Understanding Disability Categories and Differentiation Ideas for English Learners with Disabilities (ELWD) (Virginia Department of Education, VDOE)
Description:
The intended audience for this document is teachers of English Learners (EL) who do not have a formal background with special education. The purpose of this document is to provide a foundation for professional conversations about appropriate supports according to a specific category of need that is influenced by a specific disability or combination of disabilities.
- Consider the Disability and Implications on Learning
- Differentiation and Support Ideas by Type of Instructional Concern
Learning Disabilities in English Language Learners (Louise Spear-Swerling)
Children with learning disabilities (LDs) in reading and youngsters who are English language learners (ELLs) both are at risk for low reading achievement, but for different reasons. Children with genuine LDs in reading have intrinsic learning difficulties or differences, often related to problems in phonological processing that impact their word identification skills. ELLs usually can learn to read normally in their native language, but they lack sufficient exposure to both spoken and written English, which can adversely affect their development of English literacy. When both situations coexist for the same youngster–when a child with a learning disability happens also to be an English language learner–the issues surrounding identification and remediation can be very complex.