Specially Designed Instruction for Literacy

Overview

*Session 4 of a 4-part series, “Understanding Specially Designed Instruction: Clarifying Its Role Within MTSS Layers.”

This series will focus upon what is truly special and distinct about specially designed instruction for literacy, math, and functional skills. 

Educators are continually navigating the complexities of delivering increasingly intensive instruction within a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS). Making informed special education eligibility decisions relies on a deep understanding of the difference between special education and general education layers of intervention. Vermont’s Special Education Rules define specially designed instruction (SDI) as adapting “the content, methodology, or delivery of instruction to address the unique needs of the child that result from the child’s disability.” This series aims to shift system-wide thinking away from merely reteaching the same content based on a student’s academic or functional ‘behindedness’ and move toward a focus on individualized instruction that addresses the unique ways a disability affects their learning. In addition, this series addresses the differences between specialized instruction that supports student access to universal instruction and provides supplemental intensive instruction in areas of need. 

The first session will provide an overview of SDI across disability and content areas, and will serve as a frame of reference for the rest of the series. Each remaining session will focus on the development of SDI in specific content areas: math, literacy, and functional skills. 

Participants will:

• Develop an understanding of the distinctions between general education instruction and specialized instruction for each core basic skill area through a developmental model
• Examine the decision-making process for identifying a student’s need for SDI within an MTSS framework, focusing on the role of data-based decision-making teams
• Develop an understanding of the difference between offering support to help students access universal instruction—focused on enabling them to ‘keep up’—and providing intensive, targeted instruction in areas of need designed to help them ‘catch up’
• Identify evidence-based instructional resources that support specialized instruction, with adjustments to content, delivery, and methodology that address the specific impacts of a student’s disability

Workshops in this series:

*February 14, 2025    What is Specially Designed Instruction?

March 21, 2025        Specially Designed Instruction for Functional Skills

April 2, 2025             Specially Designed Instruction for Math

May 9, 2025              Specially Designed Instruction for Literacy

*Session 1 is required and participants can then choose any or all of the remaining sessions