Everything I Learned...

...As a First Year Special Education Teacher, I Learned Through Acronyms.

With foundations in FAPE and IDEA, I am able to work with students with special needs in classrooms that I do. Everything I learned as a first year teacher in special education, I learned through acronyms.

In my first 10 days I had my first IEP, working with the SLP and OT to ensure the student was in their LRE and can learn utilizing accommodations and modifications. We discussed if a BIP would be needed or if ESY, PT or AT would help. This was all decided after looking at the PLOP and baseline data.

As the year went on, I worked with students with ADHD, AU, DD, SLI and SLD. I learned  how to administer the WJ-R, BASC, KM, WISC and various RS. Presenting this data to SIT team meetings, IEP meetings, and adjusting goals based upon findings.

Almost everything I learned in my first year can be summed up in acronyms. Almost everything, but not all. I learned that I work with a wonderful, supportive staff who cares about students and believe all can succeed. A level of care that cannot be summed up in just a few short letters.

I gave this little speech of sorts at my last mentoring meeting a couple of weeks back. I joked that after my first 10 days I couldn't have said the alphabet correctly after being tongue tied with all of the acronyms. It's hard to think that this school year is almost over. This next week of blogging will probably be pretty reflective. I'm excited for all the things to come, but I'm also excited to have "survived" this first year as well. I hope you all are enjoying your end of the year festivities as well.

In case you were wondering and wanted a key to decipher parts of that spiel.. here is a key:
FAPE- Free and Appropriate Public Education
IDEA- Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
IEP-Individual Education Plan
SLP-Speech Language Pathologist
OT-Occupational Therapist
BIP-Behavior Intervention Plan
ESY-Extended School Year
PT- Physical Therapy
AT- Assistive Technology
PLOP- Present Levels of Performance
AHDH-Attention Deficit Hyperactity Disorder
AU-Autism
DD-Developmentally Delayed
SLI-Speech Language Impariement
SLD-Specific Learning Disability
WJ-R- Woodcock Johnson-Revised
BASC- Behavior Assessment System for Children
KM- Key Math
WISC-Weshler Intelligence Scale for Children
RS-Rating Scales
SIT- Student Improvement Team 

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Student Motivation Saturday: Check-in Check-Out

I'm not sure what it's like in your part of the world, but it finally feels like spring here. Perfect timing too, it was a beautiful 66* watching my alma mater in their spring game performance. It made for a fun afternoon and K-State won so that's always great! :)

A look at the field before kickoff and the stadium renovation. 

This week for Joanne's Student Motivation Saturday, I am sharing an intervention technique I learned through my practicum class: Check-In, Check-Out.

This intervention is best used for off task or non-participation behaviors.

What it is: A system of support that is designed so that students can receive feedback out their behavior throughout the school day. After each subject/period, teachers provide feedback of specific goals on a behavior report card. Progress is graphed and students are reinforced when criterion for that performance is met. Parents may be asked to sign the student's daily progress as a way to increase communication between home and school.

I tweaked this intervention slightly, and had a student rate himself on how he felt he was doing toward behavior goals. This was compared to ratings that I had given him. I wanted to give this particular student a voice. Here is an example of what his self-rating component of this system looked like.

I added an extra line to write in goals as they came up for each individual hour, if there was something specific to work on during those classes. 

For the student I used the intervention with, having a voice was important. Before lunch we would talk about the ratings, see how if there were things that could be changed to make things better, and discuss how the day had gone so far. This was coupled with the game like system I shared a week or two ago, you can read more about that here.

More information on this intervention can be found by clicking here.

If you have a motivating technique be sure to link up!

5

IEP Goal Documentation

I may be a slight control freak. Maybe it's just being a first year teacher still trying to figure things out. Maybe it has to do with wanting to know exactly where my kiddos are at. Anyway, I'm posting my goal documentation sheets that may be slightly overkill, but they have been working for me this year.

I created a simple documentation sheet that has the student's name, IEP date, and a spot to fill in the week. After that a condensed version of the goals are listed. Lastly there is a table that contains the days of the week, the goal numbers, and spots for documentation. The blanks are not big and I don't want to read or write novels for every little thing so this works for me.

I can put the template up on Google Docs maybe or email it if someone would like it... it's just a picture for now.

Is there always something recorded every day, in every category? No, not always. (Especially with students that have more than just 2 goals.)

Do I only record information when the activity completed is what is expressly written in the goal? No. For instance, a student has a math goal and what is being done in class stems from the ability to accomplish what was stated in the goal, I'll usually record that information too.

Do I have a written record stored in binders or folders that help me see where my students are at (particularly the students I only see once a week)? Yes. It's a quick at a glance. I can highlight key information, and this information helps me to make more informed decisions.

I feel that this system works best when I am the one doing the instruction/coteaching in the room. I'm not in every room that my student's are. The paras I work with have inclosed clipboards, sticky notes have worked better than copies of the documentation sheet to jot a quick note about the day's activities, how the student did. These notes are put on to the documentation chart in my room; either quickly jotting down, or sticking them down in the right box on the chart.  I have a para that works for me in the school I'm not able to be at often. Her notes are great, and a wonderful reflection of where the students are at.  Not a perfect system, but workable for me.

I'm not sure that this system would work for all, but it's an idea if anyone is looking for different ways to organize.

4

Stepping Out of my Comfort Zone--Freebie!

Step 1: Create a blog. (check)
Step 2: Create items I use in my classroom. (check)
Step 3: Think about posting items to Teachers Pay Teachers. (check)
Steps 4-9: Worry that what I have won't be useful/creative/that good... just be super anxious.
Step 10: Take a deep breath, step out of my comfort zone, and dive on in.

Seriously though. This TPT venture has been nerve wracking for me. I am in awe of so many teachers out there, even more so since my occasional addiction to reading reading teacher blogs developed. Then there was Pinterest, following more teachers, organizing and pinning so many ideas....what a great experience my first year of teaching has been, and I have so many people to thank. As a way to begin to thank you all and to give back, I finally got the resolve to create and share my own resources. {Can I just say, it's a bit addicting too!}

My first TPT offering is a freebie. Nothing too fun, but useful for me, and I hope some others out there too! One of my kiddos is working on learning all the letters of the alphabet, and as a subset of that, distinguish consonants and vowels. I don't get to work with this kiddo often, and I try to make the most of the time I have to work with him.

I created some warmup/assessment sheets to help me get him into the groove of working {he enjoys showing off his skills} and to use as an assessment to see where he is at on achieving his goals as well.

What You Get in the 23 page packet:
*Title Page
*Lowercase key (left to right)
*6 lowercase pages filled in left to right
*Lowercase key (up and down)
*3 lowercase pages filled in up and down
*Uppercase key (left to right)
*4 uppercase pages filled in left to right
*Uppercase key (up and down)
*3 uppercase pages filled in up and down
*1 blank fill in chart
*Credits

If you think it'd be something you could use, please click on the picture above to download! If it helps you out {or if you notice something is amiss} please let me know! 

Whew, stepping out of my comfort zone wasn't so bad once I finally took the first step. I'm looking forward to creating and sharing more!

0

Social Stories

I recently attended a workshop on Autism. The day was very informative and enjoyable, full of stories about interventions that worked, those that didn't, and various quirks of students that the presenter had run across during her 23 years of working with students with Autism. 

One thing I found particularly interesting was how exactly to write a social story. Not rocket science, but I've been guilty of pinning generic social stories with the intention of using them later with students. Not bad, but not the best I could be doing either. 

Here is some background on creating social stories, then I will share the few simple steps I learned in creating a social story, and a quick sample story that I made during the workshop. 

How Social Stories Work

1. Target a situation or behavior
2. Gather information about the child's perspective of the story
3. Write the story
4. Share the story with the child
5. Identify and support new skills in the story

What Should Be In Social Stories

• Telling where a situation takes place
• Telling when the a situation takes place
• Telling who is involved with the situation
• Telling what is occuring
• Telling why things are occuring

You want to describe everything not just a prescribed to do list. 

Parts of a Social Story

• Descriptive sentences
• defines where a situation occurs, who is involved, what they are doing and why
• Perspective sentences
• describe a person's internal state, their knowledge, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions, or physical condition/health
•  Directive sentences
• define what is expected as a response to a given cue or situation
• avoid I can or I will statements
• use I will try, I will work on, I might try, or I may try
• the child may interpret statements literally so try to minimize presure

*Ratio of Sentences*
0-1 directive(s) to 2-5 descriptive and/or prescriptive sentences

General Guidelines to Consider

• Form clear, specific goal or outcome of the story
•  Tailor the text
• first person, present or future tense
• use WH?s as an outline
• write and illustrate with literal accuracy
• mention variations to situation
• use terms like "usually" and/or "sometimes"
• keep awareness to possible literal interpretation
• write positive
• make abstract terms visual and concrete

• Consider the student's cognitive level, attention span, reading and reading comprehension levels and interests
• helps determines content, format, and style of the story

• Teach with Titles
• try to identify desired outcome of a story
• State as questions, story demonstrates resulting answer

My Example
 *Disclaimer* this is my first social story, wrote in about 5 minutes, may not be the best...

Time for Treats

My name is Aaron*
*Name has been changed
I like my school.
I like my teachers.
Sometimes, we get treats at school. (Picture of cupcakes and candy)
Sometimes, my friends bring birthday treats to celebrate.
Sometimes we earn candy in class. (Picture had a child saying I passed my test)  
Sometimes, we get candy when playing games. (Picture of a student saying Bingo)
I like it when I can have a treat. 
My teachers always let me know when there might be a treat.
There may be times when there may be treats on my teachers desk.   
My teacher will let me know if I can have one.
She may say yes, she may say no, or she may say wait till later. 
I will try to wait to get a treat until my teachers say it's okay.

This story was in mind for a student who has a new habit of taking candy from teacher's desks if any happens to be out and about. I may try to make this into an actual illustrated story and see if it helps to nip this habit in the bud.

Really, the process isn't too bad, hopefully this post helps to inspire a social story or two for all of you. What topics will your stories address? Blurting, listening, giving hugs were a few topics discussed today.   

0

First IEP

I survived my first IEP meeting! I was super nervous, had everyone showed up there would have been 12 "adults" in the room--as it was there were 9 including my boss... I was just a wee bit nervous. In the end, things went really well. I had heard from the past they may not, but there weren't any conflicts or problems. Yay!

This IEP was done in the school that I can only be at once a week. After last week, this meeting, actually strengthened some relationships between myself and other staff in that building. Which was very encouraging after being frustrated with the whole situation before that. 

Well, that's enough for now... I still have those lesson plans and report to do.

Hope your having a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Whitehair

1

I'm Running Around Like a Chicken...

It seems that at the start of every week I am running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. Willy-nilly all over the place. I don't like it. I like have a plan of attack and a course of action. At a new-teacher orientation, the speaker compared first year teaching to being like a duck. Try to remain calm on the outside while your kicking like crazy under the water: just keep kicking you'll make it.

{That will be my last bird reference for the day.}

Anyway, in the midst of trying to figure out where students are at, what the greatest needs are, figuring out how to get them to understand concepts that they will need not only in life but those lovely state tests in the spring there has been a calming presence: the tips, tricks, and advice of those who have been there and done that.

Mondays just aren't good days, they are especially long for me this fall with a grad class that goes from 4:30-7 not including the lengthy drive to get there. I do enjoy my classmates, the professor, and the content....but there is just so much else to do! Yesterday, however, two valuable resources were shared with me, and I'm going to share them with you today. {Hopefully, I haven't been living under a rock, and they are new and useful resources for you as well.}

The first comes from Amy at The Resource(ful) Room. {Amazing blog, check it out.}

 www.interventioncentral.org/

Love, love, love this website! You can create CBM probes on here for.... FREE! I've got plans to spend some time this evening making probes to needed specifications and downloading to print. Part of my job is essentially "managing" another (very small) school; only going in once a week to provide services myself. The rest of the time, the full time para acts in my place. I wanted to create a book of probes for her to pull from that align to the goals of the students on my caseload there. I saw Amy's post on Data Collection and wanted to try and replicate her system, thanks to her willingness to share I will be able to do just that! :)

The second resource comes from my mentor teacher.

http://www.paec.org/itrk3/files/pdfs/readingpdfs/cooltoolsall.pdf 

I had heard of the Florida Center for Reading Research, but I hadn't explored it much yet. Yesterday, my mentor sent me the link to download 117 pages of probing goodness: Cool Tools. These are broken down into specific areas to test/probe/progress monitor. 

So even with Monday being crazy {like every other day at the beginning of the year...or maybe every day of the school year for a new teacher, ha!} It was great to have the waters calm, the chicken dance stop for a bit, and begin to formulate a plan again, and to begin to get back "on track." 

I hope these resources help you as much as they are helping me!

Mrs. Whitehair

 

0

First Few Days...and a freebie!

The first couple of days have been great, and I anticipate the same for tomorrow: our first full day. This week I'm sort of a floater, as the students are staying with their home room for rotations. It's given me a chance to get to know my students and observe them a bit before jumping in next week with co-teaching and my pullout group.

This week I started off by meeting with each of the fifth grade teachers to give them a little background information. I printed the document on bright paper and wrote in the necessary information. I saw something pretty similar to this in one of my classes this last summer, I just added a couple of different categories to it.

Click the picture to be taken to the pdf. If you would prefer the copy from Pages or in Microsoft Word format (to type rather than write in) just email me or leave a comment.

I hope everyone is having a great start to the school year, or enjoying the last bit of summer!

-Mrs. Whitehair

1