OCEANSIDE - Sixth-graders at Roosevelt Middle School will have a chance this week to gain some understanding about living with a disability by walking in somebody else's shoes and using someone's wheelchair.

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During a four-day ability awareness fair at the Oceanside campus, roughly 450 students will visit a dozen different stations in the school's auditorium, each of which represents a different disability. The event began Wednesday.

Students are attending the fair one class at a time during their regular physical education period and learning firsthand about living with dyslexia, speech impediments, vision problems and using a wheelchair.

Kathleen Thomas, who teaches severely handicapped children, came up with the idea for the event last year.

The theme this year is "shifting the focus," Thomas said, encouraging students to focus on what students with handicaps are able to do rather than their limitations.

"It just fosters more understanding," said Judy McAdary, another teacher at the school who helped organize the event this year. "A lot of kids with learning disabilities are as smart as if not smarter than the average bear."

A combination of students from special and regular education classes volunteered to operate each of the stations lining the walls of the auditorium.

Pricilla Suarez, a sixth-grader working at the station about blindness, said she enjoyed the experience.

"I wanted to be a part of this to show people how other people can't see and do stuff like regular people can," she said.

The lessons encourage people not to make fun of others for their differences, student Jennifer Morales said as she finished a wheelchair obstacle course.

Living with a disability is "not really as easy as you think," she said.

Students from Vista High School's sign language class also volunteered their time to teach students about the language and sign a song for them.

Thomas said she would like to eventually expand the activities to include parents and all of the students at the sixth- through eighth-grade school in northeastern Oceanside.

Roosevelt Middle School is part of Vista Unified School District, which encompasses all of Vista, some surrounding unincorporated areas and parts of eastern Oceanside.

Principal Raif Henry said he was pleased to see how seriously students at the school have taken the ability awareness fair, and he expects to make the awareness fair an annual event at the school.

"It definitely accomplishes its goal," he said. "Our regular education kids get to see the challenges that these special education kids face every day."

- Contact staff writer Stacy Brandt at (760) 631-6622 or sbrandt@nctimes.com.