M11: Disabilities, ELs, and Writing

As established in the beginning of the course, students who are English Learners (ELs) are just as likely as monolingual students to have disabilities. Some of those disabilities directly impact the student's experiences with literacy, making language acquisition an even more daunting task.

While a full exploration of special needs is beyond the scope of this course, there are a few literacy-specific disabilities that warrant mention. One of those (Dyslexia) was addressed in our module on Reading (Module 7). Another is Dysgraphia, which is a learning disability that affects writing in a variety of ways.

Click here to read a brief overview Links to an external site.on Dysgraphia (this page is also linked within the module, following this page).

As a classroom teacher, you will be required to accommodate for students who are impacted by Dysgraphia. Learn more about how you can do this effectively with ELs in the video below. 

(You can read along by enabling closed captioning or read the transcript by clicking the three dots below the video by opening it directly in YouTube.) Links to an external site.