Implementing the Common Core State Standards to Students with Disabilities

Abstract

With the implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in 2010, challenge and rigor for all students is a must. With the passing of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), students with disabilities (SWD) are required access to these challenging standards with any necessary supports and modifications needed. A multitude of research has already been made on the instructional strategies, such as explicit and scaffolded instruction, that would be helpful in implementing the standards and the concerns teachers who have SWD have on instructing these standards, such as time constraints and academic ability. Although much research has been conducted on the strategies to use in order to help implementation, there was little to no research on the implementation of actual modified lessons. Due to this, I created a curriculum project where I modified a Common Core 6th grade ELA figurative language unit in order to appropriately teach it to my special education class. The unit resulted in 17 lessons and two summative assessments. After evaluating the results upon completion of the modified unit, results indicated three major areas where I made appropriate accommodations in order to fit the needs of my students. Those accommodations include, adding in a lesson of the teaching the different types of figurative language before reading the required texts, creating exit tickets for formative assessments that were easier to understand and limited the number of questions given, and adding in accommodations to the summative assessments in order for the students to not feel overwhelmed. The use of this modified unit can be used as a guide for other teachers creating a modified unit and future research and work will be completed in order to create other modified units for other grades and subject areas.