Special Education
Not Just Another Worksheet – Easy Digital Activities Your Students Will Love!
With copy limits, limited time, and absent students, printed paper copies of assignments can truly be a hassle! During Covid, a lot of teachers were forced to use digital practice activities, and many have continued to make them a constant in their classrooms due to the many benefits of digital activities! Benefits of Digital Practice Activities Here are my favorite types of digital practice activities to mix up the workflow and avoid just another worksheet! Digital Task Cards Digital Task Cards are a simple, straightforward activity! Often created on Google Slides, these are slides that often have just one question
Tips & Tricks for Stress-Free Parent Communication
Depending on your past experience, some teachers find parent communication one of the most daunting parts of the job! Here are my tips for making parent communication more enjoyable and less daunting! Start Early & Be Proactive I make it a goal to reach out to each family during the first two weeks of school with a quick email. I like to introduce myself, share my contact information, and share a specific, positive thing that I’ve noticed about their child and that I am looking forward to a great year with them. This starts the year on the right foot
Paragraph of the Week: Quick & Easy Writing Intervention Strategy
My biggest issue as a resource teacher? Time! It’s the one thing I can never get enough of, so I am all about quick classroom routines that build necessary student skills. Each year, I notice that my students struggle with writing complete sentences and paragraphs. This year, I implemented and fine-tuned a quick daily routine that I called “Paragraph of the Week” (or POW for short), and what a difference it has made! This routine is exactly what it sounds like – Students write a paragraph over the course of the week, every week. I provide an open-ended prompt or
A Guide to IEP Goal Progress Monitoring: What Special Education Teachers Need to Know!
I have to be honest – the concept of IEP progress monitoring was something I was very unprepared for as a first-year resource room teacher. Creating ways to gather data, organizing systems to track data, writing progress monitoring reports, sharing progress with parents – on top of everything else I was already buried with? I was drowning! Maybe you feel the same way and are desperately Googling ‘how you monitor progress in IEP’ or ‘what is the easiest way to progress monitor IEP goals’? Luckily, over the years, I’ve become a lot more comfortable with the process of monitoring student
Building a Strong Team: Tips for Setting Your Teacher Assistants Up for Success
As a special education teacher, having a teacher assistant can be a lifesaver! Maybe your school calls them paraprofessionals, teacher aides, instructional assistants, or something else! At my current school, every teacher has a designated teacher assistant – I know, I am SO lucky! My previous school only had a few Instructional Assistants who were designated support for tough students, so the support I had in my classroom wasn’t consistent. I’m so incredibly thankful for my teacher assistants every day and I’ve worked hard to create a positive relationship with them. Here are my tips for setting your teacher assistants
IEP Goal Writing Made Easy: Tips & Tricks for Educators
A quick little disclaimer: The following information is what I have personally learned through 8 years of teaching special education in Michigan. It should be used for inspirational and entertainment purposes only. Check with the special education department leaders in your school district with specific questions regarding your students’ IEPs and special education needs. Over the years, I have inherited many IEPs that have goals that make absolutely no sense. It’s frustrating since they are difficult to understand, implement, and make progress towards! Poorly written goals are especially tough – hard to work towards and are even more difficult to
Accommodations Explained – Checking for Understanding
As a classroom teacher, providing the necessary accommodations to your special education or 504 students may feel like ONE MORE THING added to your already very full plate. However, most accommodations can be simple to implement and even improve your teaching practice for all of your students. Today’s accommodation we will explore is often seen on IEPs as “Checking for Understanding”. Checking for Understanding is a common accommodation for students who tend to fly under the radar. Perhaps the child struggles with advocating for help or has a weakness with processing language and therefore, has a hard time understanding class
Successful Co-Teaching Practices for Happy Teachers and Engaged Students
Coteaching is becoming a very popular arrangement in education. It is a way for special education students to receive support in their general education classrooms for math, ELA, and other core content areas. There are many arrangements of co-teaching, so it may look different depending on each school. Coteaching is one of the main ways that we are able to serve special education students in my school, and I have been co-teaching for the last four years to support students in their math classes. I have been incredibly lucky with my co-teaching partners and we have built strong relationships over
Just Give Them Multiplication Charts, Already!
Every now and then, I see a post on a teacher facebook group regarding middle school students and their lack of automaticity with math facts. Teachers flood the comments with well-intentioned suggestions of math fact websites and games to play or share similar struggles from their own classrooms. I always comment the same thing, ‘give them a multiplication chart and move on’! I understand why these posts happen so often. When I was growing up, math fact memorization was a huge deal. We had timed “math minutes”, which were timed races to determine who had memorized their facts. They caused
Easy Breezy IEPs: A Beginner’s Guide to Organizing & Leading IEP Meetings – Part 2: Writing the IEP
So, you’ve scheduled the IEP meeting, and it’s approaching fast! Now, it’s time to write the IEP documents! Nowadays, most districts have a digital system for IEP writing, including Infinite Campus, PowerSchool, or IEPWriter, but there are many others! Depending on the IEP program, the layout and order of the IEP components may be different, but all IEPs should cover the same information. How much of the IEP you have written prior to the meeting depends on your district. In some districts, most of the IEP is written during the IEP meeting. While this lends itself to awesome collaboration, it
New School Year Prep as a Resource Room Teacher
Fall is my favorite time of year. From the weather to the fashion, to new school supplies, all of my favorite things happen in the fall! But back-to-school stress can really put a damper on the season. I’ve always been a person who plans ahead, which really comes in handy with preparing for a new school year, and as a special education teacher, there’s always so much to do to get ready for the new year! Aside from setting up my classroom and shopping for new clothes, here are the five things I focus on as I prepare for a
Make the Most Out of Your IEP Snapshots
IEP snapshots, also called IEPs at a Glance, are incredible tools for supporting your students and your colleagues. While they may feel like just one more thing added to our already long to do lists as special education teachers, IEP snapshots are a great way to proactively advocate for your students in a non threatening way. They help your general education teachers get to know your students, communicate student accommodations that legally must be followed, and send a signal to the teachers that you are available to support them and are a team player. Here are my tips and tricks