Early Childhood Education: Strategies for Special Needs

This essay discusses strategies for effectively teaching students with exceptional needs in early childhood education. It emphasizes the importance of understanding individual student needs and implementing tailored instructional approaches. The author highlights the significance of specialized strategies, such as breaking down instructions into smaller, manageable tasks, and incorporating multi-sensory learning methods. The essay underscores the value of collaboration with special education teachers and the integration of various teaching techniques, including interactive and parallel teaching, to create an inclusive and supportive learning environment. The author reflects on how these insights will shape their future classroom practices, focusing on individualized student achievement and continuous assessment to monitor progress. References to relevant research and resources are included, providing a comprehensive overview of best practices in supporting students with learning differences.

Running Head: EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION 1
EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
AUTHORS NAME
UNIVERSITY OF AFFILIATION

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Teaching students who have exceptional needs pose a great challenge and unique opportunities
to the teacher. Students with exceptional needs will require not only time but a lot of patience
from the tutor. The students do require some specialized strategies for the instructional in an
environment that is structured and supports the student learning potential. Exceptional students
are not students who are disabled but students who require a different method of teaching that is
tailored to their specific learning abilities. Some of the features of students with learning
disabilities include, students who have an auditory memory that is poor, can be confused easily,
can be easily distracted and has a poor concept of time (Morgan, 2016).
Students with exceptional needs are normally placed in inclusive learning environments (Morgan,
2016).As a tutor for students with exceptional needs, it is of significance to developing a strategy
that can be used to support students with exceptional needs. Below are some strategies that can
be used for a successful working with students with an exceptional needs (Fredericks, 2017).
Get to know the students one is dealing with. Once the tutor has received the information that a
student with an exceptional need is entering the tutoring class, the tutor should get a synopsis of
the student case. This will brief the tutor on the particular services that the students should
receive and any modification available for the students (Stout, 2015).
Implement the universal design for learning. This is an approach that is used to plan a curriculum
and map that curriculum that will make the learning accessible and engage with a various range
of student with varying needs.
The tutor should use a multi-sensory approach to introduce the concept under study rather than
limiting the instruction to what appears to be in the exceptional child learning style. Studies have

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shown that the more variance and senses involved in the process of learning something, the more
chances the learner has to retrieve the information.
The strategies that I would implement would be to break down the instruction into very smaller,
and manageable tasks. Students with exceptional needs do have a difficulty in the understanding
the instruction that is longer. It is better to break down the sentence that is simple and concrete
sentence. The tutor has broken down the steps into steps that are smaller so as to ensure the
student understands the tutor's needs and question. The tutor can even place the direction and the
say to the student verbally. The tutor should not give the student further instruction until when
the student has all the task completed (Vogel, 2014).
Through the interview experience, I have learned that Student with exceptional needs requires a
lot of focus on an individual student achievement, and the student learning individually. That
will require a specific, directed and intensive instruction for remedial classes for students with
learning disabilities. The tutor should focus on the student activities on the assessments of the
individual students to monitor the students’ progress via the curriculum.
What I have learned on teaching students with exceptional needs will affect my future classroom
in the following ways. First in the planning of classroom, I will have to collaborate with teachers
who specialized in special education on a regular basis. Finally, I will incorporate various
teaching methods such as interactive teaching and parallel teaching.

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REFRENCES
Fredericks, A. (2017). Teaching Students with Special Needs: Advice for Teachers (Grades K-
12). TeacherVision. Retrieved 24 January 2018, from
https://www.teachervision.com/special-needs/teaching-students-special-needs
Morgan, H. (2016). Successful Strategies for Teaching Students with Learning Disabilities.
Learning Disabilities Association of America. Retrieved 24 January 2018, from
https://ldaamerica.org/successful-strategies-for-teaching-students-with-learning-
disabilities/
Stout, K. (2015). Strategies for Teaching Kids with Special Needs by Kathryn Stout.
Designastudy.com. Retrieved 24 January 2018, from
http://www.designastudy.com/teaching/tips-111204.html
Vogel, K. (2014). 5 Effective Strategies for the Inclusive Classroom. KQED Education.
Retrieved 24 January 2018, from https://ww2.kqed.org/education/2016/01/04/5-effective-
strategies-for-the-inclusive-classroom/