Inclusion Principles

Inclusion Strategies That Work

Valuable and Applicable Things to Do in ALL Classrooms on a Daily Basis

1. Establish prior knowledge.
2. Plan lessons with structured objectives, allowing inter or post planning that delineates goals and desired student outcomes.
3. Proceed from the simple to the complex by using discrete task analysis, which breaks up the learning into its parts.
4. Use a step-by-step approach, teaching in small bites with much practice and repetition for students who require this framework.
5. Reinforce abstract concepts with concrete examples, such as looking at a map while walking around a neighborhood or reading actual street signs.
6. Think about possible accommodations and modifications that might be needed, such as using a digital recorder for notes, reading math word problems aloud, or if necessary, reducing or enriching an assignment.
7. Incorporate sensory elements—visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile ones—across the disciplines.
8. Teach to strengths to help students compensate for weaknesses, such as encouraging a child to hop to math facts if the child loves to move about but hates numbers.
9. Concentrate on individual children, not syndromes.
10. Provide opportunities for success to build self-esteem.
11. Give positives before negatives.
12. Use modeling with both teachers and peers.
13. Vary types of instruction and assessment with multiple intelligences, learning centers and stations, cooperative learning, project-based learning, and universal designs.
14. Relate learning to children’s lives using interest inventories.
15. Remember the basics, such as teaching students proper hygiene, respecting others, effectively listening, reading directions on a worksheet, and the three Rs: Reading, ‘Riting, and ‘Rithmetic.
16. Establish a pleasant classroom environment that encourages students to ask questions and become actively involved in their learning.
17. Increase students’ self-awareness of levels and progress.
18. Effectively communicate and collaborate with families, students, and colleagues while smiling (It’s contagious!).