These suggestions for helping adolescent students with mild disabilities take notes emphasize use of a skeleton outline of the main ideas and related concepts of a lecture, with space to maximize student responding as the student completes the outline during the lecture or reading of an assigned chapter. (DB)

This article proposes six "quality" indicators of assessment practices with culturally and linguistically diverse students, including: (1) examination of opportunity to learn; (2) involvement of parents or caretakers; (3) use of trained interpreters; (4) nonreliance on psychometrics; (5) use of a multidisciplinary team; and (6) use of informed…

Instructions for three classroom sessions show how process writing can be introduced to students with learning disabilities by the teacher modeling the processes of planning, writing, sharing, taking criticism, and revising. Teacher modeling helps students overcome their hesitance about sharing their work. (DB)

Principles of providing appropriate instruction for precocious youth include diagnostic/prescriptive assessment of students' current levels of achievement and readiness for new material; arrangement of instructional conditions so students are working with appropriate curriculum and materials; and provision of classroom learning experiences at the…

This article addresses issues in successful classroom research, especially single-subject research, including selecting the research topic, choosing a research design, maintaining a sufficient number of participants, management and logistical problems, creating classroom conditions favorable to research, and scheduling time for research. (DB)

Strategies to engage middle school students in listening to stories, retelling them, and improving their communication and social skills are offered. For students with disabilities, teachers should adapt strategies, keep individualized education program goals in mind, and focus on activities that are meaningful to the student. (DB)

This article describes an 11-step "buddy" skills training procedure that helps children in an inclusive preschool work and play together more cooperatively. Steps include initial assessment, sensitization, peer training, implementation, positive reinforcement, evaluation, targeting specific interaction skills, teaching interaction skills, and…

Group friendship activities can help young children with disabilities in preschool programs develop social skills. Suggestions for successful implementation address the size of the group, activity length, choice of activity, selecting expressions of friendship, and participation of individual children. (DB)

This article explains how to use instructive feedback (presenting extra information during feedback following students' responses to direct instruction) to intentionally and methodically boost students' learning. The process involves identifying information to be supplied, deciding how to present the information, using the method consistently, and…

The president of the Council for Exceptional Children notes the launching of a diversity initiative within the organization's strategic plan and throughout the organization's various components. The need for understanding and valuing diversity within a unity of mission is stressed. (DB)

A clay therapy program, tested and evaluated with children (mostly with emotional or behavioral disorders) across seven settings, is described. Affective goals of the program, required materials and equipment, and lesson plan topics are briefly considered. (DB)

This article describes a learning activity in which preschool children learn cooperative skills and metacognitive strategies as they master sharing strategies guided by leaves on a "sharing tree." Leaf colors (red, yellow, green) cue the child to stop, slow down and think about sharing and playing with others, and go ahead with a sharing activity.…

This article briefly summarizes what is known about how phonological awareness fits into the beginning reading process and effective methods for teaching phonological awareness. Special difficulties with phonological awareness of children with learning disabilities or from culturally diverse backgrounds are noted. (DB)

This article briefly defines phonological core deficits in cases of dyslexia; considers student classification based on federal and state learning disability placement guidelines; and suggests 10 interventions such as teaching metacognitive strategies, providing direct instruction in language analysis and the alphabetic code, and teaching reading…

This annotated bibliography provides brief descriptions of 13 selected readings and resources concerned with teaching reading to young children with learning disabilities. Included are journal articles, research reports, and teaching guides. (DB)