This study is designed as a set of four case studies to investigate writing instruction in bilingual special education settings and the compositions
of students with learning disabilities in those settings.
The instructional placement for
students with learning disabilities usually is the general education classroom, with some special education instructional support in the general classroom or in a special education classroom.
Support students with learning disabilities according to their Individualized Education Plans (IEP) via 1:1 and small group instruction using a variety of programs such as Read Naturally and Steck - Vaughn Spelling.
This definition has been actuated in the past by
identifying students with learning disabilities as those children whose learning potential is average or above, as measured by an intelligence test with achievement scores indicating a discrepancy from what expected scores would be in core areas like reading, writing, and mathematics.
The legislation and accompanying regulations have a dual focus: (1) to provide increasingly intensive expert reading instruction to ensure that students having difficulty learning to read are not simply getting too little or too inexpert reading instruction; and (2) to locate students who exhibit difficulties even after receiving intensive reading instruction (Johnston, in press), who will now be identified
as students with learning disabilities.