Counseling departments in some schools where CI is practiced in language classes often sense that special needs kids benefit from CI instruction in languages in ways that they cannot when the teacher is still doing traditional instruction.
This leads them to approach the CI teachers in the building and request that certain students with dyslexia, for example, or other special needs, be allowed to take their class.
In my own experience I have found, when agreeing to take on such kids in spite of the obvious extra work involved, since each kid is so different, that sometimes I would succeed and sometimes I would fail with them.
Here’s a question for CI teachers who have also welcomed special needs kids into their CI classrooms. Why is that? Why did we fail with some and succeed with others?
So, if you have taught or are currently teaching any special needs kids in your CI classes, even one, please think about that question. I’ll tell you why I am asking it tomorrow.
One point to make here is that this is a big deal. In all my years (20) of doing TPRS/CI, I have never had one meaningful conversation with a colleague on this topic of special needs kids in CI classrooms. This means that, unless I am missing something, we are ignoring the needs of lots of children in our schools.
So please be open to sharing what you do with such kids here in the next few days, and why it may or may not be working for them.
Some threads here grow into very useful online conversations for us, some lasting years, but others die. Let’s not let this thread die. Get involved with this one, at least for this week, if you have any experience with this topic.
Let’s be the first to focus on these kids. OK? As I said above, I’ll tell you why I wrote this post tomorrow.