Mastering a Skill and the Importance of Generalization

Many of us that work with students with special needs have our moment of excitement when we see a student master a skill, but to truly be excited is when we see them using this new skill in other areas of their learning and daily routines at school and home.

To help students maintain a new skill, teachers need to introduce the new skill in other ways along with varying the time of day. For example, if a student learns to master adding currency, have the student practice this skill by role playing a real situation...making purchases so they can practice their new skill.

It is also important to offer variety and to keep data so that you can track students progress.

Here is a FREE Data Collection sheet that I offer at my store that you can label and track your own students' tasks and progression.

If you are interested in a variety of tasks that work well with basic common core standards, life skills, and vocational skills, then I invite you to check out my store. I carry a variety of tasks to meet multiple needs like this one: Grocery Shopping with Coupons

Students learn savings using coupons, finding products to match lists, count out change, etc...

If student has not mastered all the concepts, keep a record using data sheet to record progress with each attempt of the task. This is a great life skill task that parents can reinforce at home to help their child learn shopping, finding prices, etc...

The important thing to remember is to not only teach students to master tasks but to also generalize it in order to maintain what they have learned.