Paula Kluth

Honoring and Including Students with Communication Differences

"I have a new student coming to my sixth-grade classroom and I am stumped. Ben does not speak very much but he sometimes uses an electronic device to make choices and greet people. He also knows some sign language. I am not sure how to include him in the class or how to build a relationship with him. HELP! "

Making Relationships a Priority

One of the biggest myths I hear in my work in inclusive education is about friendship. Teachers commonly share that they struggle to facilitate relationships during the middle and high school years because older students simply are not interested in socializing with students with disabilities.

Is Your School Inclusive?

How can a parent or teacher determine if their school is inclusive? These indicators can serve as a guide for those interested in evaluating or developing an inclusive school.

Strengths & Strategies - Assessing & Sharing What Matters

If we focus on struggles and overlook student strengths and gifts, it becomes hard to plan for and support that learner. I use a simple document titled “Strengths and Strategies” when I plan with teachers, families, and students. This document can help educators focus on the abilities and strengths of learners instead of only on their difficulties and areas of need.

Is This Inclusion? Questioning Removal, Rejection and Exclusion

The tendency to send the student away from the group is incredibly problematic. When at all possible, it is best to support and address challenging situations in the environments where they occur. Removing students from places where they should feel belonging is detrimental to the building of community and, often, to the processes of teaching and learning.

Creating Personal Portfolios: Tools for Transition, Communication & Inclusion

When most teachers get a student with disabilities in their classroom, they are given very little information on the learner's needs, gifts, abilities, strengths.

In the Pool, on the Stage, & at the Concert: Extracurricular Activities for ALL

With commitment and imagination, extra-curricular activities can be conceptualized, supported and implemented in ways that allow all students active participation.

Special Education is Not a Place: Avoiding Pull-Out Services in Inclusive Schools

Since the inception of inclusive schooling, teachers have worked hard to provide students with disabilities access to both a typical education in the general education classroom and to the individual supports and services they need to find success in that classroom. In many classrooms, however, educators stumped at how to do both resort to pulling students out of the classroom for short bits of instruction, or in some cases, for large periods of the school day.