Using Visuals in Reading Comprehension for Special Education
I tell members of my Facebook group all the time that teaching reading comprehension in special education is so important! Actually, we use reading comprehension in our everyday lives in so many ways if you think about it. We need to read and comprehend signs in the community, read directions on a job application, and understand a recipe. In my first four years of teaching, I taught students in first grade and pre-kindergarten. Our days had lots of instruction with phonics, fluency, and comprehension! It really should be no different in your special education classroom.
What does it look like in special education?
Except, that it might need a few more supports and a bit more differentiation to meet the needs of all the learners in your classroom. When I started working with my students in my self-contained classroom I realized that they needed more support. The skills that I taught in my primary classroom settings didn’t come as easy to my students in special education. I needed to find what worked for those students. This created a challenge as I looked for something that would bring my students the same success I saw when I taught elementary grades.
I couldn’t find what I needed in any boxed curriculum. When I found something that worked for one student it very rarely worked for another. Welcome to the world of teaching but, in special education, it can be even harder to find what works for each student in your classroom. I need something differentiated that I could use in my classroom for whole group lessons but, also for individual one-on-one sessions with students was a MUST!
Introducing Reading Visually Comprehension!
Ultimately, I find it rewarding to help them along in their journey and meet them where you are at. This is where differentiation comes in. Not too long ago, I created a differentiated reading product about pets. It included five stories about five different animals most commonly kept as pets (dogs, cats, birds, fish, and horses).
This product became quite popular so I decided to expand it. There is an entire bundle with 50 passages and 3-4 levels of differentiation in each story!
Additionally, each of these topics has 5 reading passages inside. You can purchase individually here if you’d like. Inside each set, there is a TON of differentiation and 4 levels of difficulty to hopefully work for each student in your classroom! You can just print and go right into your teaching without extra prep! This really makes teaching reading comprehension for special education super easy!
Lastly, I love using this product for whole group lessons because I can pick one level that works for my students to read together and then complete the worksheets on the levels, my students, individually need. I also love using this to work with students individually and picking the level that meets their needs to target reading comprehension IEP goals!
To read more about what each of the levels contains you will want to check out this blog post I wrote here!
And if you need more to understand all that this product has, here is a FREE COMPLETE SET!
Sign up here for the DINOSAURS set and start teaching!
