At my age, you’d think I’d be done with school by now. Well, as a proponent to lifelong learning, I am living proof at half a century old, one is never too old to be in school and continue one’s education.
I am still a Mom, advocate, educator, and consultant with the adjunct of student. As a student, I have assignments to complete. This is one of those assignments. I interviewed a fellow mom and educator on her thoughts and experience with the special education process. Mrs. S. is a kindergarten teacher and offered great insight to the process at this level.
The questions I asked were:
• What are the signs of a struggling student?
• How can differentiated instruction be used to assist students who are struggling?
• How do you determine if a student should be referred to special education services?
“Kindergarten is interesting because it is hard to tell if they are struggling because of a learning disability or because they are not developmentally ready for the expectations we have. Unless there is some severe indication of language processing I normally don't ever become concerned about a student until after winter break. It's amazing how many students it clicks with when they are ready. At that point if they are not getting their letters and sounds and number recognition, sight words you can become concerned with memory issues. It will still take some longer but at that point with all the different ways they have been taught those skills they should have them.
The great thing about Kindergarten is it is all differentiated instruction, everything is presented in all ways. visual, auditory, kinesthetic.
Students being referred to special education go through the response to intervention process. The teacher sets goals and then lays out how the students are going to reach them. Small group, one to one. what are you doing to try and catch the student up. If they meet them then you can write new ones. if it does not help you move to the next tier and that is outside of the school day. We have a Kindergarten Reading Academy for those students who are not responding to classroom interventions
If they are still not responding then we have a student study team meeting (set) it includes the parents, administration and members of the special education team, together you brain storm new ideas for how to help the student. If no interventions the team tries are successful then they may be referred to testing. Not usually in Kindergarten because really the rest never test low enough until second or third grade.
We can pretty much tell you in kindergarten who those students will be so providing continuous intervention and meetings and goal writing will continue to happen
The Response to Intervention process is a lot of paperwork and meetings so that we are providing the intervention before the student falls to far behind. Often the interventions look like that is a pull-out resource room. We also have speech improvement classes. so, students who would not fall below the 9th but we want to help before they do.” (F. Schweller, personal communication, May 10, 2017)
This conversation brought up a couple of thought provoking concepts. One, the balance between ‘let’s wait and see’ to early intervention. Two, moving along grade levels why do some educators move away from the multi modal technique of teaching? Mrs. S expressed that teaching to all learning styles is naturally and automatically done at the Kindergarten level. Hopefully, with more awareness, information, and professional development teachers across all grade levels will naturally use this approach.
At this school, it seems RTI is implemented extensively prior to a formal referral being made. Another proactive practice I particularly liked with this school was offering support (i.e. speech) if the child didn’t present a delay significantly enough for a formal identifying classification as requiring special education services.
Parent involvement is critical at any age or grade level for the referral process. Without parent consent, no referral can be made. Mrs. S and I discussed how some parents may not want a referral or decline services for various reasons. Both of us are parents to children with multiple challenges and could not completely understand the mindset of not having one’s child identified as needing support. However, as an educator we need to respect a decision made by parents.
The referral process at any grade level is usually initiated by a parent or the child’s teacher. Team meetings are held periodically where student progress is discussed and children who are struggling academically, socially, or emotionally can be identified for referral for a formal evaluation.
In my opinion, parents and teachers are at the forefront of observing and acknowledging any developmental and/or academic concerns. It is usually the parent or primary teacher that spearheads the referral process.
