December 8, 2014

Hello Parents & Guardians,

I wanted to write a quick post to thank you all for your support and encouragement as I've been recovering from my hip surgery.  This was my third (and hopefully last!) surgery on my left hip, and the recovery has been steady, but much slower than the two before.  However, I feel confident that the third time will be a charm!!

I am looking forward to returning to school at some point next week.  I'm planning to begin with some half days to see how my hip feels about being back at work.  So, with my split schedule, I would have a day(s) only at Ambrose and then a day(s) only at Lynch.  I truly appreciate your patience as I am trying to strike a balance between getting back to school (which I am mentally 100% ready to do) and being mindful about doing the right thing for my health in the long term (which isn't always easy for me...but I can't tell you how much I don't want to go through this again)!! Ultimately, I believe that I will be at "full strength" after the Holiday Break.

I am working on progress notes for all of my students this week from home.  My notes will differ from your child's classroom teacher in that my sole focus is on IEP academic goals.  However, I do always discuss progress throughout the year with classroom teachers and my notes are often influenced by their input.  For this term, I am also consulting with the teachers who have been covering for me at Ambrose and Lynch during my medical leave in order to "fill in the blanks."


Lastly, I wanted to mention a great book, written by Jerome Schultz, that I read last week which was suggested to me by one of you.  It's called, Nowhere to Hide: Why Kids with ADHD & LD Hate School and What We Can Do About It.  I found the book to be very well-written and informative for both school people and parents.  One of Schultz's main ideas is that children with ADHD and/or learning disabilities often exhibit negative behaviors when faced with tasks in school that they feel are beyond their capabilities or that will expose their weaknesses in relation to their peers.  These behaviors ultimately get in the way of their learning and we as teachers and parents must work to understand how to help our students/children overcome the thinking that brings them about.  Schultz uses an acronym to name these behaviors; he says that students try to be self-protective and hide their perceived in-competencies by "Saving FASE." Fase stands for: Fear, Avoidance, Stress, and Escape.  He goes on to explain, using another acronym,  an approach to help our students/children overcome their negative behaviors by improving self-esteem, self-advocacy, and self-understanding.  The acronym is DE-STRESS.  This is what the TEAM's job is all about, helping students to realize that school can be a wonderful, non-threatening place where they can grow and opening them up to opportunities to learn.  None of these ideas are new to me, but I really love how Schultz lays out these strategies so explicitly.  I'll copy them here, straight from pages 155-156.

DE-STRESS

• Define: Analyzing and understanding a student's learning profile. Diagnosing and defining LD and ADHD and the impact they have on academic, behavioral, social, and emotional performance.
• Educate: Showing the child how to answer the question, "How does LD or ADHD impact my schoolwork and my life?" Educating those who work with or live with this child about the child's individual learning style and needs.
• Speculate: Helping kids learn to look ahead; to anticipate the problems they might encounter as they face new challenges. Encouraging them to identify the assets they bring to each task, along with the additional supports they might need from other people to be successful. 
• Teach: Teaching students the strategies, techniques, and approaches that will maximize success and minimize frustration and failure. Teaching them how to recognize and manage stress, along with the skills of honest self-appraisal and how to learn from and repair errors.
• Reduce Threat: Creating learning and social environments that reduce, remove, or neutralize the risk. Teaching children how to recognize and deactivate "stress triggers." 
• Exercise: Building in opportunities for regular and rigorous physical activity, which is known to enhance brain power and reduce stress. Also, recognizing the importance of proper nutrition and hydration.
• Success: Providing abundant opportunities to display mastery and experience success. Teaching students to replace the language of self-doubt and fear with the language of confidence, and using the language of success at home and in the classroom. 
• Strategize:  Using what you and the child have learned about minimizing and managing stress, and about the relationship of stress to LD and ADHD, to plan for a future in which continued success is likely. 

I hope you find these ideas helpful in terms of things you can do at home and what the focus of my work (and the other members of your child's Team) often is at school.  I would highly recommend this book to all of you.  I plan to keep it in my personal library at close range so that I may reference it often. As always, please reach out with any questions or concerns.  Thank you again for your understanding of my absence from school and please know that I am very much looking forward to returning soon!  

All the best,

Patrick

News

November 10, 2014

Hello Parents & Guardians:

I hope you all had a nice weekend.  It seems strange to be sitting here on a Monday afternoon looking forward to a day off tomorrow! I know that it is a tradition to always celebrate Veteran's Day on November 11...but, I can't help but think it would be nice to have it become another "Monday Holiday."

This post is to give you a heads up about a small "bump in the road" for me, which will cause me to be out of school for a brief period of time.  I had my left hip replaced just under two years ago due to an old injury that led to bone on bone arthritis in my hip joint.  To make a long story short, the hardware is not working (it's actually making things worse).  So, I need to have the "old stuff" taken out and replaced with "new stuff" (that hopefully lasts MUCH longer...).  The surgery is scheduled for next Thursday, November 20.  Based on past experience, my best case scenario would have me back at school sometime during the week of December 8.  I will have a better idea about when I will return once I begin my recovery.  Plans are in place at Ambrose and Lynch to cover for me while I am out.  Your children/my students will be in excellent hands! My plan is to put my full energy into recovering from surgery so that I may return to school as soon as possible.  

As always, please do not hesitate to contact me with questions or concerns.

All the best,

Patrick

October 28, 2014

Hello Parents & Guardians:

It's been a while since my last post.  It seems like time is flying by these days.  I wanted to touch base with you about another writing activity that I have been using with some of my students.  So far, I have found it to be effective and enjoyable for the kids.  As we know, many of my students (your children) have difficulties with spelling.  I have been trying to squeeze in some extra spelling skill work whenever possible and I will continue to do so throughout the year.  Some students have specific IEP goal objectives in spelling and others may not but certainly do benefit from some extra practice.  I call the activity "Copy, Cover, Compare." I am not re-inventing the wheel here, but I thought it would be helpful to explain the activity in some detail.  Perhaps this could be a "rainy day/ snow day" activity?  This activity could also be modified to use for practicing math facts.  I will cut and paste it below along with a worksheet that I made up.  The worksheet is a simple three-column table which can be folded in thirds the long way to cover up words or math facts.  If the child spells/answers incorrectly, they can use the "b" space. The third column can be used for extra practice to reinforce automaticity.  Please contact me with any questions or concerns.

Finally, I wanted to thank you for reading my blogs and for trying out some of my suggestions.  In particular, several of you have utilized the pre-IEP meeting questionnaire.  I cannot tell you how helpful it is for all of us if you have some concerns, ideas, questions, etc. in writing prior to a meeting.  It just seems to make our conversations about your child's progress so much more focused.  Thanks to all who have used it and I encourage any of you with upcoming meetings to consider using it as a tool.  Feel free to email it to me ahead of our meeting if you would like.  Again, please let me know if you have specific questions or concerns regarding the questionnaire.

Have a wonderful evening!

All the best,
Patrick

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Copy, Cover, Compare

Appropriate Grade Level:  All grade levels

Brief Description: This method of teaching and learning spelling words allows the students practice at visualizing and producing the weekly spelling words through a sequence of easy to remember steps.  This is a reasonable intervention to implement on an individual level, as self-monitoring is facilitated by having the correct spelling of the word readily available.

Materials Needed:

        Spelling list or list of math facts

        Pencil

        Paper (or prepared worksheet)

Steps for Implementation

1. Provide students (or targeted group of students) with a list of spelling words
2. Instruct each student to study a word carefully and then copy it down.
3. Cover the copied word with a sheet of paper and write it from memory
4. Check the word and correct if needed
5. If the word was correctly spelled from memory, move onto the next word
6. If the word was misspelled, repeat steps 2-4.

Evaluation:

Compare percent correct scores on weekly spelling tests for the entire class or the selected group of students before and after implementation.

Comments/Tips:

Periodically check students’ self-corrections

Implement reward system for demonstrated improvement on spelling tests.

Source:

Murphy, J., Hern, C., Williams, R., & McLaughlin, T. (1990).  The effects of the copy, cover, and compare approach in increasing spelling accuracy with learning disabled students. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 15, 378-386.

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Student:___________________________________________  Date:_____________________

1.	1a.	1a.
copy:	1b.	1b.
2.	2a.	2a.
copy:	2b.	2b.
3.	3a.	3a.
copy:	3b.	3b.
4.	4a.	4a.
copy:	4b.	4b.
5.	5a.	5a.
copy:	5b.	5b.
6.	6a.	6a.
copy:	6b.	6b.
7.	7a.	7a.
copy:	7b.	7b.
8.	8a.	8a.
copy:	8b.	8b.
9.	9a.	9a.
copy:	9b.	9b.
10.	10a.	10a.
copy:	10b.	10b.

October 16, 2014

Good Evening Parents/ Guardians:

I hope you all have had a chance to enjoy/ take advantage of the unseasonably warm temperatures we've experienced lately.  It was quite unusual to be wearing a short sleeve jersey early this morning on a mid-October bike ride.  I'm thinking my short sleeve mornings are numbered!

I wanted to share a helpful guide for parents (and teachers) that I came across online.  It offers information and advice for parents related to learning disabilities in written expression.  I think many of you will find it helpful.

Many of my students this year have goals in Written Language.  With my background in English, I feel that helping students with their writing is a strength of mine as a special educator.  I have found that many 3rd and 4th graders need extra practice on the conventions of written language: capitalization, handwriting, organization, punctuation and spelling (C.H.O.P.S.)  I find myself asking questions like, "What does the beginning of a sentence need?" and "What kind of sentence is that..what kind of punctuation does it need?" in order to help students self-edit their writing.  Another obstacle that many students face relates to the amount of writing that they are expected to do in the upper elementary years.  I explain to my students that they must get into  "3rd/4th grade writing shape" just as a runner must get in shape to run a marathon.  One writing drill that I have just begun to use is a word count free-write activity.  The idea is to encourage students to write as many words as they can in a set amount of time without worrying about writing mechanics (CHOPS)...we can correct those later (and learn how to self-edit).  What I did today with a few different groups was give the group a starter sentence to copy down in their notebooks.  Then I gave them a few minutes to brainstorm verbally how they might proceed with their writing.  Finally, I gave them a 5 minute window in which to write as much as they could.  When time was up, each student counted up their words and charted them on a bar graph.  I was pleased with the enthusiasm of the students.  To reiterate, the purpose of this exercise is to build writing stamina.  One "side-effect" is that the students did make numerous mistakes in mechanics, which is great, because now I have the opportunity to teach editing skills with authentic 3rd/ 4th grade writing...perfect for the next lesson!

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Here is the guide:

Difficulties in Written Expression

A Guide for Parents

What is a learning disability in written expression?

A learning disability in Written Expression is diagnosed when a child’s writing skills are significantly below the expected level for the child's age, intellectual capacity, and education.

Is it common?

The exact number of students dealing with this disability is unknown, but it has been estimated that 3 to 10 percent of school-aged children may have a disability in written expression.

Signs & Symptoms

Children with learning disability in writing have difficulties early in grade school with spelling words and in expressing their thoughts as compared to the average performance of their peers. Their spoken and written sentences may contain a large numbers of grammatical errors and poor paragraph organization. Children will often make errors in writing even a short sentence. For example, they may fail, despite many reminders, to start the first letter of the first word in a sentence with a capital letter and to end the sentence with a period.  Or they may consistently make the same spelling mistakes, even after several corrections.

                                                                            

Common features of written expression difficulties are:         

 Spelling errors, Grammatical errors,   Punctuation errors, Poor paragraph organization, Poor handwriting

                                                                                                                            

Treatment

The most effective mode of treatment has been found to be individually tailored, one-to-one expressive and creative writing practice. Most important to remember, though, is that keeping your student motivated to write will allow him to continue working and practicing his skills.  This can be the most important part of creating long-term success.  Finding ways to make writing engaging and interesting will allow your child to demonstrate his knowledge and strengths.

What can I do?

1.         Get involved!  Don't ever hesitate to talk with your child's teachers or other specialists whenever you feel it may be necessary to better understand what can be done to help your child.

2.         Look for and encourage your child's strengths, interests, and abilities. Help her use these to compensate for any limitations she may have.  For example, find a topic that your child is interested in and work with him to write a story or article about it.

3.         Encourage your child to be the “family reporter” and help create a family newsletter to send to friends and relatives.

4.         Help her correct mistakes by showing/demonstrating to her what she should do.

5.         Read enjoyable stories with him. Encourage him to ask questions, discuss his ideas, retell the stories in his own words, and write different endings to favorite stories. 

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As always, please contact me with questions or concerns whenever the need arises.  I look forward to meeting with several of you during parent/teacher conferences.  Due to my split schedule, I will be unable to attend some of the conferences.  In those cases, I will be sure to let you know ahead of time and I am happy to set up an alternate time to meet if you would like.

All the best,

Patrick

http://www.drselz.com/blog/2014/09/deep-breathing-down-the-jangly-road

Hello Parents/Guardians:

Over the weekend, I came across this Blog post from Dr. Richard Selznick.  Nothing earth-shattering here, but I think Selznick does a nice job putting "homework frustration" in perspective.  I took away some good ideas as a teacher and as a parent.  As a teacher, I must often resist the initial reaction of, "He/She is just not trying hard enough" and, as a parent, I need to be able to draw the line between guiding the homework process (of my fifth grader), and helping "too much" just to get it done and avoid homework frustration...certainly a tough line to draw!!

By the way...I love working with "rough road kids"!!

Hope you all had a super weekend.  Looking forward to another great week with your kids/ my students.

Best,
Patrick

IEP Parent Questionnaire

Monday 9/29/14

Hello Parents and Guardians:

I mentioned in my post last week that it would be helpful to have some ideas written down prior to coming to your child's IEP meeting.  Because, if you're anything like me, if you don't write something down before going to an important meeting or a doctor's appointment, you will forget to ask the important question!!!  Also, for our purposes, it is helpful if everyone has a "game plan" going into the meeting.  I just found a questionnaire on the web (I can't take any credit for creating it) that looks pretty good.  I will paste it below.  If you would like a hard copy prior to a meeting, please let me know.  Also, it may be a good tool to use as you start to think about the things you want to make sure are covered in our meeting.

Thanks for reading! I hope the week is off to a great start!
Patrick

Input for Annual IEP Meeting

The following questionnaire is being sent to you to ensure parental input in the development of the Present Levels of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance in your child’s IEP.  Please complete and return prior to the upcoming annual IEP meeting scheduled for ________________.  

1.      What are your goals for your child in the next year?

2.      What do you see as your child’s strengths?

3.      What are your child’s greatest needs?

4.      How would you describe your child’s attitude toward school?

5.      How would you describe your child’s peer relationships?

6.      What are your future hopes and goals for your child?

7.      What are your concerns, if any, in the following areas?

a.      Academic (math, language arts, reading, science, oral communication…)

2. Other concerns (health considerations, communication, physical abilities, mobility…)