SPECIAL EDUCATION AND TUTORING
OVERVIEW

In most cases the structured Total Reading multi-sensory approach can solve the language problems (caused by dyslexia, perceptual handicaps, minimal brain dysfunction, or specific learning disabilities) of the Learning Disabled student.

The Special Education teacher or tutor may use Total Reading with groups of students or on a one-to-one basis either in the Special Education Room or mainstreaming in the regular classroom.. It is expected that the teacher or tutor will use the Primary Total Reading Program with students age nine and younger and Six Steps to Literacy with those ten and older.

It is essential that there be a warm rapport between the teacher-tutor and the student, but also that there be a disciplined environment. The structure of the Total Reading approach helps maintain discipline by teaching the students to listen, concentrate, process information correctly, and develop a positive attitude.

It is important that the Special Education teacher-tutor be thoroughly familiar with the Total Reading techniques explained in the Capsule Course, read the Overviews to Levels I and II and the Previews in Level II in the Primary Manual and particularly note the following.

Although early diagnosis of learning disabilities is growing, most students come to the Special Education Teacher having already failed in the reading-language arts area. To gain cooperation, it must be emphasized (daily in the beginning) that Total Reading will solve the problem - that he or she will learn to read and write well.

It must be understood that the student who has been diagnosed as a poor auditory learner will gain the auditory skills necessary for phonetic decoding through the Total Reading techniques. Also those with learning disabilities generally do not memorize easily, but the multi-sensory procedures will help them acquire the receiving-processing-expressing skills. Although various educational deficits in each child will have been established through diagnosis, the same approach must be followed, with more emphasis in various areas, as explained the Primary Manual.