Curricular Adaptations: Accommodations & Modifications

Which of the following are examples of curricular adaptations?

• Modifications

• Accommodations

• Differentiation

• Individualization

An instructional accommodation...

• can only be offered during testing

• changes how a student accesses information and demonstrates learning but does not change the content/ learning goal

• makes small adjustments to the content to help students

• only is offered in elementary school

An instructional modification is...

• a lot of extra work for teachers to complete

• only is used when a student enters high school

• is when the classroom is organized in a new way to better support all students

• changes to the instructional level, the content, and the performance criteria, but not the subject matter of the rest of the class

Danica, a student with a learning disability (LD), struggles with writing. Her teacher assigns and essay writing project and reminds Danica to use the TREE (Topic sentence, Reason, Explanation, Ending), a mnemonic device students can use to organize their ideas.

• This is an accommodation

• This is an instructional strategy

• This is a modification

Staying with Danica for a moment, while working on her essay Danica's teacher uses a highlighter to help Danica highlight the key information in the research materials she is collecting.

• This is an instructional stategy

• This is a modification

• This is an accommodation

Finally, Danica's teacher shortened her writing assignment so that she is asked to submit a 1 paragraph essay instead of 3 paragraphs.

• This is an modification

• This is an accommodation

• This is an instructional strategy

Moving Tara's seat (Pineda Zapata & Brooks (2017)) to the front of the classroom.

• This is a modification

• This is an instructional strategy

• This is an accommodation

Assigning a reading that is a different version from what the rest of the class is reading.

• This is an instructional strategy

• This is an accommodation

• This is a modification

Having a student listen to the audiobook version of the book being read in class

• This is a modification

• This is an accommodation

• This is an instructional strategy

Providing a student with text-to-speech software for grade-level materials, which allows the text to be read to them.

• This is an accommodation

• This is a modification

• This is an instructional strategy