Curriculum

Curriculum drives the educational program that is individualized for students with disabilities. Most students with disabilities have success in learning the same content as non-disabled peers with a range of learning accommodations. Other students may require some modifications to the curriculum to address their specific needs. The key issue for the educational team is designing an effective program that assists the student to learn and socialize with non-disabled peers to the greatest extent possible.

The Early Childhood Learning Continuum Indicators outline the parameters of early childhood curricula for all preschool students in Pennsylvania. Similarly, the Pennsylvania Academic Standards , including standards for Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening set the outcomes necessary for all school-aged students. The school-age reading curriculum must address phonemic (sound) awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

A curricular combination of oral language development, of print/book awareness, and enhanced phonological processing skills set the stage for reading success. Preschool students with special needs are often immersed in a language-rich curriculum, but we must ensure that they also enjoy rich literacy experiences. Language-rich preschool programs stress improvement in the understanding of basic concepts, expansion of vocabulary and syntax, increased comprehension of oral language, and improved ability to communicate information to others. In addition, systematic instruction in sound awareness and early phonology are necessary for many students. Early literacy experiences, in order to build a foundation for reading success, should focus on print/book awareness, symbol awareness and representation, and eventually letter identification and writing.

As students with language difficulties are at severe risk for reading failure, the development of oral language skills must be a priority. Students must understand the sound system and automatically manipulate speech sounds. This provides a foundation for understanding sound symbol relationships and the rules that govern them to decode text. Fluent students read text accurately and quickly with reading that sounds very much like conversation.

Just as they build their oral language vocabulary, students must build upon their reading vocabulary, expanding on both. Comprehension of increasingly more complex and abstract writing allows the reader to gain knowledge and experience from the written word, which is the purpose of reading instruction.