Special Education - Providing Services Discreetly

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I am an eighth-grade special education teacher. One of the more difficult parts of my job is finding ways to provide my students with their accommodations, without making them self-conscious.

Working in a middle school, often the students’ main priority is being cool and fitting in. The last thing that they want is to be identified as someone with a disability, or to have their friends think that they’re “stupid” (their word, not mine!)

Constantly getting extra attention from teachers, or being pulled out of the classroom is a definite way to put a target on students’ backs. I work hard to give my students all the help that they need, without making them feel self-conscious about it. Although, unfortunately sometimes there are things that are unavoidable.

Help Everyone

When I am co-teaching, I work hard to develop a relationship with all of the students who are in my inclusion classes. Not just the special education students that are on my caseload. This way, when I am helping everyone, it is not obvious which students are “mine” and which are not.

This is beneficial because the students who have disabilities do not feel like they’re being singled out. But this is also just a build in benefit of co-teaching. All the students in the class have the benefit of having two teachers in the room who can help them.

Non-Verbal Signals

One of the things that I do with my students is that many have the opportunity to take tests and quizzes outside of the classroom. This gives them a setting that has fewer distractions, and I can better monitor their progress and provide them with appropriate levels of assistance.

But, walking into the room and pulling students out can be embarrassing for them. So I arrange this with my students ahead of time. I make sure to get their attention and signal to them that they can follow me.

If I have a specific student who does not usually come with me, but I want them to for that particular exam, I try to arrange this with them ahead of time. If I can’t arrange this with them ahead of time, in a pinch I will write them a not at the top of their test before I pass them out. I make sure to do this in a different, brightly colored pen because students still somehow miss notes occasionally.

Or, if the class is going to jump right into the test, I will catch them in the hallway. This way I am not pulling them out of class, they just come with me from the beginning.

Passing out Modified Tests

The fact that students are taking a different version of a test can be embarrassing to students. One of the ways that I prevent this is to pass out all of the tests individually. I walk around with the pile passing out one at a time instead of counting out a number and passing them down the rows.

When I do this, I have the standard test at the top of the pile and the modified tests at the bottom of the pile. As I walk around, I will either pull from the top of the bottom. The students aren’t really paying close enough of attention to notice the difference.

Another thing that my co-teacher and I have done was to have several different versions of the test. This way the students know that there are many different versions around and they usually don’t try to notice who has what. What can be challenging in this way is that now you have several different tests to grade.