Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice.

History education; Textbooks; Teaching methods; Effective teaching; Education of children with learning disabilities; Education of people with learning disabilities; Lesson planning

The article discusses challenges in teaching history to students with learning disabilities out of history textbooks and ways to address these problems when designing content area lessons. Considerate text, or text that presents information in an easily accessible and understandable manner, contains the attributes of structure, coherence, and audience appropriateness. Explicit instruction is critical in helping students learn strategies to understand the text and is comprised of metacognition, scaffolded instruction, and thinking aloud. Vocabulary instruction is also crucial in teaching history.