Literacy Centers and Menus

If you have never happened upon this website I would highly recommend it.  I would also recommend subscribing to her weekly newsletter.  This is a literacy menu that she uses in her centers.  I have worked with many teachers and have always recommended this format for intermediate grades.  I really like it and it's really flexible to make it work for your classroom.  She also has some really great ideas for fluency centers as well :)
http://www.lauracandler.com/filecabinet/literacy/PDFRead/menusamples.pdf

Managing Severely Disruptive Behavior

This is a tips sheet for teachers my psychologist and myself have been working on to share with our staff who have these "friends" in their classroom.

Managing Severely Disruptive Behavior

1.    Misbehavior designed to get attention should be ignored

·        Train students on how to ignore the attention seeking behaviors

2.    Misbehavior that the  student may not realize is unacceptable should be corrected with brief information

·        Presented to the student in a calm, quick and private  manner

3.    Minor misbehavior that cannot be ignored should be dealt with by using an in-class consequence

·        This demonstrates to the student that if they engage in inappropriate behavior there will be a consequence for their choice

4.    Arrange for out of class consequences for severe misbehavior

·        Another classroom of very mature students who can ignore the student

·        Send to timeout room

5.    Determine the length of out of class placement

·        From the time the student is calm, they may owe a certain number of minutes

6.    Determine how the student will be returned to his classroom

·        A designated time the student should meet with an adult to discuss what happened and how they can avoid future outbursts and this meeting should be written down

·        Complete behavior improvement form before returning to classroom

OMG Fantastico :)

This is a fantastic blog for RTI and literacy :)  Please go and check it out.
http://helloliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/10/rti-digging-deeper-assessments.html#comment-form

Training for Aimsweb progress monitoring teachers :)

1.      Log in to Aimsweb.com

2.      All students are listed on your caseload

3.      The measure that they are being monitored for is listed:

·         MAZE: reading comprehension

·         RCBM: passage fluency

·         MCOMP: computation

·         MCAP:  Concepts and applications

4.      Click on schedule

·         This is goal start and end date

·         We will progress monitor each week on Wednesday

·         Under periodic review please add every 8 weeks

5.      Click on next score

·         Click show all weeks

·         Tab order: scheduled dates

6.      Goal: see tip sheet

·         In this tab you need to go in and type what the program is and the box below you need to type in what the program is

·         I have set the goals for each kids already.  When a student begins to make enough progress this is where you will update the goals.  You will use the Aimsweb norms.

·         What the program write up must include: who, where, why, how long, what, when, how often,

7.      Progress report

·         This is the report we will look at every 2 weeks for monitoring student growth.   You do not need to print out b/c we will project these

8.      Norms are under Reports and Aimsweb tab:  you will use these to determine the goal levels

Progress monitoring

·        You will progress monitor students every wed.  If you cannot do it on that day make sure you still enter is on Wed (student absent, field trip, assembly)

·        Click on downloads and then on progress monitor

·        Choose area to locate the probe

·        All probes start at #1 except for students who are completing both RCBM and MAZE (you will start on probe #33 for maze)

·        You will print these off and student will complete paper pencil version each week on WED,  then you will enter their scores in on Aimsweb that same day

Writing PLEP's (present level of progress) with Aimsweb

Here are a few samples for taking all the wonderful info you get from Aimsweb and using that in your goal writing and IEP writing:

________________'s current level of performance on a Kindergarten  AIMSweb LSF probe is  2 Letter Sounds/min, while the expected  level of performance is 14 correct Letter Sounds for Fall. 

_______________'s current level of performance on (CBM: 5th grade MCAP) is __________________, while the expected level of performance is  ________________ (use the aimsweb norms tables here)

When given the survey level assessment __________________'s score was average given a ______________ grade level probe for __________(MCAP)

Aimsweb

The district that I work in is using Aimsweb this year for the bottom 25th percentile of students.  The first step to be completed was benchmarking our students.  This was really helpful to see if they were truly the lowest and we had a lot that were not.  After we completed that we then had to go back and find their instructional level.  That is the step that we are currently on.  After we complete that then we will determine groups for interventions and I will help the teachers write their intervention plans for the students.  This time of year is very busy for me :)  Getting RTI up and running every year takes a lot of my time, but in the end it's worth it.  How is RTI going in your building?  Any body else using Aimsweb this year and if you are tell what you think of it and how you use it in your builidng.  Off to benchmark some more :)

Helping students learn to deal with their frustration

Dealing with Frustration

1.    Identify someone they can talk and confide in

2.    Gently correct them and use redirection

·        Remind the student what they should be doing

3.    Direct instruction for dealing with stress, tension, frustration, or anxiety

·        Teach student how to identify when getting tense and how they are feeling overall

·        Student should practice calming strategies throughout the day when not feeling that way

4.    Have both teacher and student develop an unobstrusive signal for when starting to feel or show signs of frustration so they can practice strategies

5.    Teach student to use positive talk: switch negative statement to positive

6.    Structure academic success for the student