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Learning To Dig For Resources By Sherry Bushnell Imagine, if you will, a miner. His eyes are set in firm determination to find that elusive gold. Over his burly shoulder is a pick and a shovel. Under his arm is a pan. The mountain land is rocky, but the stream he chose looks promising. In order not to waste precious time away from his family back home, he sets about finding just the right area to start panning for gold. At first the work is slow. It is hard to catch a vision for what lies in the sand and rock. As he is wearily swirling the water and sand in his pan one afternoon, a glimmer of gold leaps out of the pan. He stops. With a smile on his face and tweezers in hand he carefully stores that tiny chip in a small jar. He now has a little more hope. The next day he finds several more chips and by the next week he has even uncovered a prize nugget. After a month he feels successful and returns home, excited to share with his loved ones the newly found wealth. This analogy resembles what it is like to "pan" for resources needed to educate our special needs children at home. It may be hard to get started. Finding the right direction can be frustrating. At first the success can be slow. We may find a small resource we can use a part of, but not the "prize nugget" we had hoped for. Digging takes work! Maybe this is why we call this "special education." It honestly takes extra effort on the part of the teacher to find exactly what will work best for each student. Instead of the common curriculum, "one size fits all", we are forced to specially fit each subject to where our student is. Where do we start in finding these resources? How do we know they will work? What have other families used that has worked? Families just starting out need to find the answers to these questions. Disappointment often colors the voices of parents when they find out there is not a "curriculum for the Down Syndrome child" or "pre-made program for the autistic eight year old." Each family is pretty much on their own in finding exactly what will work for their child. There are, however, some great areas to start digging. Dig we must, if we are to find the best solutions to educating our challenged children.
1. Where do we start? Find out what level your child is at in areas such as pre-reading, math concepts, or speech. If your child is mentally challenged and cannot communicate verbally or by sign, this may take a bit of observation. Once you have chosen the areas you want to work on, find companies that have what you need to teach the skill. 2. Where do you find the companies? There are several places to look. Catalogs are great, but try to get an accurate idea of what you are buying so you are not disappointed. A good suggestion to start with is to look around the house. I am convinced that the majority of early concepts can be taught by using items we already have lying around. Why spend $30.00 on sorting objects when apples, socks, or blocks will do the same job. 3. Try to purchase a resource guide. If someone has gone ahead and done the work it saves valuable time. I have several, including the NATHHAN Resource Guide, and a couple of guides to finding a multitude of education resources for blind children. 4. What if the items you are looking for are not in the resource guides and are so specialized that you don’t know where to start? Try the library. The magazine rack has magazines like Exceptional Parent and books on particular special needs, such as cerebral palsy, deaf education and autism, that often have resources in their resource section or bibliography. 5. Find other parents who are homeschooling in a similar situation (e.g. mental challenges, learning disabilities, dyslexia, blind, hearing impaired or deaf,) They will already have found resources to work with. Most folks are more than willing to share their "gold nugget." The main resource guide I know of for home educating with challenges is: Kathy Salars’ NATHHAN Resource Guide. It is updated periodically, and contains over 200, 8½" by 11" pages. Her address is: Kathy Salars; HC 31 51-N-91; Midland, TX 79707. $14.00 includes postage and handling. (For families who are facing teaching a child who is delayed, getting them ultimately ready for reading.) A Guide for Readiness and Reading: Effective Curriculum Assured Readiness for Learning, by Philip McInnis. Available from: Pre-school through 2nd grade level. Weekly and daily calendar based activities. A special education teacher’s dream come true. Edmark Corporation 6727 185th St. N.E. Order the catalog. Software, curriculum and teaching aids for educating the hearing impaired or deaf child. Exceptional Teaching Aids 20102 Woodbine Ave. Resource for toys, books, curriculum and much more for blind or visually impaired student. Therapy and Communication skill Builders (two separate catalogs) P.O. Box 42050-E Dept. 20 Speech, communication programs, manipulatives, books, software, and how-to videos. Remember that the resources are out there! Most of the materials that are available to the special education teachers in public schools are available to us parents. Often we can find even BETTER ones because we have the privilege of ordering just for our child, with his or her particular needs. Like the miner, we need to sift and carefully watch for those nuggets we can really use. Be careful! We must not compromise in our Christian beliefs or child’s character training for the sake of the "ideal program". It is better to make do, or even go without, than to plant seeds that will grow in to ugly weeds from a resource that is not fitting for children of our Heavenly Father. Decisions must be made, mistakes may be made, but eventually companies whom you can trust will be found and a solid base to choose from will be formed. |
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