I have new home for the coming year. No more looking. I'll post pictures of my room later this week. The Pinterest links that I have are things that I plan on using with my kidoos.

Somethings I kee going back and forth on like with student data-should it be binders or folders. These are the things that I keep thinking about while pinning.








This is the data folder set-up that I used last year. It worked great-student were able to keep their data and track their progress with it. I could take the folders to meetings, show to parents. rock a principle's world. The pain/difficult part with adding pages, so that new pages were in the same place. But students loved having their RTI or personalized materials in the front. I never once found those materials anywhere but where I out them. I also color coded them--making each group have their own color. FYI: cutting duct tape with kill a pair of scissors.



 The point of data folders is having student friendly graphs. Last year, I used both my own and found something that would work. One thing I want to do this school year, is do a better job of tracking which ones work. Depending on what data you need to keep track of-these ladies may have it. Plus, they have Common Core grade level tracking sheets that are a plus to have.








My new position is K-3. I have not ID about needs and hours but I don know from working the kinder and first is finding good assessments that can be used all year is hard. This set is free. Amber Monroe explains in her post how she creates data folders in her first grade classroom.











The Pinterest Picks for this month have freebie items attached to them-make sure to grab them. Be sure to stop by Teachers pay Teachers for a great sale. My store will you any extra 20% off anything in my store.

Have a great week!

• May I please have more information?
• May I have some more time to think?
• Would you please repeat the question?
• Where can I find more information about that?
• May I ask a friend to help?
• Would you please give me another example?
• Where can I find that answer?
• Would you please show me another way to solve the problem?
• Would you please clarify that?

Its that time of year--after Spring Break when the last minute chaos and drive to get any stuck in your RTI process out and identified for Special Education before the year ends. I know my team, tries to have a short short list before going to break. Even if we have surprises, then we have time to get to everyone.

I have a couple of resources to share. These have helped my team make sure the information we need is in place before moving to a referral.

I know with all the students and interventions going on, sometimes I get lost as to where students are in the process. This flow map helps keep me on track.

Something else that has been a great help for our whole Problem Solve Team, are all these forms. Here you will find everything from parent letters to invite them to meetings, data collection forms and checklists for just about everything. It is totally editable. So you can make it work for your own team. (Make sure to download from Scridb a docx. If you have problems downloading it as a document, email me and I'll send you a copy.)

Don't let the end of the year chaos sneak up on your team. Have a great week!!

 It's that time of year, when the kid talks and problem solving teams start getting together. This year, my team started last month. It was not as bad as I imagined--it always helps when teachers come to these meetings ready to talk and with current, relevant data in hand. This is a challenge when in between benchmarks.  My team gets together for kid talks (the first step) every four weeks with follow up every six.

Today, was an early release day. On these days, the Intervention Team doesn't meet with groups but with teachers to talk about any concerns they have about students. One common theme from today's meeting was setting meaningful, attainable, but growth producing SMART goals. I was surprised that of the teachers I talked with today, setting these types of goals was very foreign to them.

In the past we have done SMART goals but I think it was the fact the goals had to have real teeth and challenging but reachable as well. This is a balance that even after ten year of writing IEP goals, I struggle with. I wish someone had taken the time way back then to teach me how to do it without needing tons of time to get it done.

So, how do you set short term meaningful and attainable goals that also growth producing. Very carefully. The key is to compare apples to apples and not apples to oranges. For example: if looking at reading fluency then the goal needs to include comparing the student to their same grade level peers. Take a third grade student whose DIBELS grade level oral reading fluency is well below benchmark then the student needs a goal at grade level comparing them to their grade level peers.

Why??? Is this how you begin to make a case that the student may need to be looked at for special education.

With that grade level information you can now create a SMART goal that has punch. As a general rule of thumb, I like setting mine in 4 week blocks and then create a new goal.

In most cases, I set fluency goals with a 2 more words a week growth. When I set the next goal, I may not use the same number--I usually increase the number. All of the students that I progress monitor for fluency works, I do so at grade level. Over the years, I have been told not too that I should progress monitor off level but then I not no idea if what I was doing was working. These days its standard practice.

I wish classroom teachers would understand its okay if they don't make it--it helps build a body of evidence. In my state that means that the things teachers do and the data they collect is way, way more important than what happens after talking about special education.

This coming year, my new mate is split between two schools half time. Question: How do you share RTI information with team members who spend half of their day in another building? Answer: With a Google Site.
As I have shared earlier, I want my team to have there own chart with just the identified students and maybe the tiered students within those groups to track growth. Just like our general education teachers have for all their students.

It's hard to believe that school will be starting soon. I spent my morning unpacking my room. I'll share pictures of my new way to store my iPads later this week.  Have a great week. If your traveling--safe travels.

 Data is a way of life in special education. It tells a unique story. It can be one of glows or one of grows. Several years ago, my building moved to using the three colored pocket charts (below) so classroom teachers could visual see where their class was using specific data points.

The data used varies depending on the grade. For primary (1-3): DIBELS, End of the Year DRA, BEAR (reading comprehension); Kindergarten: DIBELS; Intermediate (4-6): End of the Year DRA and Acuity Form C. These data points change around mid-year 3-6: for 3rd CSAP Reading/Writing and Form A Acuity; 4-6: Previous years CSAP Reading/Writing and Form A Acuity. As the year progresses, teachers up date the cards with progress monitoring data and Acuity data as it becomes available. The intervention team meets with teachers every 6 weeks and students are moved based on the progress monitoring. Up or Down--the point and hope is that classroom teachers are responsibility of the vast majority of this not the intervention team. This has helped move students through RTI and out of RTI.

The Special Education team doesn't have one for just the identified students and those within their groups. We have created informal ones to help with making sure that the most intensive students (i.e., that spend 3 plus hours out of the classroom a day) are making progress but not formal. One of my hopes for the coming year (with a new team mate) is to have 3 charts. Why 3? I think the team needs to directly monitor reading, writing, and math. Students create date for all three why not use it. Many identified students have goals in more than reading. The team can also see who is not making progress before meeting and make changes to IEPs so the student gets back on track.

The colors would stay the same but have additional meaning. Red would be our most intensive students. Those that are more than 3 years behind, made no progress the year before, and spend most of their day outside of the classroom. Yellow: made 6 months of growth the year before, between two and three years behind and seen for only one subject. Green: made a year or more growth the year before, less than two years behind, and seen for only one subject or at grade level (think artic only kidoos). This could be used to track all students in that group--the RTI students as well.

This move would hold the team accountable plus classroom teachers can see is students are making more specific gains. They have the big picture on their own charts but really have no clue if they are really making gains at the end of the day. I think with the addition of SMART goals on ours, we can hold the team to progress monitoring and student growth. Since, as a building we are not great at getting together every 6 weeks to make changes this would at least provide a conversation starter with classroom teachers about what they are seeing and move students out of intervention groups faster (instead of having them for the whole year).

Students are moved on the classroom charts twice a year. Once at mid-year and after Spring Break. We don't move them offend enough. In creating one for intervention groups, the intervention team can move students at the end of each SMART goal. I have created cards (editable) that allow me to change the color of the card depending on the outcome of the SMART Goal. Having this data visible makes it easy for anyone to walk in and see what is going on during interventions and if its working or not.

My students love, love knowing where they are at and set many of their on goals. They would love this as they could see where they are--the cards would have to be turned around to show just names and not the data. My know that their data belongs to only them and no one else. (They know I share with teachers and parents but no other students.)

I'm sure there are many other ways to track students in the RTI process to ensure that they are making gains, I'd love to hear about them. I have attached freebies to help you to use this thinking. Have a great weekend and if your traveling "Safe Travels."

In an earlier post, I mentioned that this past year I started reading Robert Marzano's The Art and Science of Teaching. This book whispered to me. Many of his topics overlap with my districts new teacher rubric. One important idea being students knowing "how they know when they got it." I love the idea of having students using rubrics to assess themselves before, during and after their learning of a specific standard. This past year I use a Gradual Release Rubric but I found this year that it worked best for my older students.

I am not data obsessed, (well only sort of). But this year, I feel like I need to take a step back from my environment and instead focus on my instruction and my student's learning a bit more.

In many of my posts, I emphasize the importance of "learning targets" and how to use them as a formative assessment. Learning targets are important for ALL of your students because it tells them where they are headed during the lesson and where you want them to land. It tells our students what they are to learn, how to deeply learn it, and how to demonstrate their new learning. (Think of it like a treasure map--it tells students where to find the treasure.)

Learning goals are really pretty easy to make-I make mine from our district curriculum or extended evidence outcomes from Colorado's state standards (EEOs). EEOs I use for student who are functioning significantly below grade level standards.

With my instruction I first communicate the lesson learning goals to your students, plan a guided learning activity that takes place in the classroom, and then plan for assignments that are engaged learning experiences.

I use Backwards Planning to plan all my lessons, so formative assessments get planned while I'm writing outcomes and learning targets. With these formative assessments comes Marzano's rubrics. By using a scale the teacher and the students have a clear direction about instructional targets as well as descriptions of levels of understanding and performance for those targets.

I plan to start my year off slowly and remind my students how they will use these rubrics. I plan to align each rubric with each lesson and students will score themselves at the end of the each lesson. I will also rate them at the end of each lesson and justify why they rated themselves at that level. This will allow me to track their levels of understanding through the unit and help them to see why they are or are not at that level. This should help limit wildly inaccurate scores in a short time. I hope to see them internalize the rubric over the year and become are accurate with their own placement and justification.

It is most definitely a gradual release of responsibility! With these posters, as well as more student directed data tracking, I feel like my students will be more in control of their own learning and growth. I also think that this is something that my kindergarten students will be able to take on for the first time EVER. These will soon be posted in my TpT store as part of my new data binder. I'll have more to share. Have a great week.

I'm a firm believer that if you make students responsible for their own data, they will challenge themselves they will work harder and smarter than with me just telling what their goal needs to be. Over the last year, I've shared a number of pieces that I put in my students data notebooks to own and keep track of their data.

The piece I want to share today, I believe is the one that helps students be smarter about the goals they set. It's a reflection sheet. Just as teachers need to reflect on their own practices and student data--students need to do the same thing. I'm always asked, "How do you get students to make reasonable goals?" I always tell them "You don't." I guide my students. I tell them where they are and where they need to be be. (On some of the graphs I do put what the grade level goal is.) At first my student make wild goals and don't make it. But even in the failure--I find a success and celebrate. No matter what it is--I find something that we can celebrate. Those failures help them set smarter goals as the year progresses. Before too long the goals students set begin to make more sense but they own it.

Once the end of the four week cycle comes to an end and I've talked to all the students in the group. I hand out the reflection sheet. I tend to work through it as a group. I provide them with ideas about things that they could have done or those things that went well. After they have reflected on what they did. Students then create a new goal. Having them reflect on what they did, gets them to be smarter about what they did the last time. It's also a great way to see what strategies they are using and which ones students need more direct practice with. Does anyone you some kind of student reflection tool?

During flex testing students in grades Kindergarten through Second grade were given the DIBELS. That data was used to determine which students would need extra support during the first part of the school year. That information will be discussed during Parent-Teacher Conferences in October. If you have specific questions about your child's DIBELS scores, how they scored, and if they needed extra support please contact me or your child's homeroom teacher. The document below explains DIBELS and can help answer your questions.
What is Dibels?

Parents-
Boomerang Folders will come home with data on Monday instead of Friday. I also wish to clarify that spelling lists are practiced for two weeks before there is a test. These are words that students are learning to read and write in class during interventions.