that are academic, behavioral, cognitive, or related to executive functioning. Finding the right accommodations might be a process, or you might find one that helps on the first try.

 

Here are some guiding questions and tips to help:

  1. What are your child’s strengths? Strengths are tools that can be used, sometimes creatively, to support weaknesses.
  2. What are your child’s weaknesses? While these need to be worked on, activities and materials should not be so hard that weaknesses make your child frustrated.  If your child is struggling, it’s ok to back up to an easier level before moving forward.
  3. Focus activities on one skill at a time – e.g., if you are working on writing, work on writing. If you are working on spelling, it’s ok to spell out-loud or use letter tiles rather than write words if writing is physically challenging.
  4. Pair a strength with a weakness – For example, if reading is a challenge, pair a physical book with the audiobook or read the book aloud together.
  5. Allow your child to verbally respond to questions if writing is frustrating, unless the goal is specifically to write.
  6. Consider a lesser accommodation first (math chart before calculator, or raised line paper before computer).
  7. Give yourself permission to skip or change activities that do not work for your child. No curriculum is perfect. Make it fit your child instead of trying to make your child fit the curriculum.
  8. If your child struggles with reading, it’s ok to read the questions and answer choices to them in any subject! Including reading! This is an allowable accommodation for most standardized tests in schools.
  9. Ask questions! Ask other parents what has worked for their children in similar situations.  They may have an idea you haven’t tried yet.  
  10. Ask your child! Often, children know what is easy and what is hard for them. Sometimes they have creative solutions adults would not think of, or that they think is fun, so they are motivated to try when they would not otherwise.
  11. Children can learn from videos and educational games, sometimes more than a workbook.
  12. Some children need to be moving to be learning – ‌ make it interactive or allow for movement and creativity in seating arrangements.
  13. Remember, behavior is communication – if your child’s behavior changes during specific activities, it may be their way of saying “this isn’t working for me.”
  14. Use as many senses as possible. Even just chewing gum or snacking can sometimes make a difference in the learning process. The more senses are engaged, the more pathways that are built, and the easier your child will remember the information later.

 

For more information and tips on accommodations, check out these additional resources:

Writing an IEP: Accommodations and Modifications

What are Accommodations and Modifications?

Creative Ways to Homeschool Special Education

Creating a Unique Homeschool Learning Oasis

 

Whether you need simple accommodations such as reading questions or more creative solutions, thinking through these 14 simple questions and tips can help guide parents to simple ways to accommodate their child. Allowing for weaknesses, and focusing on strengths in each area, will allow your child to accomplish their goals. Supporting weaknesses and reducing frustrations lead to a love of learning, and a love of learning encourages lifelong learning, helping children to become independent adults who can find the answers to questions they don’t know. 

Amy Vickrey is the Training Manager at SPED Homeschool. To learn more about her, her background, homeschooling journey, and testing/tutoring services, visit her team member page.

 

 


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Peggy Ployhar

One of the biggest struggles in teaching a child who struggles to read is finding content that appeals to their intellectual level as well as their instructional level in subjects other than reading. Below are some great free resources available to parents/educators who are looking for modified instructional reading texts to improve your child’s reading and comprehension skills.

 

Instructional Reading Text For Reading Comprehension: already modified for you

ReadWorks – ReadWorks is a nonprofit that provides teacher resources to help with teaching reading comprehension. Search by topic, subject, reading passages, specific articles or even text paired to already developed lessons, vocabulary sets, or comprehension questions.

Newsela – Newsela is a free to access news content site providing text at 5 reading levels, including applicable comprehension quizzes. Search for content by reading level, topic grade level, and articles that include writing prompts.

 CommonLit – Free teacher resource with a searchable text library of passages to use from reading instruction from grades 3 to 12. Not only can you create a teacher account on this site, but you can also create student accounts, assign comprehension assessments and track progress. An additional feature on this site is the Spanish passages and comprehension questions.

TweenTribune   – K-12 Lexile-leveled free resources for teachers created by the Smithsonian based on current kid-friendly news topics. Each article is written at 4 different Lexile levels and also includes a critical thinking question at the end to use for testing student comprehension and understanding of the topic’s broader application.

Breaking News English  – Free current event articles written at 7 different reading levels. This site is based in the U.K. and each article is written in at least 3 different reading levels and includes a teacher lesson plan with vocabulary words, a table for organizing the text’s ideas, as well as a critical thinking exercise.

 For the Teachers Articles – A variety of free fictional articles written at three different reading levels for students from grade 3 to 10.

UNC Charlotte Adapted Popular Chapter Books – Over 20 free online adapted chapter books including Where the Red Fern Grows, Because of Winn-Dixie, and works by Shakespeare.

Teachers Pay Teachers – Two stores on Teachers Pay Teacher offering an extensive selection of lessons, books, and other teaching material with modified reading texts are Miss A’s Mismatched Miracles  & Ms Meghan’s Special Minds and Hands  

 

Modified Instructional Reading Text for Reading Comprehension: modified by you

If you still haven’t found what you are looking for, here are some other free online resources you can use to modify instructional text you already own.

Rewordify – Copy and paste in complex text and this site will simplify the language to make it easier for a struggling student to comprehend. This site also provides you the option to include definitions of complex vocabulary words or create word learning sessions based on the vocabulary converted in the text and builds spelling as well as vocabulary skills.

Special Reads – This site sells modified books for special needs readers, but also provides this free instructional article on how to modify your own text or books for your student.

 

Improving reading comprehension and finding resources that are the right fit for your child’s interests and abilities make an enormous difference for academic success, and these resources don’t have to cost a fortune. Rather than spending your time and energy searching for modified instructional reading texts to fit your reading comprehension goals for your student, spend your time actually helping your child progress and find success.

 

 

 

 

 


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By Dawn Spence

If your child has ever been in special education, you have probably have heard the terms accommodations and modifications. So now that you are a homeschooling parent, what do these terms mean to you? 

Sometimes these terms have been used interchangeably but they are different. They are both used to help the learner to access learning at their own cognitive levels, while highlighting their strengths. These tools will also help you if you have group time with all learners in your homeschool or if you teach at a co-op. Understanding and using accommodations and modifications helped me write my child’s IEP and also led me to use my current curriculum to meet my daughter’s specific educational needs.
 

ACCOMMODATIONS
The definition of an accommodation is giving your student a different way or path to complete the task or assignment. This is how we teach our learners. This does not change the grade level or material; an accommodation just allows your student the flexibility to be successful using their strengths and at the same time addresses their weaknesses.

Accommodations generally are broken down in the following five ways:  
Time – giving more time to finish an assignment or more time to finish test
Alternative Scheduling – giving more days to finish their project
Change of Present Setting – providing a quiet place to complete assignments or tests
Change of Presentation – changing the way you present the material. You might use a video or a hands-on way instead of reading from a text.
Varying Response Method – allowing your learner to be able to complete a project instead of test or type a report instead of writing it out. Allowing for verbal responses would also fall in this category.

 

MODIFICATIONS
On the other hand, a modification is changing what we are teaching the learner and what they are responsible for learning.

Using a modification is reducing the amount of learning we are expecting our learner to be responsible for. Again we use the strengths the learner has to help them to be successful.

Modifications can be summed up in three major ways.
Presentation of Material – this would be using a special education materials or curriculums.

Adapted Materials – simplifying content and vocabulary. Instead of introducing 10 vocabulary words you would hold the learner accountable to only 2.
Grading and Testing Altered – instead of testing the whole lesson you would choose certain parts that are important for the learner to grasp.

This is the first part in a series where I will be taking different subjects and showing how to modify or accommodate lessons. If you have something you specifically would like for me to address as I write about these important topics, please post a comment.

 

 


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