Marginalized within the margins: Supporting mathematics meaning making among students with learning disabilities

Students with learning disabilities are often excluded from conversations about high-quality mathematics instruction as well as conversations about equitable mathematics instruction. As such, they may not be provided many opportunities to engage in mathematics with teachers who implement practices that the field of mathematics education would consider “high-quality” or “equitable”. In this paper, we examine how three students with learning differences participate in instruction that demonstrates aspects of high quality and equitable mathematics instruction. Our findings outline practices that appeared to support increased opportunities for students to demonstrate their own reasoning and sense making in mathematics. Contributions of this work include illuminations of specific pedagogical moves that may support students identified as having learning disabilities to engage in more student-centered, conceptually-oriented mathematics.