Do You Like These IEPs?

So many fun things are happening this week in schools across America. In my class, we'll be doing lots of reading rhyming books by a Dr. who cannot be mentioned due to trademark laws and a bunch of other technical stuff.

If you follow me on Instagram @extraspecialteaching you'll be able to check out these awesome 

t-shirts my team will wear on Wednesday and some other fun stuff my class will be doing.

A few years ago, I came across this poem somewhere and spruced it up some. It cracks me up every time I read it, especially since I'm drowning in IEPs right now! You can download your copy by clicking {here} or the picture below.

Happy celebrating reading week!

Gearing up for Standardized Testing (freebies)

I know a lot of you are gearing up for the big state tests.  I'm fortunate that this year I'm teaching 1st and 2nd graders, so I don't have to worry about high stakes testing THIS year.  Who knows what next year will hold though.  

Standardized testing can be so stressful for students (and teachers). Just last week, I found my 4th grade daughter checking the calendar out at 6:45am. Turns out, she was counting the days until standardized testing. Talk about breaking my momma heart. :(

A few years ago, I wrote about this letter that I sent home to my parents.  It's so important for parents to help out during that stressful testing week by being supportive and encouraging at home.  You can get your free copy by clicking on the picture.

A few years ago (you can read about that here), I was spending a lot of time doing test prep with my kids when I realized they were struggling just to read the test questions.  Some of those words are hard to read!  So I went through all of the test prep questions and picked out any of those words that I thought might be tricky, such as italics, paragraph, sidebar, etc., etc.  I made a fun game for my students to practice reading tricky words, and it gave us opportunities to discuss the meaning of those words.

If you downloaded this game a few years ago, you'll want to redownload.  I've updated all of my games so that they have easy to read fonts with no confusing letters.  Just click on the picture to download your free copy.

Good luck to all of those who will start testing soon!

Testing Accommodations for the Primary Classroom

Even though I teach special education students in a resource classroom, I am still expected to teach the general education curriculum and give the assessments that accompany the district-mandated curriculum.

My students do have accommodations listed on their IEPs for testing, but I want to give them as much support as possible to help them succeed. These are some of the tips I use in my classroom that have really helped my students show mastery on grade level assessments.

My number one tip is to staple your tests like a book, not in one top corner. I know this is a little more time consuming on your part but so worth it. Flipping pages over, especially on double-sided copies, can be so confusing for struggling students. 

For our math workbook pages, I am very explicit in my instructions, such as "open, flip over, look for the picture of the blue bird" or whatever is on the page. This helps make sure we're all on the right page.

Our reading tests, have an oral portion where students have to listen to my directions. Unfortunately, this part of the test is in the middle. Strange place to put it if you ask me. I always have my students turn to this page and do this portion first.

After we have done the oral and grammar portion, we turn back to the story. Even though my students have accommodations, I cannot read the story to them. After all, it is a test of reading and not a test of listening comprehension. 

I always go through the test first and figure out which portion of the text refers to which questions. On this test, question numbers 1 and 2 come from the first page of the story. I tell my students to read the first page and raise their hand. That way my faster readers aren't waiting on my slower readers, and my slower readers aren't rushed.

Once students read the first section of the text, I have them turn and answer just the questions that pertain to this section. This is huge in helping my students answer comprehension questions successfully. By breaking up the text, my students don't feel so overwhelmed.

I tell my students to raise their hands after they have answered questions numbers 1 and 2. 

 Then I turn the student's page back to the next section of the text that they need to read and repeat the process all over.

The downfall to testing this way is that I do A LOT of walking around from student-to-student. If I wore a Fitbit, I know I'd have way more than 10,000 steps on testing days. But I will say the effort on my part is worth it to see my students succeed on grade level assessments.

How do you accommodate students on testing days in your classroom?

Touch Spelling

Do you have students that struggle with spelling? Spelling is an area all of my students struggle with in their writing.

When students are "touch spelling" I always have them hold their pencil in their dominant hand and use their other hand to touch spell. Students will say the word slowly and touch one finger for each sound they say. After the student says each sound, they can then write the word.

Touch spelling has been HUGE in helping my students write down all the sounds they hear in a word. This is especially helpful with blends. As I watch my students touch spell, I can pinpoint where they are not hearing the sound, such as the 'l' in the word sled. 

If a student has written the word wrong, I will touch spell directly over the word they have written. This helps them easier see if the sound matches up to the word that they've written.

If a student doesn't know how to spell a word, my go to response is always say the sounds and touch spell. I rarely spell a word for a student since I want to encourage them to write independently.

Here are some other activities I use to help students understand the spelling of words and how to manipulate sounds.

Building words is an activity that I use frequently in my classroom. I try to fit this in weekly. It's great for my students to practice listening to sounds, manipulating sounds, and making sure they understand phonics patterns in a hands-on way. You can check this activity out more by clicking {here} or the picture below.

I use this Making Words activity with my students who have stronger writing skills and have a larger base of spelling/phonics patterns and known words.

There are 4 different themed words for each month of the school year. Students cut out the letter tiles and try to make as many words as they can. They love trying to figure out who can find the mystery word first. You can see more about this activity by clicking {here} or the picture below.

I hope these tips are helpful in your classroom!