When you teach a child with a learning disability, your patience may be your greatest asset. Depending on the specifics of a child's disability, you may need to adjust your teaching strategies and methods to match the needs of the child. Learn what you can about a child's learning disability, then educate yourself about the right ways to teach so that the child can learn more effectively from you.
Step 1
Talk to the child's parents and read through the child's Individualized Education Program to fully understand the terms and conditions of his learning difficulties. Any number of learning disabilities can affect the way a child learns, whether it's developmental delays, autism or dyslexia. Learn all that you can about the condition so you know how to specifically teach to the learning disability instead of trying to work around the disability.
Step 2
Focus on a child's strengths instead of worrying about his weaknesses, suggests the Learning Disabilities Association of America. While a child may have trouble reading, he might be a math whiz. By praising a child for his strengths and working with him on those subjects he finds difficult, he'll find the confidence to try new subjects and attempt to improve.
Step 3
Treat a child with learning disabilities the same as you do other children her age. Treating a child with learning disabilities differently in front of her classmates could embarrass her or make her the subject of ridicule and bullying. Encouraging parents to hire a tutor for private sessions a few hours each week can help the child learn better study and organizational skills to help her compensate in the classroom and blend in better with her peers, suggests KidsHealth.org, a division of the Nemours Foundation.
Step 4
Adjust your teaching strategies to a child's individual disabilities. The National Center for Learning Disabilities notes that children with learning disabilities are just as smart as their peers, they only process information differently. By studying the child's Individualized Education Program that came with his diagnosis, you can understand his needs in a learning environment and adjust your teaching skills in the classroom to address his disabilities.
Step 5
If you are a teacher, keep the lines between yourself and a child's guardians open. Parents can become partners in a child's success. If a child with learning disabilities needs extra practice and schooling at home, parents can help offer extra instruction. Parents or guardians can also keep you informed of a child's progress, which teaching methods work, and which aren't as effective.
