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!

Materials Wednesday: Common Core Matrix

If you are like me, your state standards were easy to select from: the choice for SLP's in my state was pretty much between 2 goals: a receptive goal and an expressive goal.  Almost anything we wanted to work on tied to one of those two goals.  

Of course, we have all spent time getting familiar with the Common Core State Standards.  What I realized very quickly when starting to use them was that I was NOT going to be able to keep them straight in my head.  Not when they change each grade level, and I was now working with students K-8.  That's way too many numbers for me to remember.  It's also a HUGE time waster to figure out where to find an applicable standard each time I want to write a new goal or make a lesson plan. 

Enter my Common Core Speech Pathologist Matrix for grades K-12. A one page reference sheet that provides a corresponding Common Core Standard by grade level and goal area.

See?  So if I have a student that is working on articulation, I consult my handy dandy sheet, and know exactly where to look in my (free!) Common Core Standards App that I talked about on Monday.  I find it especially handy for language goals, so I know exactly what my students should be expected to do regarding story retells or vocabulary.  I also can easily look forward or back a year to determine what skills will be needed or may be lacking.

The goal areas are for the topics listed below.  You can see for some areas, it's not a goal we target in the K-1 groups.  I don't write goals for analogies for kindergarteners, but I might work on categories, which I probably wouldn't work on with older kids.

I refer to my matrix constantly.  At IEP meetings if I have to develop a goal, this saves me a ton of time.  If I am looking for educational impact, it's nice to have this as a reference.  It's also great to have when I am talking with the special education teacher and we are discussing how our goals might overlap, and how we will each target an area. In fact, I keep a copy of this on my clipboard at all times, as well as a copy hanging in each of my offices.'

Although in the end, always use your professional discretion. There may be more than one CCSS that targets a goal area, and if you feel that said standard is more representative of what you want to target, please use that one. I am certainly not the be all and end all expert on this.

This is obviously my way of organizing the CCSS.  Does anyone have a better way? How big was the change from your state standards to the CCSS?  How is your district doing with the shift?

If you are interested in purchasing my matrix, you can get it here.

Monday App: Common Core Standards

Ah, the Common Core.  The pages and pages of .pdf that I flip through on the internet.  The document I have printed for each office so I can cross check before I write goals. Oh, the time I have spent with you, Common Core Standards!

So, when I was perusing the App Store and came across the Common Core Standards App by Mastery Connect?  I was thrilled. 

 As you can see below from the handy dandy widget, the standards are organized by the common core areas, then by grade level.  It's SO much faster for me to look up standards now.  Try it out here if you want:

 And I almost forgot! This fabulous  app is FREE!  Wahoo!

Stay tuned for Wednesday, when I share a material that makes looking up Common Core Standards even faster & easier.  Between these two things, you'll spend less time sifting and more time using exactly what you need.

What Common Core shortcuts do you use?