Education is very important in the present life. People all over the world start their education from their very childhood. We should have a good education to find a prestigious job, and to find ourselves in present society. Children understand the importance of knowledge from nursery and continue to reach their goals during studies at schools and Universities. Education is not only the knowledge we get but also the skills we develop during our studies. We used to perceive education as a systemized process when we go to an educational establishment, get there some information, depending on our age, receive some tasks and go home. But there are children, children with special needs, who cannot follow this system. And it is not difficult to understand ‘why’. In this case, we are talking about special education.
Special education is an education for children with special needs. It should be found new ways of teaching for these children. It should be mentioned that: the number of children identified under the category “specific learning disability,” or SLD, has increased enormously. SLD is not a single disorder, but a category of special education that includes disabilities in any of seven areas: listening, speaking, basic reading of words, reading comprehension, written expression, mathematics problem-solving, and mathematics calculations. SLD is not synonymous with reading disability or dyslexia, although it is frequently misinterpreted as such, probably because the vast majority of children identified with SLD have reading deficits (Horn 1).
As it was said, these children should be taught using individually planned schedules. It should be taken into consideration the child’s disability while developing the curriculum. To my mind, if it is difficult for a child to perceive information by hearing, the teacher should replace listening exercises with reading and writing. The examples of such exercises are numerous: to read and to write a summary, to read and to answer the questions, to continue the story, and so on.
The same situation is with reading and writing tasks. It may be difficult for some children to perceive information in written form and to express their thoughts on sheets of paper. The teacher’s task, in this case, is to organize the work in oral form in a way that should be convenient and productive for a child. The exercises may be different: starting with listening and answering the questions orally, and ending by discussing the problem, which was heard.
Talking about this problem we cannot but mention liberal arts. If a child has problems with calculation, you shouldn’t try to make an outstanding mathematician out of him. The teacher’s task is to find out the child’s interests. The child’s interests are very important in this case. If it is music, literature, or even geography, the teacher should develop the child’s knowledge and skills in this area and try to introduce the child to the problematic subject within the familiar one. I agree that it is difficult, and in some cases, it will be impossible, but teachers should try to do that and they may succeed.
So, I have introduced you to my point of view about this topic. The problem of our discussion is very topical nowadays. The number of disabled children increases every day. Unfortunately, we cannot stop it, but we can help these children to get a good education and to open doors before them in modern life, where they will be able to find their place in this society.
Works Cited
Horn, Wade F., and Douglas Tynan. “Revamping Special Education.” Public Interest 2001: 36.