Poverty is NOT a Learning Disability: Equalizing Opportunities for Low SES Students

This book is designed to improve the education of elementary school children with low school-readiness skills (low SES children) by preventing their misidentification as learning disabled. It is built on the premise that the time and money spent on special education services will be better used if educators focus on the needs of children with low school readiness skills before their deficits become so great that neither intervention nor remediation will work, and before the childrenEs self perceptions are so badly damaged that they quit trying to succeed and accept failure.Poverty Is NOT a Learning Disability challenges educators and parents to consider how low expectationsA'a odeficit perceptionoA'can affect a child’s achievement and stresses optimism as a central tenet of elementary schoolsE day-to-day teaching/learning programs and school-community relationships. The authors emphasize that an attitude of optimism is strongly connected to hope for the future and crucial to providing children with a positive vision of what they can accomplish. This resource also covers how to build trusting relationships throughout the school community, among teachers, administrators, the school staff, and parents.aChildren inevitably endeavor to fit the words, actions, and deeds of those around them into narratives of their own. The authors conveyahow vitally important it is foramembers of the education community to work togetherato ensure that youngstersareceive a view of the future that inspires hope and validates the potential of each child.