New job, new standards!

As I mentioned previously, I am shifting from elementary to early childhood.  One of the big shifts for me will be in my goal writing.  I've been using my Common Core Goal Matrix as a handy one page reference for writing goals.  Of course, I can still use it for my kids going into Kindergarten, but I have to learn a new set of standards, as well.

In Illinois, we have the Illinois Early Learning and Development Standards, which was revised in 2013 to align with not only the Early Intervention Standards for the state, but also Common Core.  The document itself has a lot of GREAT information, and each standard is broken down into three benchmarks that build on each other until "mastery".  Unfortunately, it's also 134 pages long.

At my meeting on Friday, I learned that our district gives parents the option of what my coordinator calls a "trifecta" meeting.  If the team feels further evaluation is needed after an evaluation, parents are given the option to hold the domain, evaluation, eligibility review and IEP all in the same day.  We have about 30 minutes between the end of the eval and the start of the eligibility review to enter our evaluation report and develop goals if necessary.  Needless to say, I'm going to need a good TPBA report template for myself to help streamline!

The other thing I quickly realized I'll need is a way to organize the standards so I can write goals that align with them.  This summer, I got a glance of our new criteria for evaluation that my district will be using.  Posting learning objectives is one of the requirements.  

The first thing I did was list all of the English Language and Social/Emotional Development standards on one sheet.  

Now you can see why this is 134 pages!

 
Whew!  It's certainly a handy document to have, but it doesn't really break down the standards, and it isn't organized by goal areas quite the way I'd like it to be.  We know as SLPs, standards for some of the areas we work on are easier to find than others.  For example, unlike in the Common Core Standards, speaking clearly is only in an overall goal area, not in any specific objective- which means I have to find the best fit for goal areas like phono/artic and fluency.  There are some great objectives related to game play (I called it cooperating, because while I know learning how to play games is a big thing for many of my students, I cringe to think of the administrator wandering through my room and my objective being, "playing a game").  I also included objectives for increasing independence, pretend play, and shared/joint attention, including the staples of following directions, grammar, asking and answering questions, listening comprehension, retelling, pragmatics, artic/phono, and fluency. There are a total of 21 objectives.

Since everything in the CCSS world is in "I can" statements, that's the format I stuck with.  Parents are going to be introduced to them in kindergarten, and if the student has an older sibling, they probably already have exposure to it.  

There are 21 objectives in total in the areas of increasing independence, pretend play, shared/joint attention, following directions, grammar, asking and answering questions, listening comprehension, retelling, pragmatics, artic/phono, fluency. "I can" statements in kid-friendly language based on the information provided in the standards. The relevant standards are in the bottom right corner.

 I'm still not confident about my office location, so for right now, I plan on printing these out and putting them in sheet protectors secured with binder rings so I can easily flip through.  I'm also planning on printing 4 to a page, laminating, cutting apart, and securing with a binder ring for a to-go pack that I can bring with me in the classroom or to meetings.

If you do purchase this product and would like to see a goal area not included, please just let me know, and I will do my best to accommodate!

I tried to minimize color on this one, but if you are a person who goes for black and white, that's an option, too.  

Both products will be on sale during the big TpT back to school sale.  The color one can be found here, and here's the link to the black & white version.

I hope that if you serve the population I do, this will be helpful to you!