Before discussing if Sally’s current services are consistent with inclusion, we must first
look at what inclusion is. Inclusion gives students with disabilities to work alongside students
who do not have a disability (Special Education Guide, n.d.). Our lesson this week stated there
were four characteristics of inclusion that include home-school placement, the principle of
natural proportions, age-grade appropriate placements and teachers restructuring their teaching
and learning styles (APUS, n.d.). All of these factors work together in an effort to create a least
restrictive environment for students with disabilities.
In my opinion, the services Sally is currently receiving are consistent with the inclusion
model. Currently, she is receiving a majority of her instruction from her regular classroom
teacher in a general education classroom alongside classmates who do not have a disability and
are the same age and grade as her. The time spent with a resource teacher in a special education
setting is equivalent to approximately one hour and 30 minutes in an eight-hour school day.
The first accommodation I would suggest is that if Sally’s teacher sees that she is
struggling on a particular topic is to provide Sally with one-to-one intervention. Although Sally
already receives small group instruction, working one on one with the teacher will provide Sally
with more individualized intervention.
The second accommodation I would recommend relates to Sally’s learning disability in
the area of reading comprehension. If Sally is struggling to comprehend bigger passages of
reading, the teacher should break them up into chunks and read along with her. Once Sally has
read it once, the teacher can then read back through it with Sally stopping at certain points in the
text to ask comprehension questions. If Sally still does not comprehend what she has read, the
teacher can guide her to the right answer by giving clues from the text.
The third accommodation I would suggest relates to the seating arrangement for Sally in
her third grade classroom.