Effective Instruction for Students With Special Needs

The tips and tools you need to provide high-quality instruction for students with exceptionalities!

Teaching is most effective when certain general principles are followed; however, not all students are alike, and not all teaching methods are equally effective.

Including a pretest, posttest, and key vocabulary terms, Effective Instruction for Students With Special Needs presents the key components of highly effective instruction and the accommodations and modifications that should be made for special-needs students when:

• Planning Instruction: deciding what and how to teach while communicating realistic expectations
• Managing Instruction: preparing for instruction, using time productively, and creating a positive environment
• Delivering Instruction: presenting content, monitoring student learning, and adjusting instruction
• Evaluating Instruction: monitoring student understanding and engaged time, recording student progress, using data to make decisions, and making judgments about student performance

For cases in which more than slight adaptations may be necessary, this helpful guide also highlights special instructional aids and specific teaching methods proven to enhance the success of students with special needs. 

Bob Algozzine is a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at the University of North Carolina and project codirector of the U.S. Department of Education-supported Behavior and Reading Improvement Center. With 25 years of research experience and extensive firsthand knowledge of teaching students classified as seriously emotionally disturbed, Algozzine is a uniquely qualified staff developer, conference speaker, and teacher of behavior management and effective teaching courses. He is active in special education practice as a partner and collaborator with professionals in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools in North Carolina and as an editor of several journals focused on special education. Algozzine has written more than 250 manuscripts on special education topics, including many books and textbooks on how to manage emotional and social behavior problems. Jim Ysseldyke, Ph.D., is Birkmaier Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, director of the School Psychology Program, and director of the Center for Reading Research at the University of Minnesota. Widely requested as a staff developer and conference speaker, Ysseldyke brings more than 30 years of research and teaching experience to educational professionals around the globe. As the former director of the federally funded National Center on Educational Outcomes, Ysseldyke conducted research and provided technical support that helped to boost the academic performance of students with disabilities and improve school assessment techniques nationally. Today, he continues to work to improve the education of students with disabilities. The author of more than 300 publications on special education and school psychology, Ysseldyke is best known for his textbooks on assessment, effective instruction, issues in special education, and other cutting-edge areas of education and school psychology. With A Practical Approach to Special Education for Every Teacher, Ysseldyke seeks to equip educators with practical knowledge and methods that will help them to better engage students in exploring—and meeting—all their potentials.