Essential skills at school

Essential Skills for Struggling Learners is a reference guide. It will tell you about the skills that students need to master before they get to middle school.

Most children and youth with disabilities struggle at learning successfully because they have not mastered the essential skills taught in grades Kindergarten to six.

Use the book as a reference guide to discover where your child or your student is struggling

Essential Skills for Struggling Learners will help you to:

  • Identify the skills that that may be missing or under-developed

  • Make good observations of student performance, and accurately interpret what you see

  • Find the right professionals who can help

  • Monitor progress

Essential Skills at home

Essential Skills for Learning are designed to be taught and learned at school. Sometimes, children and youth are not ready to master Essential skills at school because they are still struggling with challenging behaviors at home.

See the Parents page for resources. Sometimes, it’s important to focus on behaviors at home before focusing on the IEP Builder and the child’s learning at school. The links below can help you support the family.

See IEP for Home

See Understood.org/toolkit