First-Year English: Welcoming Different Learners to the Table

An increasing number of students with learning disabilities (LD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are coming to our colleges these days. As longtime first-year English composition professors of LD learners at Landmark College, in Putney, Vermont, we struggle to meet the challenge of teaching a variety of learners without losing anyone along the way. Landmark is unique among colleges in that all of our students come with a diagnosis of LD, ADHD, ASD, or some combination of these. We believe that many of our first-year colleagues at other institutions share with us a tension between caring deeply about their students and yet not wishing to lower course standards in order to accommodate special needs students. And, while many of us also feel overworked and stretched to our limits, we acknowledge that federal laws obligate us to address disability issues. We offer here an approach that recognizes these tensions and addresses them by suggesting ways to integrate individualized instruction with universal design classroom strategies.

Federal Laws and Equal Access

Having taught English at a state college in New Hampshire in the 1980s, one of the authors of this paper now sheepishly admits that she was aware of only one student with a diagnosed learning disability. And, this awareness was only because another professor had discovered this and had become the student’s advocate. With her naïve good intentions, your author remembers meeting with the student several times in her office to discuss an assigned reading but doing little else.

She does not remember being well-informed about the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the federal law that had already existed for some ten years to address learning disabilities in higher education. Section 504 of this law extends civil rights to young people and adults with disabilities by opening up opportunities in education and employment. The law allows for “equal access” to post-secondary education, non-discriminatory treatment of LD students, and “reasonable accommodations” in educational settings. It puts the responsibility for requesting those accommodations onto the student yet stipulates that the accommodations must not compromise content or academic standards of the course. The subsequent Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 further ensures only access, not necessarily success. This essentially means access to admissions, delivery of programs, and assessment. For instance, if high school students with learning disabilities can demonstrate that they have met the academic requirements for admission, such as acceptable SAT or ACT scores or participation in college prep programs, they deserve equal access to post-secondary institutions. Amendments to the ADA in 2008 defined “disability” even more broadly and now include difficulties that may be particularly relevant to our first-year English classes such as speaking, reading, communicating, concentrating, and learning (United States Congress). In the event that a documented student manages to attain passing or even high grades, federal laws also dictate that we cannot then withdraw accommodations from that student. And, whether or not our colleges and universities receive federal funding, we are still obligated to follow the 1990 ADA equal access provision.

Three Learner Profiles

How do we help students access our courses? We can start by developing an understanding of who they are and how they learn. Of students who have learning difficulties, statistics indicate that the three learner profiles most likely to be in a first-year English class are students with dyslexia or language–based issues, students with attention issues, and students on the autism spectrum.¹

Of course, variations exist within profiles, and our intention is not to stereotype students, but an observant professor might notice typical indicators of each profile. Such a professor might be aware of students who are slow readers and seem to have trouble with comprehension and fluency. The writing of these students contains spelling and syntax errors, and they tend to omit or add letters or words. These errors often indicate dyslexia or other language-based learning disabilities. We have noticed strengths in these students as well: excellent attendance, perseverance, visual-spatial abilities, and creativity. What helps dyslexic students? We...