Addressing the Educational Needs of Students with Learning Disabilities in Science Classrooms

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) are the federal laws made in the United States (US), and claim that schools are accountable for the success of students with special needs and school responsibilities must be demonstrated through Individualized Education Program (IEP), which outline specific instructional accommodations, modifications, and effective evaluations. Historically, students with learning disabilities (SLD) receive services either in a resource room, a self-contained special education, or inclusive settings where they receive special education services within the general education classroom. Even though federal laws shifted the focus on how to effectively educate SLD, it appears that these students continue to fall behind their non-disabled peers in regular education classrooms in many subjects including science. Teaching science to SLD in inclusive classrooms is a challenging task for science teachers as the numbers of SLD has grown in such classrooms. This paper summarizes the effects of collaboration among teachers, setting high learning goals, effective teaching strategies, and providing some basic modifications with SLD in a 6th grade inclusive science classroom in an urban school district in a Western State. The paper also guides science teachers to incorporate some example lessons in their lesson plans for meaningful learning.