Happy Tuesday. Today I'm linking up with Stephanie from "Forever in 5th Grade" for this months peek into my Resource Room.  This month I have been helping with PARCC testing. It's also the time of year when I start reflecting back on the past 9 months and beginning thinking about next year.


I know for me this year, striking a balance between the art and science of teaching was not as balanced as I would have liked. I think I bent more towards the art and a little less than the science. Using data binders students kept track of their goals and data. This helped move them more than a year. These are a must for next year.
I have things I want to trash to like rotations. But I want to add more co-teaching and student driven embedded data collection--students collecting their own IEP data and taking more ownership of their growth.



If you have not tried Seesaw--I would.  I came across Seesaw and was impressed with the idea that it is student and time friendly. I only have my groups for about 30 minutes. This means I either need to do it when I have 2 minutes or they need to do the uploading and creating within that 30 minutes. I love the app options that can be uploaded into the platform. My hope is this is REALLY student friendly and will become a place students can create and show off their app-smashing.

Students are proficient in using Seesaw as part of their workflow and it has been a great and easy place for them to put their work to share, self-assess, and track their own progress. A must for next year. Seesaw makes data collection in Special Education and RTI easy to do. (Which we all need. Right?)

CHAMPS. A behavior management system I added this year. I love this as I set a visual expectation for each task like "Group Instruction" or "Test." Students are aware of what the expectations are before I start talking. A must keep!



I love putting things in pictures. Pictures move faster to the brain than words. This one has become our Problem Solving Rubric which shows not tells students what is needed to score a 3 on the rubric. Problem Solving is one skill I want students' to take back to the classroom. When I do rubrics I do them with each group's input. The picture helps remind them what it needs to look like. I need to add more like this--not sure for what but this needs to happen.


If you remember I had a couple of groups early in the year almost to grade level and started reading rotations with them. Well with 30 minutes, this was not successful. As they were 2nd and 3rd graders, they didn't have tons of independence to maintain work on their own part of this idea. I ended up moving them back to guided reading and changing their schedule to have them spend more time in the classroom. 

This year has been filled up ups and downs. Ideas I want to keep and ideas that need to be trashed. I need to find more ways to embed data collection of IEP goals and RTI needs. What do you want to trash? What do you want to keep? Share them.

It's that time of year when I'm going crazy! Yes, you know that time of year--where you have IEPs, parent/teacher conferences, transition meetings, PLUS all you own end of the year teacher evaluation stuff you HAVE to do.  This is the second year I have had to do SLO (Student Learning Objectives). Yeah!! I can use my IEP data--no hoop jumping here. But even without having to do this, I would have kept track to show myself and the world (if they cared) my students made a year's growth.

The key--the DATA!. I know you have been told this all the time but it's true--if you look at it and DO something about it then you get something for your hard work.

One if my favorite things is to make pictures with the numbers to show off to parents at IEP meetings or teachers when I meet with them. This makes it so much easier to talk about what the student is and is not doing and make it REAL. When you put numbers to student performance and have a picture to go with it--conversations change. Teachers jump on board. Parents see what you're talking about.

I'm going to share my secret weapon with you (& it's FREE). It's a Plug & Play 20 Excel for Class Progress Monitoring. Yes, you heard me right. Just put in your data and goal line and the graph is created for you.




Like all data graphs, you might need to change the Y-axis depending on the data and add a trendline (if that's your thing). But that is all you need to do.

These graphs are perfect for RTI Intervention Monitoring, easy for anyone to put the data in, and great for SLO!

Oh--did I mention it was free.  You can find the 20 Progress Monitoring Graphs in my Free Resource Library. If you have not signed up yet, get yours here!

I'd love to hear what your favorite ways are to show off student data and keep track for your SLO data.

Have a great Early Spring Weekend!
Until next Time-

 This is the time of year where my team is working thought DRA's for their SLO (Student Learning Objectives) and figuring out what they are going to do when we come back from Spring Break.

Students, even the best ones, can become frustrated and demotivated when they feel like they’re struggling or not getting the recognition that other students are. Make sure that all students get a chance to play to their strengths and feel included and valued. It can make a world of difference in their motivation.

Some days motivating students feels like the only thing I get done and other days it works itself. What are you favorite ways to keep students motivated?

A quick note as I'm getting ready for Spring parent-teacher conferences this week. One of the assessments I'm helping my classroom teachers with is the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment). Even though it has fallin' by the wayside, my teachers and I love having a solid number where students are reading at.

FYI the DRA can be given to students kindergarten to sixth grade. To determine a level students decoding (words on the page) and their comprehension (understanding) and with harder text reading fluency (speed) all of those factors most score at an independent level on the rubric to be at an independent level. The same is true for the Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment Systems.

How what am I going to do with the rest of my year?

Well..what about using the rubric to create skill groups to move students more before the end of the year benchmark get done. After spending the first part of the year teaching decoding with phonics and vocabulary instruction--it know time to really focus on comprehension. One of my favorite ways to work on comprehension is through games. This is one of their favorites, they are always asking for...be sure to get uses here.

More to come on using the DRA or BAS rubric to create goals and instruction. Have a great week.

 I'm doing the Long Weekend Happy Dance!! Who else has President's Day off? I so needed the extra day to do nothing.

I'm linking up with Forever in 5th Grade to give you peek into my special education resource room and what my students have been up to in the last month. And wow-have they been busy!

Showing how we created meaning statically with a group circle map after Lesson 7 from the Primary Comprehension Toolkit @heinemannpub. #iteachsped #iteachreadibg #guidedreading #readingcomprehension #comprehensiontoolkit #douglascounty

A post shared by Alison (@toadallyexceptional) on Feb 8, 2017 at 9:26am PST

This is one group's comprehension work. I have four groups working through The Primary Comprehension Toolkit at Heinemann Publishing. It takes students' through all the comprehension strategies. I love they can move at their own pace. In my case, I have several the DRA reading levels in each group. The umbrella makeup of each group is the comprehension strategy and the reading material students use is at their DRA reading level.

This picture shows how the group is finishing a "Shared" lesson with a "shared" creation task. They decide HOW they were going to SHOW their meaning. My next step with this group will be to have them do the same lesson on their own. It's great to see HOW they go about SHOWING their meaning.

Working comprehension this afternoon and rockin' it 😆#smallgroupreading #iteachsped #teachersfollowteachers #teachersofinstagram #comprehensiontoolkit

A post shared by Alison (@toadallyexceptional) on Nov 16, 2016 at 1:07pm PST

I have talked in the past about how my school district is very big on higher order thinking skills. Here you can see a different comprehension lesson, where you can see the Essential Question which they have to answer with either an Interim or Summative Assessment--but they do it through the World Class Outcome of "How did you create your meaning Strategically in reading and writing."

In my world, ALL students have to do this. This year my work around has been for students to app-smash their way to creating that meaning. This gets them through their hang-ups of writing or long drawn out projects I don't have time for. Plus, they love any excuse to use technology and I love using it for something other than plug and play. Be sure to follow me on Instagram for great special education resource ideas and more about our reading comprehension work.



So all comprehension groups means a new way to look at IEP goal progress--in the form of Google. This is a great way to be paperless. As students are reading quietly or reading to me I can fill out my notes. I go through everything my decoding and comprehension strategies to target and fluency work.


This is the working version of the summative assessment my comprehension groups will do around the time of Spring Break. I'm hoping by then student's have working with at least 4 different comprehension coding strategies. This will be their turn to show what they have learned and apply it.

Stay turned for next months peek into my special education resource room. I'd love to hear how you teach reading comprehension strategies in your guided reading groups.  Have a great week.

Reading Comprehension strategies are why harder to see student's use independently than decoding strategies. As a Special Education Teacher, I tend to spend the first part of my year working mostly with decoding strategies and then teaching comprehension strategies the second half. I have found we mat spend weeks on just one to ensure students are using it on their own as they are reading. But their on may bumps along the way.

I have added a couple of examples from my a few groups.  You can see how student's make use of their understanding of different comprehension strategies in their reading. These are from modeled and shared lessons. I think the hardest thing for them to understand is how to show hoe they created their meaning strategy and use the keyword #understand what I'm reading. This is what each strategy does in a different way.

A "strategy" is a plan developed by a student to assist in comprehending and thinking about texts, when reading the words alone does not give the reader a sense of the meaning of a text. Reading comprehension strategy instruction has come to the fore in reading instruction at all age and grade levels. By helping students understand how these flexible tools work, I help readers to tackle challenging texts with greater independence.

What They Are?

1. Activating background knowledge to make connections between new and known information. In many classrooms, this instruction is divided into three categories-- text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world.

2. Questioning the text. Proficient readers are always asking questions while they read. Sticky notes (post-its) have become ubiquitous in classrooms in part because they are such a useful tool for teaching students to stop, mark text, and note questions as they read.

3. Drawing inferences. Proficient readers use their prior knowledge about a topic and the information they have gleaned in the text thus far to make predictions about what might happen next. When teachers demonstrate or model their reading processes for students through think-alouds, they often stop and predict what will happen next to show how inferring is essential for comprehending text.

4. Determining importance. In the sea of words that is any text, readers must continually sort through and prioritize information. Teachers often assist readers in analyzing everything from text features in nonfiction text like bullets and headings, to verbal cues in novels like strong verbs. Looking for these clues can help readers sift through the relative value of different bits of information in texts.

5. Creating mental images. Readers are constantly creating mind pictures as they read, visualizing action, characters, or themes. Teachers are using picture books with students of all ages, not necessarily because they are easy to read, but because the lush and sophisticated art in these books can be a great bridge for helping students see how words and images connect in meaning-making.



6. Repairing understanding when meaning breaks down. Proficient readers don't just plow ahead through text when it doesn't make sense -- they stop and use "fix-up" strategies to restore their understanding. One of the most important fix-up tools is rereading, with teachers demonstrating to students a variety of ways to reread text in order to repair meaning.

7. Synthesizing information. Synthesis is the most sophisticated of the comprehension strategies, combining elements of connecting, questioning, and inferring. With this strategy, students move from making meaning of the text, to integrating their new understanding into their lives and world view.

Ideas for Teaching

Modeling through think-alouds is the best way to teach all comprehension strategies. By thinking aloud, teachers show students what good readers do. Think-alouds can be used during read-alouds and shared reading. They can also be used during small-group reading to review or reteach a previously modeled strategy.

I use a think-aloud to:

• Create a record of the strategic decision-making process of going through text
• Report everything the reader notices, does, sees, feels, asks, and understands as she reads
• Talk about the reading strategies being used within the content being read
• There are many ways to conduct think-alouds:
• The teacher models the think-aloud while she reads aloud, and the students listen.
• The teacher thinks aloud during shared reading, and the students help out.
• Students think aloud during shared reading, and the teacher and other students monitor and help.
• The teacher or students think aloud during shared reading while writing on an overhead, on self-stick notes, or in a journal.
• Students think aloud in small-group reading, and the teacher monitors and helps.
• Students individually think aloud during independent reading using self-stick notes or a journal. Then students compare their thoughts with others.

I use a Model or Shared Lesson to:

• Decide on a new strategy or reteach a strategy to model.
• Other things I think about are:
• Choose a short text or section of text.
• Read the text ahead of time. Mark locations where you will stop and model the strategy.
• State your purpose—name the strategy and explain the focus of your think-alouds.
• Read the text aloud to students and think aloud at the designated points.
• If you conduct a shared reading experience, have students highlight words and phrases that show evidence of your thinking by placing self-stick notes in the book.
• Reinforce the think-alouds with follow-up lessons in the same text or with others.

As a Special Education Teacher, I spend at least one lesson a week during a Modeled or Shared Lesson. As a reading teacher, I have had to work not to be afraid of stopping in the middle of a lesson and redoing or doing a new modeled lesson. Teaching comprehension strategy work is HARD and I spend tons of time listening to and seeing what my students do as they practice independently. I take my time and work for skill mastery not accuracy mastery.  How do you teach your reading comprehension strategies? I'd love to hear what works for your students!

This example was created for a summative assessment on non-fiction features.  As they started to play with app-smashing. I started with Popplet lite (free version) and then put it in Explain Everything ($) to create the audio. I do really do try to play before giving it to them to do. This way I can work out the kinks but also problem solve and anticipate how they interact with the app. Besides--I LOVE to play.


 I have a group of first graders how are working on their sounds/letters. I created this game to help them "Race to Top" to work on their sounds/letters with a dice. They have mastered sounds and letters but they need to work on seeing that in writing. I started to have them create pages of the alphabet which are going to be up-loaded to a Book Creator (still looking for one.) Students are taking beginning letter pictures and then creating a short video with a cover page with Shadow Puppet Edu. They love Shadow Puppet it however videos do not import so well to book creators. After 45 minutes of trying I have (for the moment) walked away from it. FYI: Students created the cover page in PicCollage. Shadow Puppet like Book Creator can and my students have up-loaded them to Seesaw.




We have been very bust since returning from Winter Break. I can't wait to see what my students create as I push their critical thinking skills using app-smashing to reach those I have that are most difficult to reach.