As a special educator who works with homeschoolers, developing life skills is a priority for most of my students and families. Life skills are the skills needed to meet one’s needs with increasing independence and live autonomously. Life skills are important for all children not just children with disabilities. Life skills may look different depending on the child, their abilities, needs, interests, and age. I collaborate with parents to embed life skills into academic learni

As a special educator in the United States, public school systems, a big challenge I faced was students who were burnt out with long school days filled with a standard-based curriculum that was unengaging and unsuited to students’ development levels. With a large caseload, I was often unable to curate resources and plan extensively for each individual child. It was a pressure-filled environment that left me feeling stretched thin and frustrated with the lack of authentic joy

Reading comprehension instructional practices in the US public education system emphasize skills needed to master testing standards. Practices include testing interactions before, during, and after teaching. Oftentimes the emphasis on testing and data collection overtakes teaching time. Working with homeschoolers has allowed me to shift toward a child-centered approach to reading comprehension. Child-centered instruction aims to support academic growth while honoring the chil