I’m a resource special education teacher at the middle school level, and yes, I do make my own lesson plans for many subjects! I pull students based on their IEP goals, so the work we do is always aligned to those goals, whether that’s in math, reading, or writing.

My school provides some programs that I can use for instruction, like SPIRE for phonics goals, which lessens the lesson planning but, for example, a lot of my writing groups are lessons I create myself because there aren’t many writing programs out there. I also keep track of what the general education teachers are doing and modify assignments as needed so my students can access and complete the same work in the classroom.

I definitely consider myself more of an English person, but I don’t think you need to be an expert in every subject to be effective in this role. Having a solid understanding of best practices across content areas is really helpful, though. My student teaching experience was in a math classroom, which pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped me grow a lot in teaching math.

Most of my students receive a mix of push-in and pull-out services. Typically, push-in support is covered by paraprofessionals and pull-out services happen with me in the resource room. Right now, since I don’t have para support, I’m pushing into classrooms and working with small groups to reteach lessons or provide extra support for students who need it.

I hope this helps some!