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Addressing Learning Disorders through Mixed-Age Classrooms

Learning Disabilities (LD), or Learning Disorders, comprises a wide array of problems that children face in the classroom with reference to their learning effectiveness. It is typically not a problem with intellect as much as an inability to read. Dyslexia, the most common LD around the world, translates to ‘difficulty with words’ and aptly summarizes the major challenge that students with learning disabilities face.

In classrooms around the world, the complexity associated with the disability in learning, considering its individualized presentation, diagnosis and intervention, is complicated by teacher unawareness, poor use of assessment and evaluation tools for students with LD, and late identification of the severity of the disability. The severity of Learning Disabilities is also compounded by environmental, cultural, and economic disadvantages of the children affected, putting them in a much slower track to learning that they would normally be.

What is interesting to note and remember for every teacher, practitioner is that LD presents as a unique disability, where every child would have a different LD from another. While one student may struggle with reading and writing, another may be great in writing and spelling, but might struggle in Math. Another child with LD might have a completely different representation, where she would write and communicate brilliantly, but would never understand any oral instruction given or conversation between students in the classroom. Because of these wide variations and presentations, there is no one common diagnostic test to evaluate a child for LD.

The most unique aspect of the symptoms and the related intervention skills required for treating LD is that it can very easily lead to low self-esteem, isolation and behavioral problems, simply because of the lack of a proper support system. And despite popular opinion, Learning Disability is not just a problem of the developed countries.

The Indian Diaspora of Learning Disabilities

Quoting Cook L, et al (2001), “We know that high quality classroom instruction is a way to meet many of the education needs of individuals with learning difficulties”. India is placed at a unique cusp of learning difficulties when compared to various developing countries around the world because of the multi-lingual backgrounds that most of its students come from. Learning Disabilities, specifically Specific Language Disabilities are compounded in an Indian scenario purely based on our language backgrounds. Even children with mild to moderate difficulty in processing languages will in turn have a major difficulty in learning and achieving in the classroom.

An additional challenge that most Indian schools face with respected to any effective teaching, but specifically teaching those with LD, is overcrowding in the classrooms. Individualization of teaching-learning, multi-sensory approach to learning and experiential learning have purely been buzz words in the Indian context, with very little implementation successes because of large number of students in the classroom, exam-driven instruction and humungous curriculum loads.

Major Challenges in the Current Implementation Methods

The biggest challenge with any implementation strategy designed to address the education of those with learning disabilities is the social aspect of schooling. Samuel T. Orton, MD, (International Dyslexia Association), was one of the first researchers in the field of Learning Disabilities who diagnosed the emotional ill-effects of LD, like dyslexia. His studies report that most students, preschoolers, who were later diagnosed with LD started off as regular, happy and well-adjusted children. It was only when basic reading, writing and mathematics were introduced that emotional problems crept in and a number of them reported frustration and stress that complicated their otherwise minor disabilities.

So, any implementation method designed should ensure that no child is branded as ‘stupid’ or even ‘slow learner’. While the lack of widespread knowledge and awareness in the society about learning disabilities acts as a positive factor in removing any social stigma attached to the disability, the social taboo related to the effects of the disability persist. Children are still discriminated due to the resultant behavioral issues, slow reading, or difference in learning styles, and this has resulted in more exclusion than the reverse.

Experts agree that innovative methods in the classroom, along with capacity building of trained personnel is very critical to ensure that those students with Learning Disabilities are included into the education system.

Multi-Age Classrooms or Vertical Classrooms

Mixed-Age Groups (MAG), Multi-Age Groups, Vertical Classrooms, Vertical Tutoring, or Multi-Age Classrooms are cropping up in various aspects in classroom across the world, and specifically in India. Unlike a traditional class, where students are grouped together based on their age, and hence their date of birth, in a MAG, students from a few comparable age brackets are grouped together, so that each class forms a heterogeneous group of similar ages. It is one of the ways of organizing a classroom that is keenly adopted by a number of schools aligned to the alternate teaching philosophies, like The Dalton Schools, Waldorf Education Systems, The Krishnamurti Foundation India.

In a multi-age classroom, all students, teachers, and the parents, consciously acknowledge each other’s individual differences, work on activities independently in a range of groupings i.e. pairs, small groups, whole group, and explore a wide variety of modes for learning instead of simply concentrating on the content. For a teacher, a MAG class teaching means that there is a change in mindset from looking at content as age or year-appropriate, and instead as ‘learning phases’ appropriate. Children who are 8, 9 and 10 years old could all be Basic Reading, or doing Mathematics, at the same phase of learning, in a MAG. It becomes important, then, for the teacher, to be able to cater to these students as a group, as opposed to their varying ages.

Mixed-Age Groups for Learning Difficulties

Traditionally, when the MAG were experimented in classrooms in the United States of America and in Europe, the key benefits foreseen were to individualize instruction to the learning levels of the child, and switch the role of the teacher from a lecturer or key driver, to that of a fellow-learner or co-learner. MAG have consistently shown more holistic curriculum practices for the students, allowing teachers to build a strong relationship with each student over a period of more than one year, thus ensuring that the teacher is extremely cognizant of the children’s diverse learning styles and experiences.

Recognizing children as active drivers of their own learning, identifying learning methods and modes that work for them are teaching philosophies from a MAG that can benefit heavily in a traditional classroom with students with learning disorders. Students with learning disorders typically learn at a much slower pace than other students, and often demonstrate cognitive defects in areas like perception, attention, memory, etc. By placing students without LD, and with the same learning level, in the same group as students with LD, those with LD have a positive role model to aspire to, and identify learning methods from these students through close proximity. In fact, even students without LD benefit heavily from these groups, rising to the expectations of taking care of another student without the same learning abilities as themselves. They are invariably great assistance to the teacher, acting as individualized support systems to each student with LD, something that a teacher might not be able to guarantee. They improve on their levels of sensitivity, and become responsible, attributes that they are able to use through their lives.