The special educator in the content area classroom often experiences an ill-defined role, which can translate into marginalization within instructional settings. Indeed, most students with learning disabilities (LD) receive content area instruction from a general education teacher with the support of a special educator. However, the literacy demands of the respective content areas often present content specific challenges for students with language-based disabilities and their teachers. To date, proposed content area literacy interventions have not addressed the specific language-based needs of students with LD. In this article, we highlight the similarities among history, science, English language arts, and mathematics texts from a language perspective, and present strategies specifically targeting students' background knowledge. We also provide recommendations to researchers and practitioners for improving content area learning.

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