When modifying assignments for students with learning differences, it’s important to keep your learning objectives in mind. Students all learn differently so it’s important that you plan, and teach, accordingly. At Literacy Worksheets, we make it easy to modify assignments and make sure you are giving your child appropriate worksheets.

Modify the Content. Selecting content that is at a students instructional level for classwork and independent level for individual work is arguably the most important part of teaching. At Literacy Worksheets, I’ve provided informal assessments to help you determine what your child should be learning. An instructional level is defined as “challenging but manageable.” The child should be able to read with 90-94% success rate at their instructional reading level. An independent reading level should be relatively easy for the child, reading at a 95% success rate and with 90% comprehension. Providing independent work that is at your child’s independent level helps reduce frustration and build students’ confidence. 

Reduce the workload. Literacy Worksheets allows you to select how many problems are on your worksheets. Reducing the number of questions on the worksheets not only helps with motivation, but can also be less visually distracting. For struggling students, it is best to give them fewer problems, and very specific examples. Begin all worksheets by completing a problem (or a few problems) together and checking for understanding. 

Provide supports. Several of our worksheets provide word banks to help children organize their thoughts. Teaching students how to use the word bank and strategies such as answering questions they know first and crossing out options as you go in some problem types (like matching) can be a very valuable support. Pictures are another way to support early and/or struggling readers. Our phonics worksheets use pictures for students who are learning to read. This takes away the struggle but still allows students to build language and early reading skills. For vocabulary, we have the option to show images or not. Images should be shown for students who are working at a lower reading level. Remember that your objective is for them to learn the meaning of words which can be done using pictures instead of words or using both together. Another great way to provide support for struggling students is to reduce the number of answer choices when answering multiple choice questions.