Essential Skills for Struggling Learners: A Framework for Student Support Teams

To provide the right supports for struggling students in grades pre-K to 12, your school team needs a thorough understanding of the skills that contribute to learning—and a systematic way to help students with a wide range of learning difficulties. This innovative planning guide is your key to identifying and prioritizing the essential skills that students with and without learning difficulties need to succeed.

This book presents 11 key domains of learning—divided into neurological, developmental, and educational domains—and gives your team a complete, collaborative plan for pinpointing where students need help and adapting your supports to meet those needs. For each of the 11 domains, the authors offer a logical framework that consists of critical skill sets and skills your students need for learning success. Every domain gets a dedicated chapter that helps you:

• Understand why the domain is essential to learning in both special and general education
• Learn about the research and resources used to develop the framework for that domain
• Take a deep dive and master key terms and definitions
• Discover how the skills associated with each domain develop in typical learners
• Find students who are struggling by making good observations, and by identifying missing or underdeveloped skills
• Identify your students’ strengths so you can help them build and expand on their skills
• Clearly communicate your observations to all team members
• Build better intervention plans and IEPs using the specific educational objectives, teaching strategies, and accommodations suggested in each chapter

PRACTICAL MATERIALS: Each chapter offers an in-depth Case Study example, a Skills Observation Sheet for notetaking during student observations, and a Skills Framework for use as a quick reference on skills when making observations and developing IEPs. Two practical appendices walk school professionals and team leaders through the collaborative process of putting the frameworks in the book into practice.

• Vision Skills
• Hearing Skills
• Motor Skills
• Formal Language Skills
• Pragmatic Language Skills
• Social Skills
• Executive Skills
• Affect and Self-Regulation Skills
• Reading Skills
• Writing Skills

• Math Skills

Erik von Hahn, M.D . Dr . Erik von Hahn has worked with children with diverse disabilities for more than 20 years . He received his medical training and specialization in pediatrics at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and subsequently underwent specialist training in Developmental–Behavioral Pediatrics and Child Psychiatry at both Harvard University and at Tufts University in Boston. Early in his career, Dr . von Hahn developed an interest in following his patients to school. He developed an extensive consultative practice with public school districts, first in New Hampshire and then in Massachusetts. He has developed a deep understanding of children with disabilities, as seen through the lens of their school day and their interactions with the school professionals who serve them.

In addition to his consultative practice with schools, Dr. von Hahn maintains a clinical practice at the Floating Hospital for Children in Boston. He shares his experience working with schools to help families in the clinic communicate successfully with their child’s school team. As part of his academic duties, Dr. von Hahn has substantial teaching duties with Tufts University School of Medicine. He provides training and supervision of future Developmental-Behavioral Pediatricians, future general pediatricians, and future allied health care professionals in social work, speech pathology, and psychology. Finally, Dr. von Hahn provides regular continuing education services to both educators and general pediatricians in their practice.

Successful service to children with disabilities occurs when adults can work successfully with one another. All of Dr. von Hahn’s clinical and teaching encounters emphasize service to children with disabilities by seeing their world through their eyes, and by fostering collaboration among home, school, and clinic.

Dr. Sheldon H. Horowitz, Ed.D. is Senior Advisor at the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD). He earned and master’s in special education from Peabody College/Vanderbilt University with a course concentration in learning disabilities and assessment, and completed his doctoral studies at Teachers College, Columbia University, with a focus on learning disabilities and neurosciences in education.

Prior to his arrival at NCLD in 1996, he served as the associate director of the Learning Diagnostic Center at Schneider Children's Hospital, Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, NY. He also held the position of assistant unit chief, educational supervisor, and grand rounds chairperson of the Center for Mental Health, Department of Psychiatry at Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY. Dr. Horowitz has taught at primary, secondary, and college levels, and worked as a consultant to schools and districts throughout the New York City metropolitan region. His interests include: neurobiology of learning, educational assessment, fetal alcohol effects in children, language-based learning disabilities (e.g. , dyslexia), disorders of hyperactivity and attention, and learning disabilities in adolescents and adults. Dr. Horowitz is a regular presenter at professional conferences in the field of special education and is frequently cited in the popular press on topics including parenting children with special needs, LD and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, post-secondary transition, LD throughout the lifespan.

He has provided leadership on many of NCLD's key projects and programs, including national summits, Every Child is Learning, Get Ready to Read! , Living with LD, Recognition & Response, the LD Navigator, LD Talks, LD News, LD Insights, Research Roundup, the Transitioning to Kindergarten Toolkit, and the Early Learning Observation & Rating Scales. Dr. Horowitz is also the co-author of NCLD’s State of Learning Disabilities report.

Dr. Horowitz currently serves in an expert advisory capacity to a number of organizations including Understood.org and the Nonverbal Learning Disabilities Project. He is also currently a Trustee at Beacon College, serving as the chair of the Committee of Academic and Student Affairs.

Caroline Linse, Ed.D.

Dr .Caroline Linse is a Senior Lecturer at Queen's University, Belfast, where she teaches in the School of Social Sciences Education and Social Work. She teaches in the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) program and works directly with current and future teachers who must address cultural and linguistic diversity as a core element of the instruction that they deliver. She has worked in a variety of countries with learners and teachers from different cultural and linguistic traditions.