Testing

When is enough!

Teachers and students are expected to TEST, TEST and TEST!  When does the teaching go on?  How does a kid make progress on their IEP goals with so much testing.  The sad part about it is, the state and the whoever makes the rules do not listen to teachers when it comes to testing.  It will take parents to step up and say "Enough is Enough!"  Teachers have the most knowledge about the toll that testing takes, but unfortunately more often than not it looks like they are just complaining.  Parents are the ones that are most heard and if you are tired of your child just testing(which they are) then speak up!

Helping Your Child Transition after the Holidays

First off happy holidays and I hope that you and your family had a safe and blessed holiday.  With school starting on Monday here are some helpful pointers to help your child with a learning disability transition back into school.  There are also some additional pointers to help in future holidays.

1. Remind your child every couple of hours of what is going to happen tomorrow.  Tell them school is starting back up.  Ask them questions like; What do you have to do when you wake up?  What is your first class?  What bus do you ride home?  All of these will be reminders to students and will help them transition to the start of school.  One of the biggest issues with students with disabilities is their resistance to change, help make the change as easy as possible.
2. Set a time in the day to review some of the skills the child was working on before school ended.  Many students forget simple steps in math or facts about history, that if they had practiced for an hour or so a day, the steps would still be there and they would remember the facts needed for school.  
3. Remind the students of who their teachers are.
4. Go through safety procedures encase of an emergency. 
5. Have your child tell you the house phone number.

I hope these tips will help you.  As always leave a comment for a future post.

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Been A long Time

I have been off on my blog for quite sometime now.  I am hoping to start again, as I have had my personal life straitened out.  I would love to hear from all of you.  Please ask questions and offer suggestions for future posts!  I am going to try and grind this out and offer a chance to keep me financial sound for the future.  If I missed a question from before about IEP's or students with Special needs please let me know and I will do my best to answer them.

Are Special ed students more importan????

I am posing this questions are special education students more important then regular students?

Behavioral IEP GOAL

"blank" will identify and manage feelings (i.e., anxiety, stress, frustration) on a weekly basis with 4/5 trial frequency as measured by teacher observation and student reports.
GOAL
"blank" will ask an adult for help or move away to take a break and process his feelings.
Objective 2
"blank" will distinguish between a factual interactions and personal perceptions and misperceptions.
Objective 3
"blank" will make a plan to address concerns/frustrations/anxiety with counselor/teacher or case manager.
Objective 4
"blank" will use strategies to follow plan to deal with peer difficulties or frustrations in the classroom. -Suggested strategies of removing himself from upsetting environment, deep breathing activities, visual relaxation and social stories.

example of IEP goal

Goal:  Given graphic organizers and moderate support, student A will locate, retrieve, and use information from various sources to accomplish a purpose (persuade, inform, entertain, compare/contrast etc)(projects/BCR/ECR) in 4 of 5 situations with 75% achievement

Objective 1
student A will use a graphic organizer to plan the topic for each paragraph for a writing assignment.
Objective 2
student A will use appropriate note taking procedures, organizational strategies, and proper documentation of sources of information in his written work activities.
Objective 3
student A will use an organizer and the text to cite supporting details for each topic sentence. - synthesize information from two or more sources to fulfill a self-selected or given purpose.
Objective 4
student A will revisit a writing assignment to check for errors in grammar, punctuation, spelling and add details.

What is a human reader?

That is pretty simple it is someone who will read to the student everything that they are assigned to do.  For example some students have "human reader for tests and quizzes."  This means that the students have a human reader for the tests and quizzes, but in the classroom they read on their own.  Then you have the students that have human reader for everything, some teachers will try to push the students to try and read, but it is extremely difficult.

As always please let me know if you would like me to write about anything?

What is Extended Time?

Many Special Education students have extended time as a accommodation.  This helps with students that have ADD, Autism or just have a hard time or frustrating time getting started on a certain subject.  There are pretty much two types of extended time.

1. Percentage extended time- This is when a student will receive 15%, 20% or 50% more time on a test or quiz, when compared to a student that does not have an IEP.  
2. Unlimited time-  Now I know what you are thinking, how would a student ever finish?  This is limited to the student must be putting some sort of effort into finishing the test.

As always let me know if you would like me to post anything.

What is scribing?

I am going to start a couple of blog entries about certain classroom accommodations, how they work, what different types there are and does your child need them?  Now I may use some words that are not politically correct, but I am just using simple terms.

1. Full Scribe-  This is were the students cannot write at all.  These students may have a handicap or are mentally incapable of writing and listening to the teacher at the same time.  These students usually get teacher notes or have a one on one assistant.  These students will sometime record the lecture with a tape recorder to help them later when they read the student notes.
2. Half Scribe-  This is when the students might have a fill in the blank notes, to help them start to take notes, but have to take very little on their own.  Now these students will of course receive teacher notes to compare what they have written down.
3. Partial Scribe-  This is when the students are capable of writing, but they have a hard time reading what they wrote.  These students then of course receive a copy of the student notes.
4. Scribe Pen- This is a writing device that records the teacher while the student is taking notes, so if they take slow notes they can go back to when they fell behind.

Let me know how helpful or what else you would like to know about.

Early Detection with Autism

Early detection is hug in life whether it has to deal with learning disabilities, disease or illnesses.  The earlier you can catch it the better of the individual will be able to deal with it and be successful.  Science and technology have come such a long way to help these individuals to lead a normal life.

Now when it comes to dealing with early detection in Autism, as of right now there is no way to tell if a baby has Autism.  Usually, the earliest detection age is between 2 and 3.  Now obviously there are detections later in life and the student usually often struggles academically and socially.

Students with Autism often have a hard time socially and if the students parents are able to detect this learning disability early, this will go a long way in helping the student socially.

My child might have shown signs of a learning disorder over the summer. What should I do? IEP

Sometimes systems of a learning disorder can show up later in a child's life.  Sometimes when a child is home from school in the summer parents may notice something is a little off when it comes to their child performing a task or completing a assignment.  So, a parent may suspect that their child has a disability, what do they do?  The first thing a parent should do is look up their child's symptoms.  This will educate the parent and help them narrow it down to what disability their child may be showing.

The next thing the parent should do is contact their child's grade special education teacher.  Usually schools either have a special education teacher for each grade or a head special education teacher at their child's school.  The special education teacher will most likely observe the student when they come back to school to see if they are showing and characteristics of a learning disability.  If the child is showing characteristics of a disability they there should be screening meeting set up, where further testing will be proposed or the special education team will not recommend further testing.

This is just the beginning phase of the IEP process.

As always if you would like to suggest a topic please do so.