Teacher Training and the Inclusion of Learning Skills as a Solution to "No Child Left Behind"

By: Addie Cusimano
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:26:26
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In the teaching of education courses at the college level, it is common to discuss the various modes of learning and to emphasize the premise that “we all learn differently.” When there is a case study of a student discussed that involves a diagnostic evaluation determining the learning mode of the student, it is common practice to recommend instruction that teaches to the strength of the student. Therefore, if a student is diagnosed as having a serious weakness in the visual areas, such as visual perception or visual memory, it is recommended that the educator uses an auditory mode of presentation. If the student’s weakness is in the auditory mode, the teacher is encouraged to use a visual mode of presentation.

There are, however, two questions that arise from this teaching recommendation.

1. Exactly how does a classroom teacher who is working with fifteen to thirty students realistically present instruction using one mode for one student and another mode for another student when he or she has a limited amount of time to cover the required curriculum to the entire class?

2. Is the teacher truly meeting the needs of these students by teaching to their strengths? Or is the teacher creating a situation whereby compensations are being made for the students while their weaknesses are being ignored?

Take the case of Ryan, an eighth grade student who consistently displayed very poor spelling skills. While Ryan’s overall grades were good, for years his teachers had overlooked his inability to spell even basic words because the overall content of his work was very good. Ryan’s parents, however, were very disturbed by the fact that he could not write them a simple note without misspelling common words. They knew he was headed for college and were embarrassed for him. A diagnostic evaluation was made of Ryan’s reading, spelling and learning skills. The results indicated that while his reading skills were highly developed overall, he needed remediation for the development of a good understanding of syllabication and, in particular, the spelling of common syllables. Most importantly, Ryan’s visual memory letter span was very weak. While he had read the word “were” thousands of times, he often misspelled the word, spelling it phonetically as “wir” or “wer” simply because he could not visualize the appearance of the word when he needed to spell it.

Working with Ryan to increase his understanding of the spelling of syllables and his ability to visually recall words using Achieve: A Visual Memory Program, a program that developmentally expands a student’s ability to spell words, Ryan was able to develop his visual mode of learning so that he no longer was faced with this embarrassing problem.

Ryan went on to college with good spelling skills, and is now an engineer for a prominent company in New York State.

Instead of teaching to students’ strengths, we should be instructing our teachers to develop the learning skill weaknesses of our students. When you consider that a learning disabled student is one with an average to superior IQ but one who generally has very serious learning skill deficiencies in both the visual and auditory learning modes, it is obvious that he is not going to learn as the average child learns. However, case studies have proven that if we address the weak learning skill areas and develop these skills, learning disabled students learn just like any other student!

Take the case of Jamie, a seven year old learning disabled child who also had AD/HD. As with most ADD or ADHD children, he had seriously weak listening skills. However, his visual and auditory skills were interfering seriously with his ability to learn. With a concentrated program for the development of Jamie’s visual and auditory perception and memory skills, along with his basic skills, Jamie was able to overcome his disability and learn so well that by the time he was in sixth grade, he was at the top of his class.

Since most learning disabled students are seriously weak in both the visual and auditory skill areas, teaching to the stronger of the two does not solve the problem because these student are not able to learn well from either one of these mode. Therefore, developing both the visual and auditory skills of these students is the only way to set them up for learning like the average child.

One of the most important aspects of the success of the “No Child Left Behind Act” lies in the inclusion of basic learning skills within our teaching training programs, and an emphasis on developing students’ weak modes of learning. It lies in teacher training programs that emphasize the development of both the visual and auditory modes for all students, learning disabled to gifted. Then and only then, will we be truly addressing the needs of our students.

Addie Cusimano, MEd, an educational therapist who has worked as a classroom teacher, reading specialist, diagnostician, clinician and researcher, specializing in working with learning disabled children for over thirty years. She is the author of Learning Disabilities: There is a Cure published by Achieve Publications http://www.achievepublications.com.

Article source: Expert Articles