Every school should have a formal process for identifying a child's learning needs and their learning challenges.
The school also has formal processes to help identify learning challenges.
Your role is to bring up your concerns and work with them.
There are 2 levels of identifying a child's learning needs:
1. Use testing data to find problem areas and try new teaching strategies
First, the school listens to the concerns and looks at assessments to see what areas and skills are hard for your child. Then they will set up a meeting with a team called the SBLC, and see if the child needs some extra help using different teaching strategies in the classroom.
>> This will help students who are struggling because the instruction they were getting did not meet their needs. It also helps those who were not prepared because of language or past experience with reading.
2. Check for a disability
The next level is a full evaluation to see if they have a learning disability or a developmental disability that is affecting their learning. If they do, they will need more specialized education and maybe some services like speech therapy or other therapies. (This is Special Education. See that section to learn more.)
>> This will help students who were struggling because they have a learning disability or developmental disability.
We will explain more in the next pages!
Identifying a child's learning needs is one of the first steps in finding a solution.