Professional Resource: Teaching Students About Learning Disabilities Through Children’s Literature

Prater, Mary Anne, Dyches, Tina Taylor, & Johnstun, Marissa. “Teaching Students About Learning Disabilities Through Children’s Literature.” Intervention in School and Clinic. (2006). 14-24. Vol. 42. No.1. Retrieved December 1, 2007, from WilsonSelectPlus.

“Teaching Students About Learning Disabilities Through Children’s Literature,” as a professional resource is a wonderful article for teachers to read and learn about how to incorporate teaching learning disabilities in their classroom. It discusses the need to use literature to teach about learning disabilities that promotes awareness, understanding, and acceptance. As a teacher using this resource, it offers many great insights as to how to determine if the piece of literature you are using is high quality or not. It reminds one to keep in mind the purpose and portrayal of the learning disability in the text as well as if the book is written well or not.

The main topics it discusses about quality children’s literature are: portrayal of learning disability, literary features (theme, characterization, setting, plot, point of view, and literary style), and illustrations. For each of these topics, it describes how to check the literature for these specific elements in deciding if it is appropriate to use in your classroom.

Besides offering information on determining high quality literature about learning disabilities, the article also discusses how to appropriate use picture books and chapter books to teach this topic. It also offers a thorough list with a brief plot summary of books the authors think are extraordinary to use in both lower and upper elementary classrooms.

Finally, the article also discusses how to actually teach about learning disabilities through literature. It offers an ideal sequence to follow when using picture books as well as chapter books and how to lead a discussion or an appropriate assessment about the book. It also discusses how literature can be used to promote awareness, understanding, and acceptance of people with learning disabilities. The article also offers suggestions and precautions to take when planning to teach using literature.

For this assignment, I mainly used the article to see if I thought my books were high quality books that had a positive portrayal of people with disabilities. However, as a future special education teacher, I plan on using many of the other tools and suggestions I learned by reading this article when I teach about learning disabilities.