WHEN BIG KIDS DONT LEARN - CONTEXTUAL MODIFICATIONS AND INTERVENTION STRATEGIES FOR AGE 8-18 AT-RISK STUDENTS

Some students are neurologically wired to cope with the cognitive, lin guistic and memory demands of classroom communication interactions; ot hers are not. Educators are in a position not only to help these stude nts learn to compensate for deficit areas, but to create learning cont exts in which they and the students help each other monitor the qualit y and content of instructional interactions. This paper: (a) reviews t he subtle but significant warning signs that students show when school language seems like a foreign language; (b) discusses the ways in whi ch educators can engage in 'meta-instruction' to ensure that the class room offers comprehensible input to students; (c) describes instructio nal theories and methodologies to which language specialists (e.g. Eng lish as a second language teachers, speech pathologists) subscribe; an d (d) discusses metaskills that students can learn to facilitate accul turation to school and the language-learning demands therein. Discussi on will be focused on the students in the age range of 8-18 years and personal experiences of the author, who has 'a dyslexic brain', will b e shared as examples of the types of difficulties encountered and copi ng strategies adopted.