Tips and ways to engage your students with special needs
Thomas Courtley
Education Specialist
Special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) sometimes affect young people’s ability to learn. Amongst other things, they can impact your students’:
- Reading and writing, for example if they have dyslexia
- Ability to understand things
- Concentration levels, for example if they have ADHD
We address some relatively common difficulties, and offer tips on what you could do to support your SEND students, and the rest of the class, with LessonUp.
How can you engage students who have issues with reading and writing?
First of all, as you already know, you can ask your local authority to carry out an assessment if you think a student needs a targeted Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan. Students with major reading and writing issues, for example, might need specific support.
That said, how could you use LessonUp to support them on a daily basis?
Find the right resources
Provide foundation level textbooks to supplement your teaching. Simplified content and sentence construction might go a long way in helping these students. Of course textbooks don’t cover all the interesting topics that you want to talk about in the classroom. Current events and happenings, or the latest trends, don’t have a foundation level book to consult.
Yet online there is also a golden mine of information: videos, imagery, and simply-written articles that might be perfect to boost classroom engagement, especially for dyslectic students. With LessonUp, you could create complete lessons around present-day themes, provided of simple wording, interesting videos, and engaging imagery.
Adapt your teaching to your students' needs
Tailor your lessons to accommodate students with special reading and writing needs. This can range from using specific fonts and font sizes to simplifying or clarifying language and creating customised lessons. You might adjust learning objectives, types of interactivity, or the number of slides per topic to better meet their needs.
You know your students and their unique requirements. With LessonUp, you have access to a variety of tools to help you adapt your teaching effectively.
Use dyslexia-friendly fonts
For students with dyslexia, it’s important to use dyslexia-friendly fonts and color schemes. LessonUp offers options designed with dyslexia in mind:
- Use dark-coloured text on a light, non-white background.
- Avoid using green and red/pink, as these colours can be challenging for students with colour vision deficiencies (colour blindness).
- Consider alternatives to white backgrounds for paper, screens, and visual aids such as whiteboards, as white can be too glaring.
For more info on this topic, feel free to check out this dyslexia friendly style guide.
How can you engage students who are unable to understand things straight away?
You notice that one of your students doesn’t seem to understand what you are teaching, or your instructions. What can you do about it?
Supplement learning with diverse resources
Supplement your classroom material by incorporating a variety of sources such as Wikipedia, videos, websites, books, and magazines. This approach provides students with relatable and accessible information.
Offer tailored instructions to cater to individual needs. Additionally, you can encourage your students to seek clarification from you or a peer if they find something unclear during lessons.
Allow students the freedom to explore answers digitally or within the classroom, using books, websites, forums, and social media. LessonUp is an excellent platform to consolidate all this supplementary material into a customised, easy-to-understand lesson on any subject.
Try using hotspots or quiz questions
LessonUp offers interactive features like hotspots and quiz questions that can support your teaching:
- Hotspots: Add clickable button, hotspots, to images or slides to provide additional information. Students can explore these hotspots to uncover details, making the content more engaging and stimulating their natural curiosity.
- Quiz questions: Incorporate quiz questions to simplify concepts and highlight correct answers. This approach can help students revise or learn new material, reinforcing their understanding through immediate feedback.
These tools can make your lessons more interactive and effective, catering to different needs.
Learn what your SEN(D) students enjoy
To support students with special needs effectively, it is crucial to regularly consult their lesson reports. These reports provide valuable insights into their learning patterns. You might discover, for instance, that a student comprehends questions better when phrased in a specific way, or finds it challenging to express personal opinions. Additionally, observe which interactive features engage your students the most.
Use effective plenaries to clarify student understanding
Effective plenaries help ensure that all students grasp what they’ve learned. Use plenaries to summarise and reinforce key concepts from the lesson. LessonUp offers a range of interactive features to support this process, including quiz questions, open questions, mind maps, drag-and-drop activities, and sentiment polls (e.g., happy to sad polls). These tools can help you assess and clarify your students’ understanding effectively.
How can you engage students who have difficulty concentrating?
Many students (and non-students) have difficulty concentrating at times. It is not rare, but some have more difficulty than others. They might need your help to focus on your lessons, or while revising for upcoming exams. What can you do?
Provide learners with energising breaks & activities
Provide them with short breaks during your lessons. During these periods of time you could encourage them to do something that relaxes them. Students with ADHD, for example, might need more breaks and breathers than others. Yet the benefits of taking more breaks and doing some physical activity are high for the entire student population.
In LessonUp you can set a timer during an activity to make sure students remember to take their breaks. If these students enjoy looking at videos or doing quizzes to relax, that is a perfect win-win situation. Maybe you could prepare some lightweight, leisurely slides to take their mind off the heavier stuff for a while. They will appreciate it, and learn something new too.
Try working with a reward system
You can try to work with a reward system. In general, almost all kids work well with rewards.
People who have difficulty concentrating may need the incentive of a reward system more than the rest. Focussing on a lesson might be a mammoth endeavour you could help them with, also by using LessonUp.
A reward could be video material about what they like and enjoy, or a couple of lightweight quizzes. They could listen to music to relax for a moment, or relate with you on a different level during a friendly chat. Many things are possible, within limits of course, and LessonUp could help you provide them with some leisurely interaction to recharge their batteries.
Help your students find their way to revise for exams
Revising for an exam can be very difficult for kids with ADHD, or those who have more difficulty concentrating. At school you can help with posing questions and offering supplementary material, but what happens when students are supposed to revise at home? That can be very hard for them, and not all caretakers have the time and resources to support them.
LessonUp can be a valuable tool in this scenario. This engaging teaching platform allows you to upload videos and visuals to complement textbooks, making revision more interactive. Regular breaks from textbook study can significantly improve focus for these students. Carefully selecting the right resources for your students is crucial. After they've revised, you can use quizzes, open questions, polls, or drag-and-drop activities also to assess their understanding of new concepts.
SEN(D) learners play a significant role in addressing the attainment gap by highlighting the need for tailored educational strategies and inclusive practices.
