You Don’t Have to Choose

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You Don’t Have to Choose

  • February 26, 2020
  • Posted by: Caitlin McCallum
  • Category: Wow Story
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LSEM has been around for a long time. Nearly 150 years. During this time, LSEM has grown, shifted, and evolved in order to serve God’s children. But the one thing that has not changed is that we believe that no child should have to sacrifice a Christian education in order to receive the special education they need.

We see a prime example of this at Our Savior Lutheran School in Lansing, MI. Cristel Shephed and Nancy Filter work together for LSEM supporting a new fifth-grade student whom has a diagnosis of Downs Syndrome. She is the first student with a severe cognitive impairment who has been enrolled at Our Savior. Without an LSEM program, this child would not have been able to attend Our Savior and be educated in a Christian environment where she is surrounded by God’s love and God’s Word every day.

Cristel and Nancy work hard to make sure that the LSEM program there has all of the supports that a student with severe cognitive disabilities requires. They implemented a visual schedule, visual timer, visual positive behavior chart, and have adapted workbooks for various subjects.

Moreover, LSEM has also provided “Unique Learning Curriculum” – a program designed for students with severe impairments. We currently utilize pair-it books, Journeys, Lexia, and other resources for her language arts instruction. This student can read at a third-grade level, but struggles in the area of comprehension. To support her in this area we are focusing on sequencing events from a text and identifying character and the setting. We are also working on her spelling words. For this we use mutli-sensory instructional strategies. For example, visual cards, sky writing (writing the words in the air), rainbow writing (writing the words in color), writing on canvas, use of scented crayons, and sand trays.

Seeing this child receive the academic support she needs to be successful and continue to receive a Christian education is incredible. THIS is why we do what we do. Wow.