Back to School
For teachers and students, August means one thing: back to school! We've gathered our very best tips for teachers and parents to help create the best school year yet. With toolkits, a free IEP meeting planner, and a TED-Ed video on dyslexia, you'll be armed with the knowledge and information you need for a great year
Bright Ideas for Back-to-School Night … and Beyond
Typically, back-to-school night is a big event on the school calendar. This opportunity for parents and teachers to meet and connect deserves special attention. We've gathered ideas and materials to help plan the evening, ideas to encourage attendance and participation, resources to share with parents, as well as materials to help parents make the most of back-to-school night and set the tone for a successful school year.
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Back-to-School Tips for Special Education Teachers
Along with new smiling faces, a new school year brings special education teachers new IEPs, new co-teaching arrangements, new assessments to give, and more. In order to help you be as effective as you can with your new students, we've put together our top 10 list of back-to-school tips that we hope will make managing your special education program a little easier.
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Back-to-School Tips for Parents of Children with Special Needs
A new school year means a new grade, new teachers, new goals, and maybe even a new school! In order to help you and your child with special needs be as successful as you can be, we've put together a list of eight helpful back-to-school tips that we hope will make the transition into a new school year a little easier for you and your child.
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NEA Common Core State Standards Toolkit
This toolkit, developed by the National Education Association, will help teachers understand and prepare for implementation of the Common Core. It includes sections on curriculum and instruction, professional development, assessment, English language learners, and students with disabilities. You'll also find a handy myths and facts section, as well as links to lots of great resources.
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EduClipper: Clip Anything, Share Everything
EduClipper is a cool new visual bookmarking tool — a place to explore, share, and contribute content for teaching and learning. Easily add PowerPoint, PDFs, and image files to your boards, or link to videos that visitors can watch without leaving the page. You and your students can create class boards for sharing, organized around classroom themes or topics. EduClipper also includes teacher controls for content access and comment monitoring.
Read review >
Sign up for eduClipper (it's free) >
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Expert Advice: My middle schooler is frustrated and embarrassed by his classroom placement. What are our options for alternative placements?
Question: My son is 13 and in 6th grade. His resource placement is with the lowest functioning children of 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. He is not happy; he is socially very aware of where he is. He wants to know why he can't be with his regular friends. I feel that some of his work gets so "modified" that he is not learning to his potential. What should I do?
Answer: You need to sit down with an educational consultant to discuss his current level of abilities and disabilities and to think through what your options are.
Read more »
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Glossary Term: Word Attack
Word attack is an aspect of reading instruction that includes intentional strategies for learning to decode, sight read, and recognize written words.
Free E-Book: IEP Meeting Planner
Whether you're getting ready to attend your child's first Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting, or you've already gone to a number of them, these meetings may be intimidating, complicated, and sometimes confusing.
One way to lessen your pre-meeting jitters and to boost your confidence during the meeting is to use a detailed planner. This planner describes specific actions you can take before, during, and after the meeting. The e-book is free. Registration is required.
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LearningStore: Building Reading Confidence in Adolescents
All students need to feel good about who they are, their capabilities, and potential. Many adolescents, however, may suffer from insecurities about their ability to grasp and comprehend ideas, particularly when it involves reading. In this practical guide, the authors present a unique framework of research-based strategies for building self-efficacy in reading by focusing on four important concepts: confidence, independence, metacognition, and stamina.
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Upcoming Events
Calendar Check-in
Looking for information about what's happening this month? Check out our August 2013 calendar.
Library of Congress National Book Festival: September 21-22
This year's festival will feature authors, poets and illustrators in several pavilions. Festival-goers can meet and hear firsthand from their favorite poets and authors, get books signed, hear special entertainment, have photos taken with storybook characters, and participate in a variety of activities.
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Attendance Awareness Month
September is Attendance Awareness Month. How are you planning on raising awareness about this important issue? Learn about communication strategies and tactics to maximize your media outreach efforts and engage parents in your community.
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Library Card Sign-up Month
September is also Library Card Sign-up Month. Sponsored by the American Library Association, Library Card Sign-up Month is a time to remind parents and children that a library card is the most important school supply of all.
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PARCC Releases Manual on Testing Accessibility and Accommodations
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) released the first edition of the accessibility features and accommodations manual for the assessments currently being developed to align with the Common Core State Standards. The manual addresses accessibility for all students and then specific accommodations for students with disabilities and English Learners.
Also released are separate brochures written specifically for parents and teachers.
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What is Dyslexia?
Those of us who work with or parent kids with dyslexia usually have a pretty good understanding of what dyslexia is — and isn't. For others, though, dyslexia can be hard to understand, and there are a fair number of myths out there. This short TED-Ed talk by Kelli Sandman-Hurley provides a solid overview of dyslexia. Share it with someone you know!
Read article >
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