Erin Luchterhand |
There are some skills and abilities that most of us take for granted. The ability to identify and correctly use a ½ cup in the kitchen; knowing how to sort your laundry; seeing that the dishes need to be washed and doing them. These are simple skills that many of us naturally pick up over the years. But for the person with an intellectual or developmental disability, these are skills that need to be intentionally larned and practiced. The fun part? As the teacher, I get to celebrate each milestone as it’s reached!
But as a teacher, recognizing that these skills will impact their entire lives, their independence, and their ability to self-care, falls on me. Teaching these skills cannot be one-time lessons. Instead, learning these skills in an applicable way is a process. In my mind, the process goes a bit like this:
- Determine what skill needs to be learned, and to what ability level.
- Identify the student’s current ability level.
- Break down the skill into manageable steps. Determine the step you need to start at with the student. (This is dependent on current skill-set and ability.)
- Once you’ve determined the skill, students ability, and where to begin… decide how to teach this to the student.
In upcoming blogs, we will take a look at ideas and ways to teach specific daily living skills in a REAL (Relational, Experiential, Applicable, Learner-Based) way. Some of the skills we will look at are laundry, basic kitchen measurement, money skills and budgeting. As we look at these skills, there is one teaching tool that I cannot stress enough: repetition. No matter what you teach, repetition, time and practice are invaluable. Students will not learn the skill after one lesson. They need to learn the concept and then practice and learn it with their hands. The more students practice a task, the more proficient they become.
My goal as a teacher: to help my students learn, retain, and apply to their lives. That’s what I love about teaching Daily Living Skills – you can directly see the impact your teaching has on a student’s life. It is a practical class that can directly and immediately impact and benefit your students – what a blessing in a teacher’s life!