Students with disabilities often benefit from tools and strategies that are designed to increase access to curriculum, instruction, and assessments.

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For many students with disabilities, learning success is predicated on having appropriate adaptations, accommodations and modifications made to classroom instruction and other learning activities.

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Sometimes a student may need to have changes made in class work or routines because of his or her disability. Some adaptations are as simple as moving a distractible student to the front of the class or away from the pencil sharpener or the window.

An accommodation is a change that helps a student overcome or work around the disability. These changes are typically physical or environmental changes. Allowing a student who has trouble writing to give his answers orally is an example of an accommodation. This sort of accommodation extends across assignments and content areas.

Modifications may involve changing the way that material is presented or the way that students respond to show their learning.

Adaptations, accommodations, and modifications need to be individualized for students, based upon their needs and their personal learning styles and interests. It is not always obvious what adaptations, accommodations, or modifications would be beneficial for a particular student, or how changes to the curriculum, its presentation, the classroom setting, or student evaluation might be made.

Accommodations and Modifications
Differentiated Instruction 
Accommodations Guide

Instructional Supports/Adaptations
Questioning Strategies

Outside Resources
National Center on Learning Disabilities: Accommodations and Modifications What is the difference?

Access for All: Universal Design for Learning

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a set of principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn. UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone--not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs.

The Learning Center is a support for students with disabilities who participate in the general education program for most or all of the school day. Staff from the resource specialist program, in collaboration with general education teachers, can utilize the learning center to help students access the core curriculum.

A Learning Center is a designated classroom or set of classrooms where a diverse group of educators provides multi-leveled instructional support to students. Both general and special education teachers may provide instruction in the Learning Center. Students receiving special education services and students in general education may be served simultaneously in a Learning Center elective course when a general education teacher and a special education teacher co-teach the class and carry separate rosters.

The purpose of the secondary Learning Center is to provide students with disabilities with supplementary, direct instructional services in content, learning strategies, and progress monitoring in academics, transition, or social communication skills. Instruction in the Learning Center must be based on students’ needs in the general education program. It is not to supplant core instruction in the general education classroom.

Students with disabilities have the same access to the current English Language Development (ELD) instruction and infrastructure at school sites as their nondisabled peers. The District provides services to ELs that are mandated by federal and state laws. These include, when necessary, ELD instruction and any necessary supports to provide ELs with access to the core curriculum.

All schools inform parents during initial enrollment and annually of the instructional program options that are available to students, as well as of their right to apply for a Parental Exception Waiver from the EL Program. EL Program options information is provided orally and in writing, using language and materials designed to be readily understandable to the parent. To inform parents of the instructional program options, schools provide parents a copy of the Initial Notification of Enrollment in Instructional Programs for English Learners, Annual Assessment Results and Program Placement for English Learners Letter, Instructional Programs for English Learners parent brochure and video, and the Parent Notification of Reclassification Criteria.

All ELs, including those with disabilities, are assessed each year on their progress toward meeting the California English Language Development Standards. EL students are assessed annually either with the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC) or the Ventura County Comprehensive Alternate Language Assessment (VCCALPS). ELs with disabilities may be tested using the California Department of Education (CDE)-approved Testing Variations, Accommodations, and Modifications Matrix, which is updated annually. The Individualized Education Program (IEP) team documents in the student’s IEP any accommodations or modifications used both for assessments and for classroom ELD instruction.

As with all English learners, ELs with an Individualized Education Program (IEP) are expected to make progress in English language proficiency and academic content mastery. To attain this, the instructional programs for ELs with IEPs will include ELD as a component of their core instruction, as well as access to core content using Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English (SDAIE) and other research-based instructional methodologies appropriate for ELs with disabilities.

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Resources

MMED Website for Instructional Resources - Multingual and Multicultural Education Department

2018 Master Plan for English Learners and Standard English Learners (English)

2018 Master Plan for English Learners and Standard English Learners (Spanish)

CA ELD Standards    

English Learner Instructional Approaches

Modeling Metacognitive Strategies for English Learners 

Presentation on IEP Goals for English Language Development in Welligent  

When students struggle, learning in school is difficult. Using a multi-tiered system of instructional services, supports, and strategies, all students can learn regardless of their disability.

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Pre-Referral Interventions
Pre-referral intervention processes are structured, organized methods that involve critical staff, typically an administrator, general education teacher, special education teacher, nurse, and at times, a school psychologist, and parents.

   

Pre-referral intervention processes are structured, organized methods that involve critical staff, typically an administrator, general education teacher, special education teacher, nurse, and at times, school support staff, including school psychologist, pupil services and attendance counselor (PSA), psychiatric social worker (PSW), academic counselor, and parents. These team members review existing student records and make recommendations regarding academic and/or behavioral interventions and strategies that will support increased student functioning. They are processes the District requires to be used prior to consideration for special education services.

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Response to Intervention (RTI) Core concepts of RTI

 

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National and LAUSD MTSS Initiatives

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was reauthorized in 2004 to address the need to provide timely instructional intervention to students prior to referral for special education services. National and state organizations provide teachers and parents with valuable MTSS resources.

Many national, state, and local organizations have organized around Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) as a vehicle for early intervention and possible prevention of referral for special education services.

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Outside Resources

The United States Department of Education provides support to schools and families seeking information on RTI. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), reauthorized by Congress in 2004, outlines the intervention systems that must be in place in schools to prevent over-identification of students with learning disabilities. This Q&A document outlines key provisions of IDEA that pertain to RtI.

The National Center on Response to Intervention is an outstanding, comprehensive source for principals and teachers who are working to build an RtI framework in elementary, middle, or high school.

The IRIS Center at Vanderbilt University is a federally funded professional learning site for educators and schools in preparing teachers to support and serve struggling learners and students with disabilities. The site contains interactive learning modules with animated videos and hands-on learning activities for use during professional development:

Noted scholars in the field of special education instruction, Douglas Fuchs and Lynn S. Fuchs of Vanderbilt University, have published widely on the use of RTI as an effective strategy to prevent over-identification of students with learning disabilities. This article provides a research-based overview of RTI.

The International Reading Association has produced a wealth of resources for educators and families aimed at preventing reading failure.

The RTI Action Network, a program of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, outlines the essential tools for implementing and evaluating RtI programs in place at schools.

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Multi-Tiered Literacy Intervention K-12

Early intervention in phonemic awareness, fluency and automaticity, reading comprehension, and the basics of written English is key to helping students meet or exceed grade level expectations in reading and writing.

LAUSD Resources and Weblinks (Tier 1)

PreK-12 Literacy/Language Arts website

Transitional Kindergarten resources

Elementary resources

Middle school resources

High school resources

LAUSD DIBELS Next/Amplify

Amplify mClass Login for DIBELS Next/Now What Tools

Strategic/Targeted Literacy Intervention Resources (Tier 2)

Reading A-Z & RazKids Teacher Login

Voyager Learning VPORT Teacher/Admin Login

Burst: Reading Homepage

Focused Reading Intervention (FRI)

Intensive Literacy Intervention Resources (Tier 3)

Cambium Learning LANGUAGE! VPORT Teacher Login Page

Scholastic Read-180/System 44 Scholastic Achievement Manager Teacher Login Page

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Multi-Tiered Math Intervention K-12

Early intervention in computation and problem solving is key to helping students meet or exceed grade level expectations in mathematics.

LAUSD Resources and Weblinks (Tier 1)

LAUSD Common Core Math website

Early Childhood Math website

Elementary Math website

Middle School Math website

High School Math website

Strategic/Targeted Literacy Intervention Resources (Tier 2)

Voyager Learning VPORT Teacher/Admin Login

ALEKS Intervention Resources and Teacher Login Page

Focused Math Intervention (FMI)

Explorations in Core Math

Intensive Literacy Intervention Resources (Tier 3) 

TransMath

Outside Resources

The University of Oregon’s Center on Teaching and Learning has engaged in an extended research project into early learning in mathematics in kindergarten classes.

Math fluency is a critical step in preparing students to be successful with the Common Core State Standards in mathematics. Intervention Central has compiled assessment resources for teachers to use in assessing and tracking individualized math goals.

This resource from Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) station WGBH-Boston helps teachers and parents identify the root causes of students struggling to learn mathematics.

The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk at the University of Texas at Austin has prepared an extensive array of Tier 2 math intervention modules for grades 3 and 4 math concepts.