If you have been with me awhile, you will know the name, Sarah Ward. She is an SLP who is an author, therapist and international speaker on all things executive function. When a colleague sent out an email telling staff that Sarah Ward had posted something free on Google, I wanted to know what it was!! I had the honor of hosting Sarah Ward in our district a few years […]
Read moreDecodable Books. Something that there is NOT enough of! We have started doing Fundations in our school district that has been FANTASTIC. This Phonics and Word Study Tier 1 Reading has an Orton-Gillingham approach that involves a systematic, cumulative, mulit-sensory approach to teaching reading. It plays fair with students! Students are doing better in this program during a pandemic on a 4-day a week in-person schedule than they did in […]
Read moreHow many times have you ever said, “ Now why didn’t I think of that?!” That’s what I said when I was told about this tool. This is something you can use no matter what job you have. This is something that you can use in your home. This is something you can use no matter what subject area you teach. This is something that I’ve shared with my daughter […]
Read moreWhen you work with students who have special needs, you know that they often need all kinds of supports. The more we can scaffold the help they need, the faster they can reach their goals. Of course, what’s good for students with special needs is even better for students who don’t need supports so what I’m about to show you could be very helpful to many, many students! You will […]
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15
Feb
2021
Six Ways to Get Sight Words to “STICK”!
Helping students to learn those difficult sight words can be challenging! Gone are the days that we have students spell a list of words 10 times for a spelling test! They only forget all of those words a day after the test! We can create new pathways in the brain by making instruction a multisensory experience. Some sight words have parts of them what are decodable, and some of them […]
Read moreWriting….the last frontier! It doesn’t have to be as hard as our students think it is. I took a writing class a few years ago and of the many things I learned, it was the idea that writing a book was like making a list and then filling in the blanks that made the biggest impression. How cool is that to think that if you can make a list about […]
Read moreWhy is it that we all tend to grab on to negative things that are said to us or negative things that we say to ourselves? It’s hard to understand why negative seems to dominate the positive unless specific action takes place. So frustrating! Perhaps this is why motivational speakers are in such high demand! If it was easy and natural, we would do it all the time ourselves! Right? […]
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19
Jan
2021
A Medley of Reinforcers You Won’t Want to Miss!
Don’t you just love when someone gives you a whole slew of ideas that are so fun and practical that you can’t decide which one to try first? I thought it was time to combine some of my favorite reinforcers/visual reminders and share them with you all at once! This is just for you! Take a look! For those of you who are my faithful longtime followers, this is just […]
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10
Jan
2021
The Best Little DATA TRACKER You’ll Ever Find!
No matter what changes in the world of special education, there is one thing that never changes….keeping track of data!!! UGH! It’s such a chore and not fun, so can you imagine that I’ve discovered something that can make it fun? I must send a shout out to Holly Foltz, one of our teachers who works with our students on the autism spectrum! I stopped by her school to talk […]
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07
Dec
2020
The Best Strategy to Teach A Multi-Step Task!
Independence is one of the top goals we have for our students with special needs. How do you do that when sometimes the task has several steps? You need to build confidence one step at a time. Here’s the way I can relate to this concept. I’m OK with technology, but I’m not a tech wiz. I learn what I need, but I don’t spend hours playing around with technology […]
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