Too many children are leaving elementary school with learning skills inadequate for the next level of instruction and there for they are placed into the special education program to provide extra accommodation for the student . Before setting forth the case for early intervention, an important point needs to be clarified. Most children who enter school at risk of difficulties fall into one of two broad groups. Children in the first group enter school with adequate oral language ability but have weaknesses in the learning domain. Early intervention is a valuable asset in remediation and can prevent learning and behavioral problems from appearing in later school years. The best time to improve the chances of low-performing and handicapped children for future school success is from birth to early childhood. Early intervention can significantly alter the abilities and development potential of many children who are “at risk” during their early years. In some cases, total or near remediation of these problems can occur prior to entry into the first grade. Helping children obtain early intervention services can contribute to the eventual reduction of the number of children who experience failure in school and who need special services in later years. It is less costly and usually more effective to prevent academic, developmental and behavioral problems than to remediate them.
To practice preventive, remedial and compensatory we must change the way we teach reading in three ways. First, we must ensure that core classroom instruction in kindergarten through grade three is skillfully delivered with a balanced emphasis on reading comprehension, and mathematic skills (including the intensive build-up of content knowledge). Second, we must have procedures in place to accurately identify children who fall behind in early learning growth, even when they are provided strong classroom instruction. Third, we must provide these children who are behind with reading and math instruction that is more intensive, more explicit, and more supportive than can be provided by one teacher with a class of 20 or 30 children and we should provide that extra support early, preferably in kindergarten and first grade.
Their primary problem in learning to read involves learning to read words accurately, fluently along with solving math problems. In contrast, the second group of children, coming largely from families of lower socioeconomic or minority status, enters school with significant weaknesses in a much broader range of slower learning skills. Not only are their learning and print-related knowledge weak, they have weaker vocabularies, less experience with complicated mathematics, and less general background knowledge all of which are vital for strong learning comprehension at entrance of school grade and beyond. Labeling and classifying young children as handicapped often results in their being viewed in a negative light socially. This classification may result in the development of a self-fulfilling prophecy, where children are marginalized because of the early identification, and viewed by others in terms of their problem instead of as a whole child with many areas of potential. Placement of children into alternative programs rarely addresses the possible effects on the child’s self-esteem or the parents’ perceptions.
Children with these general weaknesses on top of learning weaknesses require a broader range of instructional support and interventions than those who come to school with impairments only in one disability. However, both groups require special support in the growth of early learning skills if they are to make adequate progress in learning to read and calculate numbers; with that support, both can achieve learning skills within the average range without any accommodation.
http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/cise/ose/information/interventions.htm.
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