Resource Room Support Services for Regular Teachers

Abstract

In order to assess the delivery of support services from resource room teachers to regular elementary teachers involved in mainstreaming learning disabled students, a list of 26 services was developed from the literature. The Index of Support Services was distributed to 228 regular educators who were asked to rate the importance and frequency of occurrence of each service. The results indicated that regular teachers rated nine support services as critical for effective mainstreaming. However, only two services, remedial instruction in the resource room and informal student progress meetings, were provided with any degree of regularity. Training in consultation skills at the college level and public school administrative support are discussed as means of alleviating the discrepancy between needed and delivered resource room support services.

Perceptions of Classroom Teachers, Principals, and Resource Room Teachers of the Actual and Desired Roles of the Resource Teacher

“…Mainstreaming efforts are based on the premise of cooperation on the part of all involved personnel closest to the actual teaching situation. Within the resource model, the separatist view of education is dysfunctional; the resource room concept accepts a partnership between regular and special educators (Speece & Mandell 1980).…”

Developing a Consulting Program in Special Education: Implementation and Interventions

“…A study by Speece and Mandell ( 1980) found that regular education teachers rated nine support services as critical for effective mainstreaming but that these services were provided infrequently. Among these were: meeting informally to discuss student programs, scheduling meetings to evaluate progress, and providing and suggesting materials for classroom use.…”

Special Education Teacher Consultant: Idealism versus Realism

“…Most of the resource and regular educators and administrators polled agreed that is was an essential service; they felt that it should be provided by special educators employed for the purpose of consultation. Speece and Mandell (1980) reported that the services rated by regular classroom teachers as most important to teaching learning disabled students were not being supplied by the resource room teachers. The primary reasons cited were lack of time and lack of preparation in consulting skills.…”