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My Favorite Sources

Teaching materials that work for students with learning disabilities

There are myriad choices of materials and curricula marketed towards "special" students. However, very few are truly geared to students with language learning difficulties or learning disabilities such as dyslexia. English and grammar materials were especially confusing to my students. Time after time, I could walk them through a worksheet, but learning wasn't happening.

Here are some of the sources and resources that I've found most useful over the years:

• Reading and Language Arts Centers Their catalog (send for it; it's also more complete than their online store) includes the best products for multisensory teaching, from full multisensory reading programs to nifty, inexpensive accessories like the EZC Reader, which is essentially a bookmark with a colored overlay to hold over the line you are reading. Some of my other favories include:
  Diana Hanbury King's Writing Skills for the Adolescent and Keyboarding Skills. Ms. King has extensive experience teaching teenagers with dyslexia (as her sense of humor makes evident, if you have had the pleasure of attending one of her conference sessions on various subjects). Writing Skills is short and inexpensive and full of ideas for structured yet creative activities to build skills at any level.
  Rudginsky and Haskell's How To Teach Spelling. A structured approach to spelling that works well with multisensory structured language programs. (I do need to give my students more practice than it provides, though.)
  Joanne Carlisle's Reasoning and Reading booklets. These actually teach comprehension skills, instead of merely providing practice in them. It is well worth getting their complete printed catalog.
  

• Educators Publishing Service ("EPS"). This is another excellent resource for materials that work (including many of the above resources). EPS has many more materials including controlled readers, and it's worth getting their printed complete catalog.

• Books by Priscilla Vail. (various sources) She offers insights on reading comprehension, getting the most out of both whole language and phonics, and her "Clear and Lively Writing" is wonderful and full of teaching ideas.

• Pro-Ed This is the source for my favorite easy-to-follow, start-from-the-bottom (but let students have fun and be creative) reading program called When They Can't Write by Charlotte Morgan.

• Landmark Schools Go to "outreach/publications" for materials including a solid basic math course designed for students with learning disabilities.

• SRA If I were still in the public school classroom, I'd go here for their structured, direct instruction programs, "Corrective Reading" and "Corrective Math." The prices are often prohibitive for individual purchase but these are materials that really work.

• And, finally, Resource Room Store. There were materials I couldn't find, so I had to make them myself (or translate them from British in the case of Tools for the Times Tables). These are materials for multisensory teaching, whether in language or math.