Joan McEnerney knew something was wrong. Her daughter, Jane Gough, still couldn’t read in 2nd grade and her math skills lagged far behind her peers. It was a scenario McEnerney had lived through three years earlier with her son, David.
Both children, who attend special education classes at schools in Dundee Community Unit School District 300, have learning disabilities. They are not alone.
Nearly half of all children who receive special education services in U.S. schools are learning-disabled, special education experts say.
Of the 2,400 special education students in District 300, about 1,000, or 42 percent, are designated learning-disabled, said Robert Hansen, assistant superintendent for pupil-personnel services. The district serves several northwest suburbs, including East Dundee and West Dundee, Algonquin, most of Carpentersville and portions of Elgin.
In other districts, such as the Chicago Public Schools, the percentage is even higher. Of the 51,830 special education students in Chicago’s public schools, 27,107, or about 52 percent, are learning-disabled, said Sue Gamm, chief specialized services officer.
A learning disability is a disorder of language, according to the Illinois Administrative Code, which is based on federal law and defines “exceptional characteristics” that make a child eligible for special education.
The child who is learning-disabled cannot understand or fully use spoken or written language, resulting in “an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or to do mathematical calculations.”
That condition can be called by any number of names, according to the code, including perceptual handicaps, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia and developmental aphasia (partial or total loss of speech).
“The most common problem children with learning disabilities exhibit is with reading,” said Sally Kaminski, director of special education in Dolton School District 148, which serves parts of Dolton, Riverdale, Harvey and South Holland in the south suburbs.
“Concepts of math differ among children with learning disabilities,” Kaminski said. “Some have trouble remembering facts. Others have problems with mathematical reasoning.”
Research conducted since 1965 by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., indicates that as many as 40 percent of America’s children may have reading disabilities.
Some cannot read because they weren’t taught well or had limited exposure to printed materials, but the majority have disabilities, said G. Reid Lyons, chief of the institute’s child-development and behavior branch, which sponsored the disabilities research.
Whatever the cause, children with reading disabilities need remediation because they live in an age when reading ability is required for nearly any kind of employment, Lyons said.
Until the 1970s, children with learning disabilities faded into the background in America’s classrooms. Often labeled “slow” by their teachers and “dummy” by their peers, these children struggled with schoolwork and with poor self-esteem after years of academic failure.
Then, in 1975, Congress passed Public Law 94-142, which began changing educational services for all children with disabilities. Also called the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, the federal law outlined the educational requirements and protections to be given disabled youngsters and required school districts to form individual education plans outlining in writing what services would be provided and what the goals of the child’s education would be.
Under this mandate, school districts across the country began offering services such as speech, occupational and physical therapy and setting up self-contained classrooms where students with specific types of disabilities would be taught.
Sometimes these classrooms were in different buildings from regular education classes. Other times, the special education students attended school in the same building as their non-disabled peers, but the two groups rarely mingled. The curriculum usually was different, too, with separate textbooks and other educational materials the norm in special education classrooms.
In 1990, Congress passed the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, which replaced Public Law 94-142. It was amended in 1997 to require school districts to bring services to the child rather than the child to the services. Among other things, that means:
– More children with special needs will be educated as much as possible in their home schools rather than in separate settings.
– Many special education students will attend regular classrooms, with support services brought to them.
– The special education curriculum must be aligned as much as possible with general education requirements. For example, textbooks for the learning-disabled often are the same as those used in general education classes, although the work may be modified and supplemental materials may be used.
Before any services can be given to a child with disabilities, the disabilities must be recognized. Often, it is the parents who first suspect a problem.
McEnerney, of Lake in the Hills, recognized that the struggle began for both of her children in 1st grade. While others in the classroom were decoding words and beginning to read, her children couldn’t do either.
Concerned first about her son’s inability to read and then her daughter’s, McEnerney approached the teachers and administrators and asked that the children be tested for learning disabilities. But “they don’t like to test until 3rd grade,” she said, because some children are late bloomers and pick up reading skills in 2nd grade.
Usually, what first occurs in Illinois school districts is a meeting of school personnel to discuss concerns that parents or a child’s classroom teacher have about the child’s progress, said District 300’s Hansen.
“We sit down and discuss what can we do differently (in the classroom), what interventions can be used,” he said.
Those interventions might include changing the child’s seat, extending the amount of time a child needs to complete an assignment or reducing the number of spelling words or math problems a child must do.
If the initial interventions don’t work, the building team could call for a case study evaluation, bringing together such personnel as the school psychologist, social worker, school nurse, speech therapist and special education and regular classroom teachers. The child’s records are reviewed and testing is done in areas such as reading, math, hearing and vision. The social worker may do a social development study and gather information from the parents.
“Then we pool our information, meet with the parents, the child’s teacher, the principal and others, and come to a determination if that child has a learning disability and if that disability is really affecting their education,” said Kaminski of Dolton School District 148.
If the child is determined to have learning disabilities, a case conference is scheduled to create an individual education plan. This meeting, which is attended by the parents and school personnel, also determines the type of services or educational setting in which the child will be placed.
For some, the solution is to provide assistance in the regular classroom via a resource teacher who visits the classroom and suggests assignments or techniques to use.
Other children need a “pull-out program,” in which they are taken out of the regular classroom for help with specific subjects such as reading and math. In this case, a special education resource teacher works in a separate classroom with the children, then sends them back to the general education teacher.
Mary Ann Kelly, a special education resource teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School in Dolton, spends about half her day in seven general education classrooms in her building and the other half in her resource classroom helping pupils with math and reading.
“I work closely with the (regular education) teacher,” she said. “Sometimes I can tell the child needs some extra help and I can tell the teacher what to do. It really varies depending on the child and the grade level.”
In the primary grades, kindergarten through 2nd, resource teachers work on sounds, letters and number recognition. In intermediate grades, 3rd through 5th, teachers work on study skills, comprehension and coping skills.
Kelly uses a number of techniques in the general education classroom and in her resource class, including reducing the workload for pupils in spelling.
For other children who have difficulty remembering math facts, she may use a table of multiplication answers or allow the use of a calculator.
Some children need to have lessons or tests read to them, or have someone else write down their answers. Recent changes in state law no longer allow learning-disabled students to have reading tests read to them, Kelly said.
Other children with learning disabilities do well by being paired with a peer tutor, a fellow pupil who works one on one with the learning-disabled child.
“You find out where the child can be successful,” Kelly said. “They do need a good dose of self-esteem. They feel they’re stupid. Sometimes other kids have said that to them.”
More severely learning-disabled youngsters often are placed in self-contained classrooms with a special education teacher and usually one or more aides. The pupils usually study major academic subjects such as spelling, reading and math in this classroom. They may be “mainstreamed,” or sent to a general education classroom, with assistance for such subjects as science and social studies. In addition, learning-disabled pupils are mainstreamed for such classes as art, music and physical education and included in field trips with their peers.
Jackie Incorvia teaches in one such classroom at Dundee Highlands Elementary School in West Dundee. Her 11 pupils are 3rd through 5th graders, and they stay in her classroom for most subjects, except music, physical education and science.
“I’m trying to mainstream two of my 5th-grade boys in social studies, too, this year,” Incorvia said. “We mainstream for, among other things, socialization. I’m fortunate this year to have two aides who go with the students to (general education) classrooms.”
Incorvia, who is in her third year with the Dundee school system, uses many creative approaches to teach her pupils.
“I’m a little unconventional,” she said. “I use a lot of music and taped books. I use the computer quite a bit, and I’m working more with technology.”
She does this, she said, because learning-disabled pupils “have all this information in their heads and can’t get it out.” The computer, for example, takes away some of the frustration for pupils who find writing physically challenging.
“I broke away from the standard texts. This classroom is totally modified,” Incorvia said. “I use the classics for reading, like `Black Beauty,’ that have high-frequency words and high interest. In math I make my own dittos. I work on the basics. If they can operate a checkbook, that’s a skill they need.”
In addition, Incorvia plays to the strengths, special interests and talents of her pupils.
Kristina Guzman, 13, of Lake in the Hills spent 5th grade in Incorvia’s learning-disabled classroom two years ago. “I like to draw and do a lot of drawing. Mrs. Incorvia put my drawings up in the room,” said Kristina, now a 7th grader at Westfield Middle School in Algonquin.
Incorvia also uses incentives called Scholar Dollars to motivate her pupils. They earn the dollars doing their daily jobs in the classroom, trying their best on an assignment and for random acts of kindness. The dollars may be used to buy trinkets and treats. But they may also be lost through fines for breaking Incorvia’s four classroom rules: no put-downs, do active listening, tell the truth and do your personal best. Pupils may also be fined Scholar Dollars for saying the word “can’t.”
“We work on their self-esteem,” Incorvia said. “Once you get that up, they’re willing to take risks.”
McEnerney’s daughter remembered fondly the atmosphere of Incorvia’s classroom. Now a 6th grader at Westfield Middle School, she said, “I loved the way Mrs. Incorvia taught us. She did it in a really cool way and we learned. She was honest with us and we couldn’t say `can’t.’ She just wouldn’t let us. She really made it fun.”
