For most of us working in life skills classrooms, finding engaging and useful ways to practice functional reading, particularly comprehension, can be tough. So, I’ve set out to create a set of tools that allow you to scaffold your instruction of functional sight words commonly encountered by our students in their community. I’m starting with food words. So far we…
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Teaching is hard. There is no way around it. And teaching special education can be even more challenging. Especially at this time of year (May) I know many of you are dealing with increased behavior from students, finishing up testing and IEPs and just general fatigue from a long year. I hope you have also had the opportunity to enjoy the…
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Meaningful IEPs are sometimes the most difficult part of the special educator’s job. But they are also the most important….if we do them right. To do them right, we need to focus on creating a meaningful IEP. The IEP encapsulates so much of the student’s program as well as the relationship with the family. It should set the tone for…
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Did that title catch your attention? No, don’t worry, I am not saying you shouldn’t be giving a break. But, the function of the break really should shape what it looks like and how it’s used. Lots of teachers I meet assume, or were taught, that students with autism and students with behavioral issues need to have breaks built into…
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Looking for practical data sheets? Click the picture to grab these from my store.When we hit testing and IEP season (the 5th season for the year), we start thinking about extended school year (ESY). But really, we should be thinking about ESY data throughout the year. For anyone not sure on what ESY is, it is when a school district…
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