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!

A little bit of structure going a long way

Oh boy! A whole month has FLOWN by!  Somewhere in there, I had Spring Break, which was lovely, 10 IEPs, and LOTS of evaluations.  The weather here has been vacillating between beautiful sunny days and dreary cold rain, which hasn't been very inspiring, and the caseload at my PRN position has been high, so I am spending more time there after school.  Busy busy busy!

With all the testing and the meetings and the end of the year fast approaching, I feel like I have spent much of my time putting out fires.  You know, the student who holds a sit-in in the office because he just doesn't want to be in class today? The student who has been doing fine all year at the end of the day, but suddenly starts having meltdowns about cleaning up and packing up?  My world has been filled with social stories on the go, and attempts at problem solving to figure out why things are the way they are, and what to do next. Most of the changes are relatively small, and usually involve changing the environment and adding just a touch more structure.

Here's what I whipped up today for a student who is struggling with the end of the day.  Last week, we added in a break after cleaning up so that he had the opportunity to unwind a bit.  That helped some, but when I observed him, I saw that he was using his time inefficiently. While many of his classmates made only 1 trip to get their coat and backpack, he made two.  And three trips to his mailbox!  So it seemed like a bigger task because he was doing so much more work!  Enter his end of the day checklist.  For most of us in speech, visual aids are second nature, so this is probably nothing new.  But I always like to see how people are using things in the real world, so I thought I would share. 

Given that it's the end of the day, I didn't want something that he had to write, because his pencil pouch should be away.  However, since I love the feeling of getting to check something off a list, and only imagine that others feel the same, I did want to give him the satisfaction of "crossing something off", which explains the flaps.

As you might have gathered, he's a big fan of a certain web-slinging superhero. 

I started by taking pictures of his afternoon routine.  Then, using powerpoint, I put all the pictures into a table, and added some words at the top (mostly so an adult can prompt him if necessary).  While he can read more than he realizes, written words often increase his frustration, so I wanted him to be able to rely on pictures.  I made another sheet with some webs and Spiderman, so he is motivated to flip down the flaps.  I laminated it.  When he completes a task, the flap comes down and is secured with velcro.

I tried it this afternoon, and it was great! He was the model student- referring to the pictures, doing what he needed to, and then flipping it down all by himself.  He was one of the first to sit back down on the carpet, which is HUGE when you consider that last week, he was 10-15 minutes late getting picked up because he was struggling so much.  Here's hoping that the trend continues.

What I really love is that adding a little bit of structure (in this case, a short break in preparation for a transition and a visual checklist) not only makes things run a bit more smoothly, but it increases the student's ability to be independent and successful, which can be a huge confidence builder. Now that he's learned how to use it, I asked the teacher to just make sure it is on his desk every afternoon so he can start with it (it lives in his seat sack during the day).

I am always on the lookout for different ideas.  What do your visual checklists look like? How do you help with transitions, or dealing with activities/transitions that may be challenging for a student?