If the question is – “Would you rather your child be in a classroom with her peers or learn to read?” What’s your answer?

This isn’t an all or nothing question, and I’m certainly not suggesting denying a child access to grade-level content. But who is to say the only way you can get that content is in the general education classroom? And if a child with a learning disability in a fundamental academic area – such as reading – is neither fully getting access to content by the nature of their disability, nor receiving the amount of intervention needed to build that skill, what then?

We are now in an era where many schools endorse and embrace the goal of full inclusion for students with disabilities. And undoubtedly, inclusion is key to obtaining educational and social equity.

Unfortunately, inclusion is often falsely translated to mean the “place” where teaching and learning occurs, stemming from the ideological belief all students should be educated in the general education classroom—that instruction provided outside of this setting is akin to segregation. While general education can and should be strengthened to better meet the needs of all students, for many students these practices alone are not enough.

That’s taken from a 2015 editorial blog by Jessica Toste for the Huffington Post, and although a little ripe, I think it’s one that shouldn’t be missed.

The sooner a struggling reader receives the intensive intervention to close the achievement gap toward grade-level benchmarks, the more of an impact it will have on that student’s entire educational career – including future access to content.

One should not misinterpret the demand for specialized instruction as dismissive of the critical importance of inclusive schooling. Nor should one assume that the time spent receiving this instruction will diminish students’ access to core curriculum; on the contrary, several hours of explicit, intensive instruction each week may mean that a student is attaining foundational skills (such as reading text) that not only make it more likely to benefit from the core curriculum, but also provides a greater chance for long-term school success.

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Photo credit: Flickr, The Read Cloud2013