The Inclusive Class

During a recent interview with Dr. Howard Margolis, he outlined some EXCELLENT tips for parents on ways to support successful inclusion of their children: 1. Volunteer at your child's school or make time to attend school events. Get to know the school staff. 2. Look for effective teachers at your child's school. Effective teachers have structure in their classroom, are enthusiastic, motivate learners, are compassionate and engage their students in relevant activities. 3. Arrange for your child to be with an effective teacher by writing it into the child's IEP. This can be done by describing in the IEP the nature of the classroom that your child works best in. 4. Listen to what your child says about school. If your child "hates" school, there is a problem. Investigate what the problem is. 5. Request that the school give workshops to parents on how to help their children read, write or support other areas of academic and/or social development. 6. L...

This post will be the first in a series dedicated to writing about inclusion in action . I have spent a considerable amount of time talking, tweeting and researching what inclusion truly is. It's now time to put what I know and what I practice down on paper so that teachers and parents can have a greater understanding of what and how an inclusive classroom works. This information is based on 15 years of teaching in an inclusive education system at the elementary level. 1. Before the Bell - I usually arrive an hour before the school bell rings and prepare for the day. My lessons get prepped, the daily visual schedule is on the board and I touch base with the paraprofessional who works in my room to discuss the day's activities. While experience has given me the knowledge to accomodate and modify lessons for my special needs students, I want to make sure they are appropriate and meaningful. 2. Good Morning! - I open my classroom door to a line of children with smiling ...

My Inclusive Classroom The door to my Kindergarten classroom in urban, multicultural and economically diverse Burnaby, British Columbia Canada opens on the Tuesday after Labor Day in September. The children in my classroom come from a school community with 24% of families with an annual income of under $30 000. Housing in this community consists of both rental and homeowner properties. The neighborhood consists of two-parent, single parent and blended families with most parents working. Many of the children who attend this school are in daycare or left on their own before and after school. Within this community there is a diverse multicultural population, where the home language for 34% of students is not English. Approximately 26% of the students in this school receive English as a Second Language support. My learners are VERY diverse. In this class, depending on the needs of the year, there might be: children with ADHD, Hard of Hearing, Selective Mutism, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, ...