MIMAANSA

What is Learning Difficulty?

The school principal and school teachers play a crucial role in helping a child overcome the difficulty. It is imperative that the principal and teachers are well informed and knowledgeable about LD, namely its manifestations, the importance of remedial education and the need of the child to avail provisions. A LD friendly school plays an important role in detecting this disability early in the academic rehabilitation of the child, and in supporting the parents emotionally. Having a resource room facility for remedial education in the regular mainstream school and employing special educators provides the much needed support to these children. This helps in ensuring that these children avail regular remedial education at affordable cost and continue their education in regular mainstream school.

Tips for Teachers

• The child must be given the means needed for the normal physical and intellectual development.
• The teachers need to accept the child’s problem and limitations and should act as a facilitator to help the child achieve his/her targets.
• Let the letters and words be clear while and large size while you write.
• The child should be seated in the front row towards the centre of the classroom away from the windows and other areas of distractions.
• Have the students trace letters that he/she frequently reverses.
• Use color cuing for correcting the letters that are wrongly written.
• Use wooden or cardboards cut outs of letters. This will help in differentiating letters by feeling them.
• Reduce the length of written assignments.
• Give more writing drills for wrongly written words.
• Accept taped or oral assignments rather than written work.
• Permit the child to dictate assignments to his/her parents.
• Present partially completed letters and have the students complete them.
• Teach common punctuation marks like comma, question mark, etc. Provide the child with many examples of how they can be used and translated inot everyday speech.
• Help the child in arithmetic by providing him/her with many tasks of putting together and taking apart concrete objects to familiarize him/her with concepts of addition and subtraction. This should be done before introducing the child to signs of ‘+’ and ‘-’.
• Encourage the child to verbalize as he and she writes. Hearing themselves often assists in understanding better.
• Give the child more time to complete his/her work.
• Praise the child’s efforts even if his/her performance is poor than the peers.
• Spare the child the ordeal ordeals or reading or performing in public.
• The child should not be humiliated, embarrassed or made to feel guilty. The child should not be told that he/she is lazy stupid or stubborn.
• The child should not be held accountable for academic work that is beyond his/her capabilities.
• The child should be encouraged to take part in regular extra-curricular activities like art, drama, music etc.
• The child needs love and respect which is not conditional on his/her academic skills of achievements.
• The teacher needs to build a relationship with the child so that the child can approach the teacher without feeling ashamed of his/her weaknesses.
•  Find the child’s strength’s helping to identify alternative careers in which the child will excel.

Provisions of the kids with LD

What are the concessions the child can avail of?
Maharashtra SSC Board, ICSE and CBSE Boards have approved the following concessions.

• Students from std 1st to 10th shall be permitted 25% additional time.
• Students with LD can get a writer with oral examination.
• The writer has to be one std lower and has to be appointed by the school.
• Students will be given the nearest examination centers.
• Papers will be read out to students.
• Students are exempted from one language other than English and have to take one work experience subject.
• Students with Dyscalculia of

• Std 1st – 4th shall do regular Maths/ arithmetic.the teacher must overlook the number reversal, errors in mathematical calculation and symbol confusion.

• Students of std 5th and 6th will do std 5th Maths.
• Students of std 7th and 8th will do std 6th Maths.
• Students of std 9th and 10th will do std 8th Maths along with one work experience.
• Students will be exempted from drawing maps, figures, diagrams and graphs.
• Students will be given 20 grace marks at the time of promotion instead of 15.
•  SSC students can drop science and instead take Physiology, Hygiene and Home Science.
•  ISCE and CBSE students can drop Maths and Science in std 9th.
•  Cursive writing should not be enforced. They should be allowed to write in print.
•  Students will be exempted from long descriptive answers in home work and class work.
•  Students suffering from ‘auditory discrimination’ or listening comprehension problem may be permitted to use a tape recorder in a class.