Proven Teaching Strategies for Special Education

Students with special needs both require and deserve the most reliable, proven instruction that educators have to offer. As a learning science company, we’re particularly passionate about identifying and creating reliable, proven instruction. For students with specific learning dis/abilities, ensuring we make the most of every moment spent in the classroom is all the more crucial to empowering them to thrive. Special Education teachers seem to share this sentiment: they’re constantly searching for new strategies and best practices to bring back to the classroom. To help, we turned to our research archives to unpack the studies that showed positive results for students with special needs. While there are many successful instructional techniques and models available, and every teacher, student, and learning environment will respond to each differently, we chose to focus on Direct Instruction. As an approach, it’s been proven effective for a wide variety of student populations, and is perhaps one of the top efficacy-based instructional programs available to teachers.

At the bottom of this blog, you’ll find an extensive report on the research behind Direct Instruction. To help you start identifying proven strategies now, we’ve pulled the core components of the Direct Instruction approach below:

Program Design

Many of the proven teaching strategies of Direct Instruction are embedded within its programmatic design. For example, the instructional language in Direct Instruction is rooted in clear communication — everything is written to ensure consistency and reduce student confusion. There’s also emphasis on sequencing of skills, where specific skills are taught cumulatively and lessons move smoothly from teacher-directed activities to independent student activities. Finally, Direct Instruction enables teachers to deliver instruction in tracks, to ensure that lessons are digestible and efficient for students. Track instruction reduces errors and enhances skill integration.

Instructional Organization

Instructional teaching strategies focus on the way Direct Instruction utilizes classroom space and organizes instructional time. Direct Instruction programs pay close attention to grouping, and lessons are generally presented to small groups of students for intensive learning. DI also is mindful of time, and encourages constant interactions between students and teachers to actively promote engaged, productive time dedicated to learning. It’s all about making the most of the limited time in the classroom.

Presentation Techniques

Perhaps one of the best components of Direct Instruction in the Special Education space is its approach to content presentation. Lessons are built on the foundation of active student participation, where instruction provides students opportunities to respond to questions and prompts, verbally or through writing. Unison responding uses instructional signals to cue students to respond to prompts together, ensuring that every students has practice time with content. Finally, Direct Instruction pays close attention to student motivation, balancing challenges with successes to build up confidence and maintain engagement.

For more on Direct Instruction, click here.

Find the full research review and more strategies for teaching special education here, or below.