Changes Are Coming to the SAT
January 25, 2021
By Eve Kessler, Esq.
With the COVID-19 school closures, teaching has shifted from classroom, small group, and individual instruction to distance learning. Teachers and service providers are working hard to adapt to remote platforms. As parents, you are in a unique position to let your school team know how your kids are responding to online learning: How are they doing at home with teachers, special educators, and therapists? Are they engaged and responsive? What’s working and what’s not?
“This is our time to explore and see what our kids are really able to do,” says Solandy Forte, a behavior analyst and clinical social worker. The insights you glean will help your child’s team decide the adjustments that need to be made in order for your child to succeed while learning at home.
To do that, Forte recommends keeping a user-friendly diary to record information about your child’s responses. This journal can be used not only to inform team decisions for the remainder of COVID-19 closure but it will also be of value when school reopens. At that point when assessments are resumed, it will be essential to determine present levels of performance and any regression that may have occurred. Following are the simple steps to gather the information you’ll need.
For each domain you use, ask and answer how your child responded to instruction/services this week. For instance: Was excited to see providers on screen. But saw an increase in refusal behavior. Ask teacher for specific strategies to help with refusal behavior.
The Notes section should contain five sections: Baseline, Instruction Materials/Services, Progress, Other, and Notes to yourself.
Use these example notes to help guide you.
Instruction Materials/Services: Worksheets combined with online reading materials and word fluency program. Make sure to communicate with special education teacher if there are any other materials/websites she can access independently.
Baseline: Responded positively to reading worksheet. Was able to read 8/10 high-frequency words independently.
Progress: Slight increase in refusal to participate in online reading fluency activities. On Tuesday, we attempted 5 times to complete word-fluency activity and all were refusals.
Note to self: Ask for independent projects so I can structure my work-at-home day.
Other: Responded better to materials presented online but not to worksheets. Was excited to see pictures paired with words on screen.
This blogpost is based on Practical Ways to Help Your Team Measure Your Child’s Learning During Covid-19 School Closure, a webinar for SPED*NET, Special Education Network of Wilton (CT), by Solandy Forte, PhD, LCSW, BCBA-D, a doctoral level Board Certified Behavior Analyst, licensed clinical social worker, and Director of Milestones Family Services. Other source materials includes Data Collection Sheets created for Special Education Equity for Kids of Connecticut (SEEK-CT), available in English at https://seekct.com/english-version-data and in Spanish at https://seekct.com/spanish-version-data. Eve Kessler, Esq., a retired criminal appellate attorney, is Executive Director of SPED*NET and a Contributing Editor of Smart Kids.