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• Instructional explicitness
• Instructional design that eases the learning challenge
• A strong conceptual basis for procedures that are taught
• An emphasis on drill and practice
• Cumulative review as part of drill and practice
• Motivators to help students regulate their attention and behavior and to work hard

• The Illustrative Mathematics Project connects mathematical tasks to each of the standards. Bill McCallum, a lead writer of the Common Core State Standards, helped create the site to show the range and types of mathematical work the standards are designed to foster in students.
• The Arizona Academic Content Standards contain explanations and examples for each of the standards created by teachers with the help of Bill McCallum a lead writer of the Common Core State Standards.
• Achieve the Core is the website for the organization Student Achievement Partners (SAP) founded by David Coleman and Jason Zimba, two of the lead writers of the Common Core State Standards. The website shares free, open-source resources to support Common Core implementation at the classroom, district, and state level. The steal these tools link includes information on the key instructional shifts for math and guidance for focusing math instruction.

• The Model Content Frameworks from Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) were developed through a state-led process of content experts in PARCC member states and members of the Common Core State Standards writing team. The Model Content Frameworks are designed help curriculum developers and teachers as they work to implement the standards in their states and districts.
• The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) has released a new Practice Guide: Teaching Math to Young Children. From naming shapes to counting, many children show an interest in math before they enter a classroom. Teachers can build on this curiosity with five recommendations from the WWC in this practice guide. The guide is geared toward teachers, administrators, and other educators who want to build a strong foundation for later math learning.

• What Works Clearinghouse released a practice guide, Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Response to Intervention (RtI) for Elementary and Middle Schools. In addition, Doing What Works has developed professional development resources associated with the practice guide for Response to Intervention in Elementary-Middle Math.
• The Colorado English Language Proficiency Standards provide educators with an invaluable resource for working with not only English Language Learners in mathematics but developing mathematical language in all students. The Can Do descriptors are particularly helpful entry point to the standards.
• Open source Mathematics materials for English Language Learners, released by Understanding Language, were developed using research-based principles for designing mathematics instructional materials and tasks from two publicly accessible curriculum projects, Inside Mathematics and the Mathematics Assessment Project. Each lesson supports students in learning to communicate about a mathematical problem they have solved, to read and understand word problems, or to incorporate mathematical vocabulary in a problem solving activity.

Today, I'm linking up with Ashley from Ashley's Brainy Centers for a Back to School Giveaway.

My top 10 must dos for each back-to-school tips I do to emphasize communication, organization, and a focus on student success.

1. Organize all that paperwork
Special educators handle lots of paperwork and documentation throughout the year. Try to set up two separate folders or binders for each child on your case load: one for keeping track of student work and assessment data and the other for keeping track of all other special education documentation.

2. Start a communication log
Keeping track of all phone calls, e-mails, notes home, meetings, and conferences is important. Create a "communication log" for yourself in a notebook that is easily accessible. Be sure to note the dates, times, and nature of the communications you have.

3. Review your students' IEPs
The IEP is the cornerstone of every child's educational program, so it's important that you have a clear understanding of each IEP you're responsible for. Make sure all IEPs are in compliance (e.g., all signatures are there and dates are aligned). Note any upcoming IEP meetings, reevaluations, or other key dates, and mark your calendar now. Most importantly, get a feel for where your students are and what they need by carefully reviewing the present levels of performance, services, and modifications in the IEP.

4. Establish a daily schedule for you and your students
Whether you're a resource teacher or self-contained teacher, it's important to establish your daily schedule. Be sure to consider the service hours required for each of your students, any related services, and co-teaching. Check your schedule against the IEPs to make sure that all services are met. And keep in mind that this schedule will most likely change during the year!

5. Call your students' families
Take the time to introduce yourself with a brief phone call before school starts. You'll be working with these students and their families for at least the next school year, and a simple "hello" from their future teacher can ease some of the back-to-school jitters!

6. Touch base with related service providers
It's important to contact the related service providers — occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech/language therapists, or counselors — in your school as soon as possible to establish a schedule of times for your students who need these services. The earlier you touch base, the more likely you'll be able to find times that work for everyone.

7. Meet with your general education co-teachers
Communicating with your general education co-teachers will be important throughout the year, so get a head start on establishing this important relationship now! Share all of the information you can about schedules, students, and IEP services so that you're ready to start the year.

8. Keep everyone informed
All additional school staff such as assistants and specialists who will be working with your students need to be aware of their needs and their IEPs before school starts. Organize a way to keep track of who has read through the IEPs, and be sure to update your colleagues if the IEPs change during the school year.

9. Plan your B.O.Y. assessments
As soon as school starts, teachers start conducting their beginning of the year (B.O.Y.) assessments. Assessment data is used to update IEPs — and to shape your instruction — so it's important to keep track of which students need which assessments. Get started by making a checklist of student names, required assessments, and a space for scores. This will help you stay organized and keep track of data once testing begins.

10. Start and stay positive
As a special educator, you'll have lots of responsibilities this year, and it may seem overwhelming at times. If your focus is on the needs of your students and their success, you'll stay motivated and find ways to make everything happen. Being positive, flexible, and organized from the start will help you and your students have a successful year.

Ashley from Ashley's Brainy Centers  Back to School Giveaway is live for 24 hours--be sure to get in on the fun and get a $5.00 Teacher pay Teacher Store credit from me and others.

Until next time--

I'm linking up with Forever in 5th grade for June's Show and Tell to give you a peak into my classroom and summer planning. I've been very fortunate my school district provides summer professional development. In this case it aligns with our rubric--this is nice as I've been thinking of ways to provide more voice and choice within their time with me but still make a year or more growth on their IEP goals. This idea is great but I need to find some way to put it into action.
This idea of students given the opportunity of choice and voice has to be built in. Choice is a huge part of the teacher rubric. I started playing with this idea in May.  This is version three (i think) But it gives choice within how they provide answers to the big essential question. Nor does it provide me with any data to show growth on IEP goals. This is a problem.

Each pathway has the 4Cs (communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity) and a blank for a World Class Outcome (example-create meaning strategically) but I thinking instead of the WCO, it needs to be "Must Do's." Here I could list the the weekly IEP goal monitoring or items I need a student to complete before the end of the week




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Showing IEP growth with voice and choice, I think will have to be done with student data binders. With students choosing which IEP goal they want to focus on, they will have to collect the data to match that goal. In looking at my current version students can choose: subject and they will show growth/mastery of the World Class Outcome (example-create meaning strategically) through a 4C (communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity). this idea should already be tied to IEP goals but not always plus there is some rubric scoring that gets done as well. I use Marizono's and have students self score but this idea only touches the tip of the iceberg. I would like to also self score for things like fluency and using comprehension strategies too. My district has rubrics I need to use that are embedded with the 4Cs. (Its not as much work as it seems but yes I'm working on streamlining it to be less and still get everything collected on a weekly basis.)



















Creating "I can" statements for IEP goals. In many ways its interesting that my students have similar goals in reading, writing, and math--each with its own twist but basically the same. This will make it easy for me to create "I can" on labels so I don't have to write then and the students don't have to write then. My hope over time as they take ownership of these goals they have an active voice on what their new IEP goals should be. (This is a wild and very new idea for teachers and parents to grasp.)







I'm thinking student data binders will lead to both student graphing and goal tracking and a working portfolio students can use for IEP meetings. This is a new idea that has not been used before. This idea gives students a huge voice in what they have been doing and what directions they want to take their IEPs in.

I like the idea behind each student having a binder. I have done that in the past but I have not done the personalize learning plan tie that to an IEP and then in turn to IEP meetings. WOW!! That's a lot but I think in small groups students will make it their own and that in turn students will make more than a years growth. I see an action research project coming in the near future. Stay turned more details to come.

Characteristics of Oral Expression

• Difficulty with the grammatical processes of inflection, marking categories like person, tense, and case (e.g., the –s in jumps marks the third‐person singular in the present tense), and derivation, the formation of new words from existing words (e.g. acceptable from accept)
• Learning vocabulary
• Difficulty formulating complete, semantically and grammatically correct sentences either spoken or written
• Difficulty explaining word associations, antonyms/synonyms
• Difficulty with retelling, making inferences, and predictions

Definition and Implications of Listening Comprehension

• Children experiencing listening comprehension difficulties may exhibit the following:
• Difficulty with following directions for seatwork and projects
• Difficulty remembering homework assignments
• Difficulty with understanding oral narratives and text
• Difficulty answering questions about the content of the information given
• Difficulty with critical thinking to arrive at logical answers
• Difficulty with word associations, antonyms/synonyms, categorizing, and classifying
• Difficulty with note‐taking or dictation  

The speech‐language pathologist can provide both direct and consultative services in collaboration with the classroom teachers, resource teachers and interventionists in developing intervention strategies that will include explicit skills‐training in the areas of oral expression and/or listening comprehension as key to some students’ access to the curriculum.

Over the years I have made my fair share of Social Stories. Each one specific to that student and their need. They are very helpful for staying on task and ensuring that the student is prepared for future events and activities and behavior challenges.

• Reinforce or teach abstract concepts, such as time (e.g., next, later), actions, and prepositions (e.g., open, put in,)
• Break down multi-step tasks into smaller, more manageable parts.
• Increase your child’s independence by improving his ability to complete parts of his routine with less help or prompting.

Making Social Stories can be time consuming, I have some suggestions for to make effective social stories to help you out.

Software and Apps

1. Pogo Boards
Pogo Boards is a full-featured, robust, web-based, solution for creating boards, Features include: Speech output with 42 different, high quality, text-to-speech voices. Access to millions of images through an intuitive, integrated Google image search, plus thousands of unique, custom symbols with SymbolStix© and the new PiCS© symbol system. Pogo Boards also gives you the ability to share boards online either within your own private community or the global community of all users.

Price: Starts at $9.95 a month or $69.95 a year.

2. Picto Selector is a Windows application written for easy selection and printing of pictos.  After downloading and installing the software you can start creating pictosheets. You can insert your own pictures into a pictosheet or choose from over 24,000 pictures and symbols. Once you are finished you can save it as a pdf and print out a copy to use.


3. ConnectABILITY
ConnectAbility offers a visuals engine that is great for creating a quick social story on the fly. There are no downloads necessary. Simply select your template (choose from choice time, rules, schedules, personal stories and more), add Boardmaker images or upload your own images and print or save as a PDF.

4. LessonPix
is an easy-to-use online resource that allows users to create various customized learning materials. LessonPix offers a simple three step process for creating a social story.
Price: $36 per year

5. Boardmaker
Boardmaker was one of the first and most well-known social story applications created. Boardmaker lets you create talking books, behavior supports, schedules, rewards charts and much more. Boardmaker also lets you download over 10,000 ready made boards that other members have created. Please note that Boardmaker was designed for schools and therapists and therefore the price is significantly more than other products.
Price: $399


6. StoryMaker for Social Stories

HandHold Adaptive created StoryMaker to help caregivers everywhere construct social narratives, an evidence-based practice for individuals with developmental delays. StoryMaker allows users to create Social Stories using pictures, text and audio. Add pictures from the built-in Library, or expand the Library with pictures from the camera, Google, Bing or Flickr. You can than print or email the stories you created as a PDF.




7. Stories About Me

Stories About Me allows parents and teachers to create their own social stories for their children and students. Blending photos, text, and voice recordings into a talking picture book, children can playback rich media stories of their own personal experiences. Swiping advances the pages and tapping plays the audio; simple as that!




8. Stories2Learn

Stories2Learn is a parent approved app that promotes social messages to individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities. S2L offers parents and educators the ability to create personalized stories using photos, text, and audio messages. These stories can be used to promote an individual’s literacy, leisure, as well as social skills.


9. i Create… Social Skills Stories
i Create… Social Skills Stories is an application with the ability to totally customize sequential steps of a storyline for individuals that need help building their social skills. The app is designed to make unlimited personalized social skill story books by importing personal photos, adding titles, text and audio to unlimited pages in the story.

Price: $4.99


10. First Then Visual Schedule
First-Then visual schedule is an affordable user-friendly mobile application designed for caregivers to provide positive behavior support through the use of “visual schedules”. First-Then was designed for individuals with Autism, communication needs, developmental delays, Down’s Syndrome, Alzheimer’s, or anyone who would benefit from a structured environment.

Price: $9.99

11. iPrompts
iPrompts, the original app for visual supports, is used by parents, special educators and therapists of those with autism and other developmental delays. iPrompts® also works great with kids who just need more structure, including kids with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD), and even typical, pre-verbal toddlers!
Price: $49.99



So… How do you make social stories?

I use visual supports for lots of things. I have students with visual schedules, reinforcements/rewards, and even on my anchor charts. It’s the first thing I look for when walking into a classroom—to support students. Many of my students need as much structure as they can get but in my building like many don’t have tons of extra support. Visuals provide that for them. You can never have to many visuals.

Visual supports can be very powerful tools to help increase independence and supporting students. Remember students not just those with autism have communication deficits they cannot express themselves effectively. Language difficulties may make it difficult for these students to understand what is expected of them. They may be confused about what is happening. Visual supports can reduce problem behaviors and increase effective communication interactions for students.

Visual supports have proven to be a huge success with my students when helping to mainstream them into their general education classrooms. Visual supports will allow students with special needs access to the general education curriculum and will help with the inclusion process. For some students, their visuals are almost a lifeline to help them through their day.

I often laugh at my observation that many times an adult is the one who is causing the problem for a child who is having a meltdown. One day, I just could not figure out why one of my students was literally
in tears heading to music class. Oops! Forgot his visual schedule! For this particular student, his visual schedule book helps him understand the rules and expectations in music class. He knows exactly what he needs to do and for a child who has such a severe language impairment and therefore cannot communicate like other students, his visuals help him connect with everyone else. A brief jog back to his classroom to grab that book and he was all ready for music with a smile on his face! Whew!!

I am often shocked at the unwillingness of some teachers to implement visuals for students who could benefit from their support. But when I take a step back I realize what we all know is true: change is difficult and if we are going to put in the effort to implement something, we want results! Like anything, visuals are going to take time to TEACH.

A student will not be able to use them successfully their first day, or even their first week. But, with continued exposure and explanation, visuals will help students. And the great thing is – visuals have not only been shown to be successful for students with disabilities but with ALL students.
If you create a classroom for a student with autism, you have created a classroom for all students to thrive in. Visuals should be part of that classroom!

Not only can you create a visual schedule for the day, but you can create a visual sequence of events for different activities in you class. For example at the art table, you can have a set of pictures or written rules with step by step directions for the project.

I'd love to hear, what kind of visuals do you find that you and your students can't live without?

Its been a very bust weeks of school. All the special education staff in my building are either new to the district or to teaching. I have spent most of my time finding ways to support the classroom teachers. Not know what kind of support they have had in the past-most seem very thankful to the support and sharing of knowledge. With that in mind I would like the share three of the pins that I have past on to them. Finding easy to understand information that doesn't require a special education degree is hard.

It is important that parents become informed and involved in their child’s education. There are many sources of information and support in your state. However, the more skills you have and the more information you learn, the better you can advocate for your child. Over the past few years we have found that parents tend to make some common mistakes during the Individual Education Program (IEP) meeting. The following is a list of the common mistakes and some suggestions for avoiding them:

1.  Believing the professionals are the only experts.
It can be very intimidating to sit at a table with several educators and professionals. Professionals and Educators do bring a great deal of knowledge and experience to the table. Although most parents do not have a background or degree in education, they have a great deal of knowledge and experience regarding their child. Parents are experts in their own right; they also provide historical information and the big picture from year to year. They know what works and does not work with their child and can be a great asset to the IEP team.

Parents have an intuitive sense as to what is appropriate for their child. After working with parents for eleven years, I'm still amazed at how parents are usually intuitively correct about what will work for their child. I encourage parents to follow their hunches. If something does not sound right, check it out.

2.  Not making requests in writing.
Any request a parent makes needs to be in writing. This includes requests for assessments, IEP meetings, correspondence, related services, etc. Written requests are important because they initiate timelines that the school district must follow in response to your request. This will also create a paper trail. When you write a letter be sure to send it certified mail. When you have a discussion by phone with a school official, write a letter that briefly outlines what you talked about. Documenting your conversations helps prevent miscommunication.

3.  Not being familiar with Prior Notice of the Procedural Safeguards (34 CFR 300.503)
All sections of the Procedural Safeguards are important to parents. This particular section gives parents some leverage during the IEP meetings. Whenever parents make a request for their child in the IEP meeting, the IEP committee is required under Prior Notice to provide the parents with written notice with a reasonable period of time. The notice must include the following:
A description of the action proposed or refused.
An explanation of why the agency proposes or refuses to take the action;
A description of any other options that the agency considered and the reasons why those options were rejected;
A description of each evaluation procedure, test, record, or report the agency used as a basis for the proposed or refused action;
A description of any other factor that is relevant to the agency’s proposal or refusal.

Prior Written Notice is sent home every time the Service Page is changed. This page holds all the information that changes a child’s time in and out of the class, as well as the types of services. This also includes any changes to a child’s Least Restrictive Environment (LRE).

4.  Allowing the assessment information to be presented for the first time at the IEP meeting.
Parents are entitled to have the assessment information explained to them before the IEP meeting. I encourage parents to have the person who administered the assessment give them a copy of the report and meet with them to explain the report several days before the IEP meeting. I go so far as send the reports home three days before the meeting. This enables the parents to think through the information before making decisions for their child. If all IEP decisions are based on the information from the assessment, it only makes sense for the parents to be knowledgeable and informed about the assessment results in a way they can understand.

5.   Accepting goals and objectives that are not measurable.
Measurable goals and objectives are paramount for your child’s IEP. Without measurable goals and objectives, it is difficult to determine if your child has had a successful school year. In working with parents, we have encountered many IEP goals and objectives that are not measurable.

All goals and objectives should come from assessment data. Assessment has four different components: 1) Formal assessment (i.e., WIAT, Woodcock-Johnson, Brigance), 2) Informal assessment (i.e., classroom work), 3) Teacher/parent observation, and 4) Interviews. After the information has been collected about the student it is compiled into an assessment report. Recommendations on how to work with the student are listed toward the end of the report.

After the assessment has been completed, the IEP committee determines the student’s present level of performance (PLOP) and states what the student is currently able to do. The committee then develops the IEP goals and objectives. The goals state what the student is expected to accomplish by the end of the year. Objectives break the goals down into increments. For example:

PLOP
Based on the Brigance and classroom work, Johnny is currently able to read on a fourth grade level with 90% mastery.

Goals
By the end of the school year Johnny will be able to read on a fifth grade level as measured by the Brigance and classroom work with 80% mastery.

Objectives
By October 1, Johnny will be able to read-on fourth grade, second month level with teacher assistance as measured by the Brigance and classroom work with 80% mastery.

By January 1, without teacher assistance, Johnny will be able to read on a fourth grade, sixth month level as measured by the Brigance and classroom work with 80% mastery.

A method of determining if your goals and objectives are measurable is to ask someone who is not on your IEP team to read them (i.e., a teacher, another parent, advocate, etc.). Then ask “Hypothetically, if you were to go into the classroom, would you be able to see my child working on these goals and objectives?” If someone outside of your IEP team cannot answer “yes”, then the goals and objectives are not measurable.

6. Allowing placement decisions to be made before IEP goals and objectives are written. Many times after assessment is discussed, the IEP committee will determine the child’s placement. Goals and objectives are always written before placement is discussed. To ensure that the child is placed in the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), the IEP committee must determine: Which of these goals and objectives can best be met in the general classroom?

With any remaining goals and objectives that cannot be met in the general class-room, the committee determines: Which of these goals and objectives can be best met in the general classroom with modifications and support?

This line of inquiry continues until all placement options have been decided upon for all the goals and objectives. The committee must always start with the LRE and then work toward a more restrictive environment only as necessary. IDEA is very clear that the IEP committee must always consider the general education classroom as the first option for students with disabilities.

7. Allowing your child’s IEP meeting to be rushed so that the school staff can begin the next child’s IEP meeting.

This practice is particularly common at the end of the school year when we are frantically trying to have IEP meetings for all the students who receive special education services. IEP meetings may be held one right after another. There is no problem with this practice as long as the members of the IEP team feel that all issues have been adequately discussed. Many times, however, parents feel rushed. It is important that all issues are adequately addressed before ending the IEP meeting. When the teachers have not planned adequate time to address all relevant issues, request that the IEP team meet again at a more convenient time to further discuss your child’s education.

8. Not asking a lot of questions.
It is very important to ask questions and lots of them. Educators use many terms and acronyms specific to special education. Parents may become confused when these terms are used during the IEP meeting. This can add to the frustration that a parent may already be feeling when they do not under-stand what is being said. It is important to ask what the terms or acronyms mean. Unless a parent has a background in special education, they are not expected to know the terms and acronyms.  Informed decisions cannot be made when parents do not understand what is being discussed.

At some point in time everyone has made all the mistakes listed above. I have developed the habit of debriefing after every IEP meeting to discuss the team performance during the meeting. As a team, we have gradually accumulated information and developed skills and we continue to trust our intuition. This has helped our team at all our IEP meetings. It’s well worth the extra time. If you have questions talk with your IEP team.

Through it all, you can support your child and help him develop the self-awareness and self-advocacy skills he’ll need in the future.

Boardmarker

Data Folders/Data Binders

Teacher Notebook