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Savvy  Teacher's Guide  Interventions That Work by Wright

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By Carolyn Coil, Special to CNN

Editor's note: Carolyn Coil is a speaker, educator and author. She works with teachers, administrators, parents and students, offering strategies for raising achievement, developing creative and critical thinking skills, motivating underachievers, differentiating curriculum and assessing student performance. She has taught graduate-level gifted endorsement courses for more than 20 years. You can follow her on Twitter, @CarolynCoil.

(CNN) - American educators have struggled for more than 40 years to define giftedness. Yet even now, there is no universally agreed upon definition of what it means to be gifted. U.S. federal law defines gifted students as those who perform or who show promise of performing at high levels in any one of five categories: general intellectual ability, specific academic aptitude, creative or productive thinking, leadership ability or visual/performing arts.

Beyond that definition, there are no specific national criteria for identifying gifted and talented students nor does federal law provide funding or mandates for identification of these students or programming for them. This definition is left to the states.

The result has been a wide variety of state definitions and methods for the identification of gifted children. Some states have specific definitions for giftedness, while others have none. Some states require programs for gifted students, while others do not.

In other words, the availability of programs and services for gifted students depends for the most part on where a student lives and what state, school district or school he or she is in.

There is debate over how to identify and measure giftedness, whether giftedness is innate (nature) or developed (nurture) and whether giftedness is driven by intelligence test results or through other indicators.
My view: The joys and challenges of raising a gifted child
These varying perspectives have led to much misinformation about gifted students and what programs for gifted students should look like. Here are 10 of the most common myths about gifted students and programs for the gifted:
Myth No. 1: Intelligence is inherited and does not change. Gifted students, therefore, do not need any special services.
All of us do inherit certain traits, intelligences and talents. But these need to be developed and nurtured throughout life for them to grow and reach their full potential. A beautiful flower inherits certain traits. But if it is not watered and fed and if it does not get the right amount of sunlight, it does not develop as it could. The same is true for gifted children.

Myth No. 2: Giftedness can easily be measured by intelligence tests and tests of achievement.

Giftedness is difficult to measure. This is why schools and school districts try so many different ways to identify gifted students. Tests are often culturally biased and may reflect ethnicity, socioeconomic status, exposure and experiences rather than true giftedness. Other children may be gifted but are not good at taking tests. They may not score well on standardized tests but may be gifted, especially in creative and productive thinking.
Myth No. 3: There is no need to identify gifted students in the early grades.
Many school districts do not begin identifying gifted and talented students until third grade. There is a belief among some educators that giftedness cannot be properly identified in the early grades. However, the National Association for Gifted Children programming standards start with pre-kindergarten. The group's early childhood network position paper says that "providing engaging, responsive learning environments ... benefit all children, including young gifted children."
Photos: Inside a 'genius school' in 1948 Myth No. 4: Gifted students read all the time, wear glasses and/or are physically and socially inept.
From Jason, the cartoon character in the "Foxtrot" comic strip, to Sheldon on the TV show "The Big Bang Theory," we can see this stereotype in action. But like all other kids, gifted children come in many varieties. Some are successful in sports or music, and some are physically attractive. Some have many friends, while others have only a few. Some are extreme extroverts, while others are introverts. There is no one type of person or personality we can pinpoint as gifted.
Myth No. 5: Gifted kids are all model students - they're well-behaved and make good grades.
This statement reflects another stereotype about gifted students. Some gifted children are model students. They are compliant, follow directions, never misbehave and make straight A's. But many others challenge teachers, do their own thing instead of the assigned work, procrastinate until the last minute when doing long-range assignments, get low grades, are disorganized and have poor study skills.
Myth No. 6: All gifted students work up to their potential.
Most schools have their share of gifted underachievers. These students have the potential for excellence but - for a variety of reasons - do not fulfill that potential. Gifted underachievers may decide they will only do the minimum requirements and choose the easy work instead of more challenging tasks. They often lack study and organizational skills because in the early grades they don't need to develop them. Some get discouraged when the work doesn't come easily, and others don't want to look gifted because it isn't "cool."
Myth No. 7: Teaching gifted students is easy.
Some believe that a good teacher can easily teach any student. If this were the case, good teaching with no special training would be all that is needed to teach gifted students. However, in my many years of teaching graduate-level courses in gifted education, I have found that good teachers add to their skills and learn new strategies and techniques targeted particularly to meeting the needs of the gifted. Most teachers of the gifted tell me this is the hardest, most challenging, most exhausting and most rewarding teaching they have ever done.

Myth No. 8: Gifted students will get by on their own without any special help from the school.

I hear this myth often, especially in times of budget cutting. Some people claim that gifted students come from wealthy families who can meet their children's needs. Others assert that the expense of providing gifted programs cannot be justified. In general, the assumption is that gifted students will succeed regardless of the quality of the education they receive. This is simply not true. Gifted students require special services and programs to ensure the growth rather than the loss of their outstanding abilities.
Myth No. 9: It never hurts gifted students to teach others what they already know.
If gifted students already know the grade-level standards, it may seem logical to have them teach others. This is faulty logic. It assumes that teaching struggling students is something gifted kids innately know how to do. Most gifted students do not know how to tutor others. They often are frustrated that struggling students don't understand what they perceive as easy. Peer tutoring using gifted students also takes away time they should be using for more advanced work, more rigor and more higher-level thinking.
Myth No. 10: All children are gifted.
If all kids are gifted, then there is no need to identify gifted students and no need for any special programs for gifted. I strongly believe that all children have distinctive and unique qualities that make each one valuable. This does not mean, however, that all children are gifted. Being identified as gifted simply means that certain children have needs that are different from most others at their age and grade level. All gifted students need programs and services to ensure their growth rather than the loss of their outstanding abilities.
For information about gifted students and programs, I recommend the following websites and publishers:
* Carolyn Coil
* National Association for Gifted Children
* Hoagie's Gifted Education Page
* Pieces of Learning
* Prufrock Press
* Royal Fireworks Press
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Carolyn Coil.

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My view: Ten myths about gifted students and programs for gifted

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By Carolyn Coil, Special to CNN Editor's note: Carolyn Coil is a speaker, educator and author. She works with teachers, administrators, parents and students, offering strategies for raising achievement, developing creative and critical thinking skills, motivating underachievers, differentiating curriculum and assessing student performance. She has taught graduate-level gifted endorsement courses for more than 20 years.

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What Do High Achievers Need? | Scholastic.com

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Tips for Teachers: Successful strategies for teaching gifted learners

This article by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development offers a list of tips for teachers. It focuses on suggestions any teacher can use in the classroom to aid their gifted students and promote their achievement in positive ways. Common blunders are also discussed as well as why they can be detrimental to the gifted student.

Being a regular classroom teacher can be both an exciting and overwhelming experience. There are so many curriculums to cover, so many standards to meet, and so many things to learn. It can seem as though you're being stretched in an infinite number of directions. And, the most challenging part generally isn't the teaching; it is managing student behavior. Without a doubt the most difficult student in your classroom is generally the one who finishes every assignment in less than five minutes and requires constant redirection. We hope you will find these tips helpful.

With areas of the curriculum that are sequential, such as mathematics and spelling, how about giving the end of the year test during the first week of school. If you have students who can demonstrate competency at 80 percent or higher, you will save them an entire year of frustration and boredom if you can determine exactly what their ability level is and then offer them curriculum that allows them to move forward. Formal assessments can be extremely helpful, however, they are expensive and there is generally a back log of students waiting to be tested. Conducting informal assessments is a useful and inexpensive tool that will offer a lot of information.

Piaget's Stage Theory of Development
Bloom's Taxonomy

Tip #6: Learn About Distance Learning Opportunities
The choices available to teachers and parents in this area have exploded in the past several years. Distance learning opportunities have dramatically increased options for meeting the needs of gifted students. Programs such as Art of Problem Solving math and the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth Online courses, as well as a myriad of online high school and college courses including online AP classes, are a great way to substitute more challenging curriculum for students who demonstrate proficiency with grade level material. Of course, these classes generally aren't free, but they are an option that many parents are willing to pay for. Search the free online Davidson Gifted Database to find resources recommended by students, parents and teachers.

Another reason that many teachers are afraid to try acceleration is that they are concerned about the student's level of social maturity. Research has demonstrated time and time again that acceleration is effective for many reasons and that social maturity is rarely an issue. Several studies have shown that social age is correlated with mental age -- not chronological age. So, not only is it generally in the student's best interest academically to accelerate, it is in his/her best social interest as well! The same goes for students in high school. If a student is ready for college work, encourage them to take college courses or to consider an early college entrance program. Indeed the student might need a bit of tutoring to get up to speed and/or may need some extra support initially, particularly with writing and/or organization, however, gifted students learn very quickly and my experience has been that these supports can generally be removed after a reasonable adjustment period.

Blunder Number One: Asking Your Gifted Students To Serve As Tutors For Students Who Are Struggling. Gifted children think and learn differently than other students. Asking them to serve as tutors can be a frustrating experience for all parties involved. This should also be remembered when putting together learning teams or group projects. Putting your strongest student with your students who are struggling is likely to be a painful experience for everyone. Imagine developing a cycling team with someone like Lance Armstrong as one member and then selecting other members who have either just learned to ride their bikes or are still relying on training wheels to help them gain their balance. It is unlikely that anyone in this group is going to have a positive experience.

Blunder Number Two: Giving Your Gifted Students More Work When They Finish Early. It is common practice to give students more work if they complete their assignments early. This is counterintuitive if you consider that if the student is completing his/her work in an efficient manner, it is likely that the work is too easy. Let's once again consider our cyclist. Would you have the cyclist who finished the race first continue to ride, on a stationary bike no less, until all of the other cyclists finished the race? What if that cyclist was given an opportunity to participate in more challenging races or had the opportunity to develop his/her talents in related areas -- wouldn't that be a better use of his/her time?

Blunder Number Three: Only Allowing Gifted Students To Move Ahead When They Complete The Grade/Age Designed Work Assignments With 100% Accuracy. It is important to remember that gifted students think and learn differently and can be extremely rebellious. No one -- not adults, not children and especially not gifted children -- likes to be bored! Gifted students, thanks to their ability to reason, will purposely choose not do something merely because they "must" do it, particularly if it seems pointless to them. They would rather spend their time thinking or reading than completing worksheets that are too easy. Focus on your students' strengths, not their shortcomings. Offer them opportunities that are consistent with their abilities -- lead them from where they are. Depending how long they have been in the system, it may take them a while to trust you. So, don't be surprised if there isn't a miraculous overnight change. Be consistent and positive and remember, you may be the first teacher who has offered them an opportunity to actually learn, rather than regurgitate and they may not know how to handle your responsiveness. Don't fall in to the trap of saying, "See, I told you he wasn't gifted, I gave him one tough assignment and he failed." Gifted students generally haven't had to work to succeed. Give them time to build their, often atrophied, wings in a safe environment.

Tip #9: Utilize Outside Resources
There is a lot of information in this article, and it is likely you're feeling a bit overwhelmed! Here is the best news so far . . . you are not alone and you don't have to come up with all of the answers by yourself. There are several national organizations devoted entirely to assisting gifted young people and the professionals who serve them. The three most notable organizations are the National Association for Gifted Children, University of Iowa's Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. As a first step, join the Davidson Institute's free Educator's Guild. Members have access to electronic mailing lists and a Facebook discussion group to exchange ideas, locate resources and discuss issues with other educators all over the country. The Davidson Institute also provides participants of the Davidson Young Scholars program and their parents, free services as well. In addition to these national organizations, you may also wish to find organizations at the state and local level that focus on meeting the needs of gifted students. It isn't necessary to turn your world upside down to be an effective teacher of gifted students, you just have to be flexible, knowledgeable, and be willing to try new things. Gifted students cannot fend for themselves and it is up to you to begin the exciting adventure of making a difference to the gifted students in your classroom (if you haven't already done so)! After all, one person can and does make a difference.

Comments

Parent on 10/20/2017

Actually, grandparent. When was this article written? My 7 year old grandson is so bored at school. I have shared this link with his parents and will urge them to advocate for him to be accelerated and challenged. Look at Beast Academy!

Educator on 1/30/2017

Although somewhat useful (I saw my sixty years ago self often in the article), I would find it more persuasive if it contained footnotes supporting some of its assertions. For example, the idea that one whose brain is more mature in its ability to absorb information and to reason from that information is also more advanced socially and can handle a two grade (or more) advancement seems suspect. The article states that studies back this assertion up, I would have liked to have a citation or two supporting this assertion which, in my experience, is usually not correct.

Educator on 9/8/2016

I am going to major in Business ed, and minor in Physical education. Is there any pointers to keep in mind with gifted/talented students in PE?

Educator on 8/11/2015

Pair up gifted students who "get along"and challenge them to a creative project of their interest that requires research and teamwork. Set a date for the project to be shared with the class.X: build a computer, write and act out a skit, make-up a song on the guitar or piano, create a poem or rap, design a basketball play, demonstrate the effects of gravity, conduct a survey on why some bullies don`t receive counseling at an early age, paint a picture expressing classical music emotion and meaning, invent a spelling game that students will love, study teachers of the year and discover why hands-on education is so successful, create a fun commercial of their favorite product, or make a video of a band!

Educator on 7/29/2015

This article should be mandatory reading for all teachers!! My sons are very gifted but tend to be on the rebellious side. Most teachers would say see they aren't gifted when they didn't get 100% on an exam. One of my boys is a distracted gifted learner. He has to do other things during instruction but is able to reiterate what was said. The other one chose to "dummy down" as I call it so he wouldn't be forced to tutor others or singled out. Teachers please watch for students who do well on exams (80% +) and don't turn in assignments, they are possibly gifted.

Educator on 5/10/2015

I found this to be a very eye-opening article. As I read the article there were many points discussed I felt guilty because I had used them. One of the points that stand out for me was, I had been giving a pre-test before each skill I taught; but I never thought about giving the whole year's test. I will implement this idea to check for understanding. Another thought I liked was to accelerate the students learning by putting them in a higher grade's learning on the skill. I think many teachers feel that if the students learn a higher grade's skill, what they will learn the next year. I see that I need to work on getting out of the box more often, thanks to this article. I thought the Individual instruction plan menu was very helpful to help me think of other ideas to accelerate the students' learning. There were so many great ideas in all areas of learning. The article has helped me to research activities that will broaden students thinking in all areas. The article gave me many activities ideas I could use to challenge the students.

Educator on 2/5/2015

Thanks for the information - a lot to read and understand.

Educator on 1/19/2015

Great article! This was very helpful and I especially like the resources provided.

Educator on 12/4/2014

Thank you for this information! It is helpful in understanding gifted students.

Educator on 8/11/2010

Thanks for your article. Measurement of one's academic competence and advancement is certainly one lens through which to view "gifted." However, there is also the non-measurable and non-quantifiable observation that a gifted person sees the world and makes sense of the world differently and in surprising ways (which may or may not translate into expected academic performance). Also, in discussions of giftedness, I suggest adequate attention to areas of athletics, art, music, dance, et. al. (How do we value giftedness from the perspective of what it means to be human as opposed to what it means to succeed in and advance through school curriculum?)

Other on 1/3/2009

Thank you for your wonderful information. As a highly-gifted student, I agree that it is horrifying that we are treated like our average/below average classmates. Thank goodness I have an amazing TAG teacher who I can count on for brain stimulation! Thanks also for not layering on about all kids being gifted. Yes, all people are different, but only intelligent people are considered GIFTED!

Parent on 10/15/2008

My daughter is in GATE and was allowed to work ahead in math (4th Grade). She and 2 others worked ahead by 1 year. She went from saying that Math was her worst subject (her perception) to it being her favorite subject. Her confidence level has improved. The teacher told me that the three highest 5th Grade math students were 4th Graders.

Student on 9/2/2008

As a profoundly gifted 14 year-old, I would like to thank the author of this article. I took the SAT in 7th grade and scored a 1460, in the 99th percentile of all students. I still have to take the same classes as everyone else. Having more busywork shoved at gifted students is not helpful. Neither is "clustering-" putting one gifted student in a group of average or less than average students. I almost always complete group projects single-handedly. Last year, I was so bored in my Science class that I wrote a novel in my notebook to pass the time. Thank you so much for sharing this with the public.

Educator on 6/8/2008

Kudos for speaking out against heterogeneous grouping when it is often considered politically incorrect to do so. As one of those gifted students, I was always furious when asked to help someone who was on the low end of the scale. It felt like punishment.

Other on 5/6/2008

I was one of those gifted students - tested in the 98th percentile. Until reading this article, I never realized my rebellion choices in life were actually responses rooted in my intelligence. The education system would benefit the gifted far more if they were to concentrate on the social aspect of intelligence rather than trying to cram more "knowledge" into kids.

Parent on 2/1/2005

My son is in a G&T program here in Texas--the sad part is that it is severely limited and not very challenging. He taught himself pre-algebra last summer, then last fall had a horrific time with his math teacher. Finally, the school gave him the 6th grade math TAKS, which he aced. Over the X-mas holidays he studied the first five chapters of the 7th grade pre-algebra, now, having been moved to 7th grade math, he is already at the head of the G&T section! He should be in algebra. Here is a potentially gifted mathematician/scientist being tortured by conformity and mediocre teaching.

Parent on 1/21/2005

Although magnet programs are a positive step, selecting 3-5% as Gifted and then treating them alike isn't a solution. Any two students with test scores 2 standard deviations apart will have different educational needs - whether (-2,0) or (0, +2) or (+2, +4). Profoundly gifted kids may have problems in a program aimed at the 95th percentile kids. Those kids become known as "difficult" since they are not thriving in the "gifted" classes. My daughter is quite bored by the math offered to her, but the teacher believes that all students in the classroom must follow the standard curriculum at the same pace.
Gifted kids have strengths and weaknesses, and shouldn't be expected to perform at the same level in all areas of the curriculum. My son leads his class in math and science. However he struggles with the language arts curriculum and would fit better into a class aimed at the 90th percentile than the top 2%. He could handle a much more difficult science curriculum, but the administration doesn't wish to outpace the language-oriented students who are the majority of the class.

Educator on 1/5/2005

Previous posters: You speak of "gifted" students as though they are a different species. I would challenge you to consider the studies of multiple intelligences and realize every child has strengths that could be addressed and developed in the same way we envision teaching gifted or special needs students. What a wonderful experience education could be if each student had her own IEP.

Educator on 10/24/2004

I have to disagree with the last poster. The students I have seen "self-select" out of gifted class because they were incorrectly placed suffer a signficant blow to their self-esteem and self-confidence due to their being unable to succeed in the gifted class. How would you like to play tennis against a pro? Or a duet with a virtuoso? Or have a bicycle race against Lance Armstrong? Now imagine you're nine years old.

Educator on 8/21/2004

Allowing'normal' students to access gifted programs as a result of parent pressure is not harmful. My experience in this area has shown these students usually self select themselves out of the program and parents are happy for this to occur once they see the differences between their child and gifted students.

Educator on 4/20/2004

Very good article, it makes some excellent points. But I do miss one thing, though: Advice about how to detect it when ambitious parents wish to "pace" a child of normal intelligence, by requesting that he be placed among gifted children. Letting them have it their way would cause no harm to the gifted ones, but it will be a painful experience for the normal child!

The appearance of any information in the Davidson Institute's Database does not imply an endorsement by, or any affiliation with, the Davidson Institute. All information presented is for informational purposes only and is solely the opinion of and the responsibility of the author. Although reasonable effort is made to present accurate information, the Davidson Institute makes no guarantees of any kind, including as to accuracy or completeness. Use of such information is at the sole risk of the reader.

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Tips for Teachers: Successful strategies for teaching gifted learners

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This article by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development offers a list of tips for teachers. It focuses on suggestions any teacher can use in the classroom to aid their gifted students and promote their achievement in positive ways. Common blunders are also discussed as well as why they can be detrimental to the gifted student.

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Advice for Classroom Teachers: Your Students with IEPs

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The ability to communicate clearly and effectively forms the foundation of modern life

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Definitions vary for differentiated instruction, a popular approach for teaching children with a range of academic strengths and interests.

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Most teachers have at least one or two students with IEPs in their classrooms each year, and sometimes many more. What is an IEP, and how does it affect students, teachers, and families? Here's what you need to know.

What is an IEP?

Source: Modern Teacher

IEP stands for Individualized Education Program. It's a legal document that clearly defines how a school plans to meet a child's unique educational needs that result from a disability. IEPs were first introduced in 1975, when Congress passed legislation that gave children with disabilities the right to attend public schools.

Today, IEPs are covered under t he Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This federal law entitles all children with certain types of disabilities a free, appropriate education . Children who qualify must be provided with an education that meets their unique needs, provides access to the general education curriculum, and meets state grade-level standards.

What is the purpose of an IEP?

The IEP is the cornerstone of a child's special education program. It assesses their present performance, sets reasonable measurable goals for the child, and specifies the services the school will provide. IEPs grow and change along with a child and are regularly reevaluated to ensure they're still effective (at least annually, sometimes more frequently).

IDEA says that school districts must provide a free, appropriate public education (FAPE) to all children. What's more, they must allow students to participate in that education in the least restrictive environment (LRE) possible. They must be given the opportunity to participate in the traditional school experience to the full extent possible.

Least Restrictive Environment (LRE)

Source: LREs at Undivided

When federal law first required public schools to admit special education students in the 1970s, many of them grouped these students together into special ed classrooms or buildings. This isolated them from their peers, leading to stigma among the general public. Plus, students of wildly varying abilities were often all in one classroom, making it difficult to meet all of their needs.

When IDEA went into effect in 1990, one goal was to change the stigma and give all students a more appropriate education among their peers. To that end, the law stated students must learn in the least restrictive environment. In other words, schools were urged to find ways to serve students with special needs in the general classroom whenever possible.

An IEP can help schools and teachers figure out how to help students succeed in the LRE that's right for them, which for many is a general education inclusion classroom, possibly with push-in, pull-out services. For some students, a general classroom isn't an appropriate LRE. However, the law requires schools to do their best to keep kids learning alongside their peers before opting for a different choice.
Learn more about Least Restrictive Environments (LRE) here.
Who qualifies for an IEP?

IDEA covers children from birth until they graduate high school or turn 21, whichever comes first. To qualify, a child must fall under one of 13 disability categories, and their disability must adversely affect their school performance. Just because a child has a disability does not mean they need special services or require an IEP. They do have the right to be evaluated for one, though.

These are the included categories and legal definitions under IDEA:

Autism Spectrum Disorder: A developmental disability that mainly affects a child's social and communication skills, and sometimes behavior

Deafness: A severe hearing impairment that prevents a child from processing language through hearing

Deaf-Blindness: A combination of a hearing and a visual impairment

Hearing Impairment: Hearing loss that is less severe than deafness

Intellectual Disability: Below-average intellectual ability

Multiple Disabilities: A child with more than one condition covered by IDEA

Orthopedic Impairment: An impairment to a child's body, no matter the cause

Other Health Impairment: Conditions that limit a child's strength, energy, or alertness

Specific Learning Disability: A learning issue that affects a child's ability to write, listen, speak, reason, or do math

Speech or Language Impairment: A range of communication problems such as stuttering, impaired articulation, etc.

Traumatic Brain Injury: A brain injury caused by an accident or some kind of physical force

Visual Impairment, including Blindness: Partial or complete loss of sight, not correctable by eyewear

What information does an IEP include?

Each IEP must be an individualized document, created especially for the child in question. There is no standard form, but the law does require it to include sections for present levels of performance, goals, and services. See a sample IEP with its sections explained here.

Present Levels of Performance (PLOP, PLP, or PLAAFP)

Source: Maryland Online IEP

This section documents a child's current school performance and how their disability affects their progress and involvement. These are reevaluated on a regular basis, at least annually, and updated as needed. They should include a detailed look at:

Academic Achievement: This refers to a child's progress in academic subjects like reading, math, science, etc. It could be based on observations of classroom teachers, grades, results of state and district standardized tests, special education evaluations, and more.

Functional Performance: This term encompasses all the skills and activities kids learn that aren't directly related to academics. That might include language development, social skills, behavior, life skills, mobility skills, and so on.

Learn more about the Present Level of Performance component of an IEP here.
Goals

Source: A Day in Our Shoes

An IEP must include measurable goals for the student that can be reasonably accomplished in a school year. The goals are based on the student's present level of performance and focus on the student's specific needs.

It's vital that the goals on an IEP be "measurable." This means they must be very specific in their wording. A goal should include how success will be measured, and when progress is expected to be seen.

Here's an example of a poorly written IEP goal: "The student will improve their reading skills by focusing on sight words." This goal doesn't include any way in which progress can be measured, or a projected time frame for meeting the goal.

Instead, this goal might say, "At the end of the first grading period, the student will demonstrate mastery of a list of 50 common sight words by reading aloud the words when presented on flash cards, with an accuracy of 95%."
Discover much more about IEP goals here.
Services

Source: IEP Related Services at Undivided

In this section, schools state the ways they'll help the child achieve their IEP goals. This might include:

Accommodations: These are special arrangements that aren't part of the standard classroom equipment or policy. For instance, a child with sensory-processing issues might be permitted to wear noise-cancelling headphones in the classroom. Or a student with vision challenges might have a written test read aloud to them and be allowed to respond orally. Accommodations don't change what a student learns, it only changes how they learn it. See more examples of classroom accommodations here.

Modifications: Modifications do involve changes to what a child is learning. They might lower or raise expectations for specific standards, or reduce the amount of work a child is expected to produce. Learn about modifications vs. accommodations here.

Assistive Technology: Examples include text-to-speech software, typing instead of handwriting, closed-captioning, hearing aids, pencil grips, etc. See more about assistive technology here.

Related Services: These are any other services kids need to help them succeed in the LRE, such as transportation services, occupational therapy, social skills groups, interpreters, or classroom aides. Here's more on IEP related services.

Who creates an IEP?

Source: FosterVA

Under IDEA, schools are required to actively seek out and identify students who qualify for special education services. It's often a classroom teacher who first suggests a student be evaluated for these services. Other times, a doctor, counselor, or parent may initiate the process.

Once a school decides to evaluate a student, they must seek parental approval. Schools usually have set processes in place, including assessments and evaluations, but they must follow the law. Most districts have IEP coordinators to help with the process. Parents may also choose to have their children evaluated privately, at their own cost.

After an evaluation determines a child qualifies for special education services, the IEP team is assembled. This might include:

Classroom teachers

Special ed team members

Counselors or psychologists

Behavioral specialists

District representatives

Other interested parties, such as other teachers or staff members who interact with the child

Parents or legal guardians

Child, if appropriate

The IEP team changes over time, and not all members must attend meetings. However, at each formal yearly evaluation, it's best to assemble as many members of a team as possible.

What rights do parents have in the IEP process?

Source: Dr. Nicole Connolly

The law gives parents some very specific rights in the IEP process. Parents and legal guardians have the right to:

Request a special education evaluation at no cost

Give or deny consent for a special education evaluation

Agree or refuse the special education services offered

Have an independent evaluation performed (at their own cost)

Disagree with a school's decision by asking for a due-process hearing or mediation

Participate in or request IEP meetings, and bring others to the meeting

Review IEP documents at any time

Control who has access to their child's IEP

Receive prior written notice of any proposed changes to the IEP

Find out more about IEPs and parental rights here.
IEP Resources

In addition to the resource links throughout this post, here are some additional places to find info for parents, teachers, and schools on IEPs.

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As a parent or a teacher, you might wonder "What is an IEP, and how can it help a child succeed in school?" Find out more here.

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You'll find articles, law and regulations, and tips about how to get quality services in your child's IEP on this page. You'll also learn how to use tactics and strategies to negotiate with the school. This page includes IEP cases, recommended books, and free publications about IEPs.

IEP FAQs

Questions and Answers On Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), Evaluations, and Reevaluations from US Department of Education, IDEA 2004 Reauthorization Resources. The responses presented in this document generally are informal guidance representing the interpretation of the Department of the applicable statutory or regulatory requirements in the context of the specific facts presented and are not legally binding.

IDEA: What You Need to Know About IEPs for Children with Behavior Problems - IDEA 2004 and the special education regulations include specific requirements for IEPs of children whose behavior impedes their learning or the learning of others -- including training teachers to use positive behavioral interventions and strategies.

Children with Hearing Loss Need an Educational Audiologist on their Education Team. Educational audiology is a related service under IDEA. If your child has a hearing loss and is on an IEP, they should have access to an Educational Audiologist. To make sure this service happens, write educational audiology into your child's IEP.

Emergency Evacuation Planning for Children with Disabilities by Lori Scott RN, BSN, MS. Preplanning is imperative for medical or emergency situations at school. Emergency evacuation planning should include a comprehensive written plan individualized to meet your child's needs. Add it to the IEP or 504 Plan.

How Did IEPs Change Under IDEA 2004? New requirements for special education teachers, IEPs, and scientifically based instruction for children with disabilities.

Present Levels: The Foundation of the IEP. Until the Present Levels in your child's IEP are up to date, you will never be able to get the program, placement, or education your child needs. Indiana Advocate Pat Howey explains why parent input is so important during the IEP Team's assessment of your child's present levels of performance.

School Says, "No Advanced Classes for Kids with IEPs"? Children with IEPs receive protection from discrimination under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504). Does your child qualifies for advanced classes and the school will not enroll her because she has an IEP? That sounds like discrimination.

Must Services in the IEP be Provided by a Special Ed Teacher? The IDEA and federal special ed regs do not require that the services listed in the IEP must be provided by a special ed teacher.

Can School Attorneys Legally Attend IEP Meetings? Jeff Martin, parent of a child with a disability and law student at William & Mary, researched the question and provides some answers.

Can Parents Demand a Member of the IEP Team be Excluded? You can demand, but if you do, you set yourself up for a big fall - and you are likely to be labeled as unstable. Parents need to request the services their children need and attempt to keep things unemotional and businesslike.

How Can I Get My Child's IEP Revised? Can parents ask that the IEP be revised? Answers to questions about when and why to revise IEPs.

Is There a Limit to the Number of Goals in the IEP? Answers to questions about IEP goals and who is responsible for long-term planning.

Can a Child be Punished for Not Meeting IEP Goals? If the teacher fails to meet the instructional objective, it makes no sense to punish the child. It is the teacher's failure. She has not taught your child what he needs to be able to do in order the reach the goal.

Can an IEP Meeting be Postponed? The IEP Team can convene, and agree to re-convene after receiving the new testing results. There is no limit to the number of IEP meetings that may be needed to create an IEP that meets your child's needs.

Help! I Need Some Support at the IEP Meeting. Are you anxious about attending your IEP meeting? Would you like someone to attend with you who can help you get quality services for your child. Don't know where to start? In the beginning, this process seems overwhelming to most parents, so you are not alone.

Can More Than One Disability Be Listed in an IEP? Answer - of course. More than one disability can be documented in your child's IEP.

Should Your Child's IEP Include Extended Year Services (ESY)? Some children with disabilities require special education and related services longer than the usual school year in order to receive FAPE. Extended School Year (ESY) services are special education and/or related services provided beyond the usual school year.

Does a Child Need an IEP AND a 504 Plan? There is nothing in the law that says a child with a disability should have an IEP for some needs and a 504 plan for others. It's confusing, it's more work, and it's unnecessary.

Is There a 10 Day Timeline for IEP Meetings? IDEA, the federal law and implementing regulations do not include a timeline for an IEP meeting when parents request a meeting to review or revise their child's IEP.

When Do I Get a Copy of the IEP? You should get a copy of your child's IEP right away. There is no reason for any delay. Write a short polite letter to request a copy.

Is Your Child Making Progress in Special Ed? Is your child making acceptable progress in special ed? Is your child on track to meet the measurable annual goals in the IEP?

Parents are Not Members of the IEP Team...Say What!? Parents are and always have been members of their child's IEP team. If parents aren't involved in developing the IEP as members of the team, how would they give consent?

How Can I Correct Errors in the Record? If the school has minutes, notes, or other documentation from IEP meetings, these notes and minutes are part of your child's record and are available to you.

Tapes are "Best Evidence" in Litigation. Should we use transcripts of the meetings or use the tapes as evidence in the hearing?

What Should Be the Effective Dates on IEPs? "Effective date" means just what it says. If you write an IEP and put the "effective date" as the date of the meeting, then the IEP goes into effect on that date. If you are writing an IEP for the next academic year, the dates on the IEP should indicate that.

Can I Write on the IEP? There is no legal or commonsense reason why a parent or any other IEP team member cannot write on a child's IEP.

Does an IEP Make a Child Ineligible for Sports? Prohibiting a student from participating in a sport because he has a disability and an IEP is discrimination, and a violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Can We Write Our Parapro's Name in the IEP? You need to be careful about how you approach this issue. Much depends on your relations with other school personnel and the policies or customs in your school or school district.

Should Poor Organizational Skills be Accommodated in the IEP? Some students with disabilities need accommodations or modifications to their educational program. Even with consistent teaching of strategies, his areas of weakness will probably never be strengths. It's time for the school to identify and focus on his strengths, and help him find ways to compensate with the problem areas.

Is Your PLOP a Flop? The PLOP is known now as the PLAAFP, Present Levels of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance that provide baseline information about your child's knowledge and skills. Present levels are the starting point for setting IEP goals and measuring progress toward these goals.

More articles on IEPs.

IEP Pop-Ups & Checklists

Resolving IEP Disputes. Click on the pop-up box to learn strategies to resolve disagreements, steps to take if you disagree with the school, and o ptions you have if unable to resolve disputes.

Developing Your Child's IEP. Click on the pop-up box to learn about IDEA requirements, see answers to your questions, find federal law or regulations that support these answers, and a list of additional resources.

Special Factors in IEPs. Find what special factors need to be considered by the IEP team, how the IEP must address these factors, and learn what the federal law and regulations require.

IEP Checklist: Is Your Child's IEP Individualized? What Does it Take? When you answer the questions on this IEP Checklist, you will know if your child's IEP is individualized, as the law requires.

Special Education Advocacy by Pete & Pam Wright "IDEA"

Wrightslaw: From Emotions to Advocacy, 2nd Edition (FETA-2) by Pam and Pete Wright is available from Harbor House Law Press. Take a sneak preview of the book - download the Introduction, Chapter 1: Getting Started, and skim the other chapters of the book.

We built the From Emotions to Advocacy site at FetaWeb.com to supplent this book. You will find articles, checklists, resources, and sample letters at the The FetaWeb site. If you have From Emotions to Advocacy (FETA), go to FetaWeb.com to get your FETA Owner's Manual.

OSEP Dear Colleague Letter - Speech-language Pathologists at IEP Meetings. OSEP addresses concerns about speech-language services for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), clarifying requirements of the IDEA related to the provision of services for children with disabilities, including children with ASD [including infants and toddlers in Part C with IFSPs]. Clarification of OSEP's concern that SLPs and other appropriate professionals may not be included in evaluation and eligibility determinations.

What You Need to Know About IEPs for Children with Behavior Problems - IDEA 2004 and the special education regulations include specific requirements for IEPs of children whose behavior impedes their learning or the learning of others -- including training teachers to use positive behavioral interventions and strategies .

Changing Schools and IEPs - 1 week, 1 month, 90 Days? When a child transfers schools, when must the new school provide services in the IEP? Find out what IDEA 2004 says about providing comparable services for children who transfer.

What You Need to Know About IEPs & IEP Meetings -
How did IEPs change under IDEA 2004? What does the law say about developing, reviewing and revising IEPs? Who may be excused from IEP meetings, when, how? When can the child's IEP be changed without an IEP meeting? What services must be provided when a child transfers to a district in the same state? A different state? What are "multi-year IEPs"?
Learn about IEP team members and IEP team attendance, when team members may be excused from a meeting, and what parents and the school district must do before a team member may be excused. Changing the Dynamics of IEP Meetings: Online Draft IEP Forms. Online IEPs have introduced a shift in perspective. As skills increase, it may get better. But we are in the 'guinea pig' phase now. I dislike what is happened with the team dynamics.

Can the IEP Team Prepare a "Draft IEP?" IDEA 2004 discourages the use of "draft IEPs" because they send a message that parental concerns and parental participation are not valued. Since some IEP teams will continue to use draft IEPs, Pat Howey describes the pros and cons and how you can turn a lemon (draft IEP) into lemonade.

What You Need to Know About IEP Team Members & IEP Team Attendance
IEPs, Highly Qualified Teachers & Research Based Instruction - Learn about new language in IDEA 2004 that is designed to ensure that children with disabilities are taught by
10 Tips: How to Use IDEA to Improve Your Child's Special Education Program - Parent attorney
Your Child's IEP & Progress in the General Curriculum - Your child's IEP should be based on information from current evaluations (present levels of educational performance) and your state's curriculum and standards. Wayne Steedman explains how IDEA 2004 creates a higher standard for a free, appropriate public education and how parents can use IDEA to obtain a better IEP for their children. Learn how to ensure how to that the IEP goals are comprehensive, specific -- and measurable. Wayne advises you about pitfalls to avoid and provides advice about how you can resolve disputes without resorting to a due process hearing - and what you should do if you cannot resolve your dispute.

Game Plan: Write SMART IEPs - From teachers to parents, it seems like everyone is confused about how to write good IEP goals and objectives. This Wrightslaw Game Plan about SMART IEPS will help you get started. highly qualified teachers and receive research based instruction. This article includes new requirements for personnel training, IEPs, and scientifically based instruction.

. This comprehensive article describes IEPs and the IEP process, including:Identifying and Meeting a Child's Language Needs. Special Factors in the IEP. If your child does not speak or understand English well, the IEP team needs to ensure that your child's language needs are identified and met.

Your Child's IEP: Practical and Legal Guidance for Parents

. Frustrated with one-size fits all IEPs that are not tailored to the child's unique needs? Feeling intimidated at IEP meetings? Dr. Barbara Bateman will teach you how to write IEPs that are educationally useful and legally correct. This article includes extensive discussion of transition and transition plans. IEPs for Success by Dr. Barbara Bateman

Accommodations and Modifications. Some children with disabilities need accommodations and modifications to their special education program. This 4 page printer-friendly article defines accommodations and modifications that may be included in the IEP; gives examples for books, curriculum, instruction, assignments, and behavior.

How Can I Write SMART IEP Goals for Behavior Problems? The process is the same for any goal - academic or behavioral. You need to clearly define the target behavior.

8 Steps to Better IEP Meetings: Play Hearts, Not Poker by Jennifer Bollero, Esq. Mother of child with autism explains that parents need to learn the rules and strategies, to reduce the risks when you negotiate for your child. "Your child's IEP should never be a gamble. Know what your goals are and work them. Many roads lead to the same place. Many different cards can win the game."

Support for School Personnel and Parent Training: Often Overlooked Keys to Success by Attorney Susan Bardet. To help children learn and succeed, IEP teams can use the tools provided by IDEA, including support for school personnel and training for parents.

To Promote or Retain. If you have a child with a disability, you may face a tough decision. Many schools offer two "solutions" to children's learning problems: retention and referral to special education - and do not offer the third "R" - remediation. Facts about Retention.

Use the Commentary as a Tool. Learn how to use the Commentary to answer questions about IEPs, IEP meetings, IEP teams, when the IEP should be revised, the parental role, transition, and other topics. Tests and Measurements for the Parent, Teacher, Advocate and Attorney. To write IEP goals and objectives that are tailored to the child's unique needs, you need to learn how to interpret educational and psychological test results. (NOTE: To ensure that you get the graphics in this article, you may want to print the article from the screen, rather than download it.)

Legal Requirements for Transition Components of the IEP. Dr. Barbara Bateman, co-author of Writing Measurable IEP Goals and Objectives, teaches you about transition, IEPs, self-advocacy for students, confidentiality, and more.

Can a Child with an IEP Fail? The IEP does not guarantee that your child won't fail, although it is unusual for a child with an IEP to fail.

IEP Tactics & Strategies

Tactics & Strategies: IEP Goals and Objectives . How can you get good goals and objectives in your child's IEP? What can you do if the school wants to use subjective "teacher observations," not objective testing in the IEP? How can parents avoid "methodology disputes?" Pete and Pam Wright teach you to use tactics and strategies in IEPs.

Tips & Tricks for Getting Effective IEPs. Nothing is foolproof and nothing is perfect. But these tricks and tips worked well for Parent Advocate Sharon Lutz and helped her get good programs that met her children's needs.

Tactics & Strategies: How to Use a Parent IEP Attachment. Confused at IEP meetings? Do you find that your questions are not answered? In this article by advocate Judy Bonnell, you learn how to use a simple form to track your requests, the school's response, issues that were resolved and issues that are still on the table.

Tactics & Strategies: Sample Parent Agenda - A.J.'s parents sent this parent agenda. We thought it was such a good example that we decided to include it in Wrightslaw: From Emotions to Advocacy (see page 267). Tactics & Strategies: How to Use Follow-Up Letters to Get Answers to Your Questions. Advice from parent advocate Pat Howey about how to get the IEP team to answer your questions, avoid power struggles, deal with IEP meeting frustrations, and use your power wisely.

Tactics & Strategies: IEP Meetings (Or Playing 20 Questions with the Devil). Frustrated at IEP meetings? Meeting with an IEP team that will not answer your questions? Parent attorney Sonja Kerr teaches an approach for dealing with the IEP meeting quagmire. If you are preparing for an IEP meeting, read Sonja Kerr's advice.

School Attorney at IEP Meeting - Parents Walk Out. When parents walk out of a meeting and refuse to participate, some courts have held that against them. By walking out, they waived their right to participate.

How Can an IEP Team Work Together if the Key Players Won't "Play"? Have you ever attended an IEP meeting that began well, but suddenly turned to complete chaos!

I'm a Teacher and I Know IEPs Aren't Being Followed. What Do I Do? Is the administration is aware that IEPs are not being followed, and if they do know, why they haven't put a stop to it?

When Teachers Won't Provide Accommodations in the IEP? If regular education teachers are not implementing the accommodations in your child's IEP, you need to document this. A good strategy is to write short polite letters to people in authority. Begin by writing a polite letter to the principal. Describe the problem and ask for his help.

Make a Video for the IEP Meeting. "Introducing ... He's a child, not a Label". Tiffany Moody wrote this article to tell you about how she created a video about her son and the impact the video had on the IEP meeting.

Can School Attorneys Legally Attend IEP Meetings? Jeff Martin, parent of a child with a disability and law student in the PELE Clinic. Jeff found information that supported his position that, in general, parent and school attorneys should not attend IEP meetings. Read IEP Law and Regulations more discussion...

Most parents and teachers get information about the law from training sessions, articles, advice on list serves, and informal discussions with others. Your knowledge can rise no higher than your source! You must read the law - this is the only way to understand legal rights, responsibilities, and issues. Download
IDEA 2004: Section 1414 - Evaluations, Reevaluations and IEPs
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004: Overview, Explanation and Comparison of IDEA 2004 & IDEA 97 by Peter W. D. Wright, Esq. describes the substantive changes to the five key statutes of IDEA 2004 by section and subsection. Text added to IDEA 2004 is in IDEA 2004: Overview, Explanation & Comparison (56 pages) italics. Text deleted from IDEA 97 has been struck through. Overview, Explanation and Comparison of IDEA 2004 and IDEA 97

Special Education Cases Board of Ed. of Hendrick Hudson Central School Dist. v. Rowley 458 U.S. 176 (1982) - First decision in a special education case by the U. S. Supreme Court; defined "free appropriate public education" (FAPE) and discusses IEPs.Shannon Carter v. Florence County School District IV. Tuition reimbursement case that was appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court. Decision focuses on an appropriate program and IEP for Shannon, a child with dyslexia.

Burlington Sch. Committee v. Mass. Bd. of Ed., 471 U. S. 359 (1985). Decision clarifies procedural safeguards, parent role in educational decision-making; tuition reimbursement for private placement; child's placement during dispute about FAPE.

Amanda C. v. Clark County Sch. Dist. and Nevada Dept. of Ed , U. S. Court of Appeals for Ninth Circuit issues strong decision for child with autism. Court cites research about ABA/Lovaas treatment; describes purposes of the IDEA; IEPs and procedural safeguards.

Evans v. Rhinebeck New York tuition reimbursement case; judge discusses components of an appropriate IEP for a child with dyslexia; vague subjective IEP goals and objectives.

T. H. v. Palatine Decision focuses on an appropriate program for a young child with autism; includes excellent discussion of vague subjective IEP goals and objectives. (in pdf)

Kanawha v. Michael M. Court analyzes"appropriate" in the context of Rowley; discussed educational benefit; provided guidelines to determine if an IEP is appropriate.Kanawha v. Michael M. is one of Pete's favorite cases "not because it has great precedence, but because it does an excellent job of describing difficulties in the legal definition of 'appropriate' and how to use 'appropriate 'in developing an IEP."

Good Books about IEPs

The heart of the law is the child's written Individualized Educational Program (IEP). Writing Measurable IEP Goals and Objectives by Barbara Bateman and Cynthia Herr. Writing Measurable IEP Goals and Objectives teaches educators and parents how to write IEPs that are legally correct and educationally useful.

IEP and Inclusion Tips by Anne Treimanis and Kathleen Whitbread - Learn how to prepare for IEP meetings, create legally correct and educationally sound IEPs, ensure access to the general curriculum, track educational progress, and form effective parent-school partnerships. Features more than 100 tips to help parents, teachers and administrators share goals and develop healthy working relationships.

How Well Does Your IEP Measure Up? by Diane Twachtman-Cullen. Step-by-step guide to writing IEPs; includes sample goal & objective templates for areas of functioning typically neglected in IEPs. Includes recommendations for teaching strategies, educational programming formats & useful resources.
The Complete IEP Guide: How to Advocate for Your Special Ed Child. This useful book by attorney Lawrence Siegel is filled with organization and planning tips, sample letters and forms; information about IEPs. More info Wrightslaw: Special Education Law, 2nd Edition

Preparing Instructional Objectives teaches you to identify, select, and write educational objectives. You learn how to describe the performances you expect to achieve, identify the conditions under which you expect the performance to occur, and set criteria for acceptable performance.

Measuring Educational Results by Robert Mager. How do you know if a child is learning and making progress? You measure the results of instruction to determine if objectives and benchmarks have been achieved. This easy-to-read book gives you tools to measure instructional results. Learn more about Measuring Instructional Results.

For more good books about IEPs and special ed advocacy, visit the Advocate's Bookstore.

Wrightslaw: Special Education Law, 2nd Edition (ISBN: 978-1-892320-16-2, 456 pages, 8 1/2" x 11", perfect bound) by Peter Wright and Pamela Wright, published in 2007, is available in two formats: a print book and a print & e-book combo. The book includes:

Wrightslaw: Special Education Law, 2nd Edition is available in two versions: as a print book and as a print book & e-book combo.
Print book (456 pages, 8 1/2" x 11", perfect bound, $29.95 plus shipping) Order
Wrightslaw: Special Education Law, 2nd Edition is designed to meet the needs of parents, teachers, advocates, attorneys, related services providers, school psychologists, administrators, college professors, hearing officers, and employees of district and state departments of education.

Wrightslaw: No Child Left Behind [OUT OF PRINT]

Wrightslaw: No Child Left Behind.(ISBN: 1-892320-12-6) by Peter W. D. Wright, Pamela Darr Wright and Suzanne Whitney Heath is published by Harbor House Law Press and includes the No Child Left Behind CD-ROM.
Wrightslaw: Special Education Law, 2nd Edition Order

E-book and Print Book Combo (456 pages, 8 1/2" x 11", perfect bound, $44.95 plus shipping) When you order the Special Education Law E-book and Print Book Combo, you'll receive a link to the E-book (3.8 mgs) immediately. The text in the Special Education Law E-book is identical to the print version. The E-book has bookmarks, page thumbnails, hyperlinks to hundreds of references, and is designed to help you find information on specific topics quickly and easily (Value: $15.00) .
Surviving Due Process: When Parents and the School Board Disagree

Jeffers v. School Board is based on the true story of a young child with autism. With different evidence and witnesses, this could easily be a case about a child with a different disability or a different legal issue. (DVD, 2 hours, $19.95) l l Surviving Due Process: When Parents and the School Board Disagree - Stephen Jeffers v. School Board . Takes you through a special education due process hearing, from initial preparations to testimony by the final witness.
Internet Orders Mail, Phone & Fax Orders Exam Copies l Discounts

Free Pubs & Resources

Accommodations Manual: How to Select, Administer, and Evaluate Use of Accommodations for Instruction and Assessment of Students with Disabilities. (in html) Developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards Assessing Special Education Students.

The Accommodations Manual presents a five-step process for individualized educational program teams, 504 plan committees, general and special education teachers, administrators, and district-level assessment staff to use in the selection, administration, and evaluation of the effectiveness of the use of instructional and assessment accommodations by students with disabilities. The guidance in the manual pertains to students with disabilities who participate in large-scale assessments and the instruction they receive.

Learn how to write IEPs that improve teaching, learning, and educational results. Article includes contents of the IEP; IEP team members; writing the IEP; placement decisions; implementing the IEP; revising and revising the IEP; resolving disagreements about the IEP; sample IEP form, information and resources, the federal regulations for IEPs, and guidance about IEPs. A Guide to the Individualized Education Program published by the U. S. Department of Education. Download PDF

Designing Individualized Education Program (IEP) Transition Plans from ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires schools to prepare students with disabilities for employment and independent living. Transition planning that involves students and their families leads to post-school success and independence. Article describes how to design quality IEP transition plans. Download

Questions and Answers On Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), Evaluations, and Reevaluations from US Department of Education, Building the Legacy of IDEA 2004. The responses presented in this document generally are informal guidance representing the interpretation of the Department of the applicable statutory or regulatory requirements in the context of the specific facts presented and are not legally binding.

Developing Your Child's IEP. Learn about IDEA 2004 and the steps to writing an IEP from the Center for Parent Information and Resources (CPIR).
Introduction
A. The IEP Process
B. The IEP Document
C. Deciding Your Child's Placement
D. Participating in the IEP Process<
Endnotes

More Topics

Last Revised: 10/18/21

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Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) - Articles, Law, Regulations, Cases, Frequently Asked Questions about Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) from Wrightslaw

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You'll find articles, law and regulations, and tips about how to get quality services in your child's IEP on this page. You'll also learn how to use tactics and strategies to negotiate with the school. This page includes IEP cases, recommended books, and free publications about IEPs.

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Consider the following scenario:

A fifth-grade teacher was preparing her class to learn about the American Revolution. She enlisted the students' help in acting out the events that led to the Revolution with elaborate props and exercises. When the class ended, the students were told they would read more about the Revolution the following day. As they left the room, an ESL student stopped and asked urgently, "But who won?"

This situation highlights some of the challenges that teachers face when helping English language learners, or ELLs, master social studies content:

Background knowledge
ELLs may not have the same background knowledge that their peers have or that textbook authors take for granted, as explained in this video clip with ELL teacher Amber Prentice.

Different perspectives
ELLs bring their own valuable and important experiences to the classroom. Often those experiences can be connected to the content in meaningful ways; however, if different points of view or ideas aren't expressed or identified, students may miss key concepts and ideas in the lesson.

Academic language and vocabulary
ELLs must learn the academic language and vocabulary needed to comprehend and produce new content - all while learning the new content and concepts at the same time!

For content-area teachers with limited experience working with ELLs, planning a lesson that engages them and helps them learn new material may seem daunting. The good news is that there are a number of ways to engage ELLs with social studies content and draw on their own unique background knowledge and perspectives. This article will describe some strategies for planning social studies lessons with ELLs in mind.

In addition, I recommend taking a look at the following resources:

Note: Lesson Planning to Ensure Optimal Engagement of ELLs (Chapter 2 of Teaching English Language Learners Across the Content Areas), is available online and provides a number of helpful resources, including a checklist for modifying lesson plans for ELLs. In addition, Appendix Two of the book (not available online) provides a lesson modification worksheet.

Lesson Planning Strategies

Identify key concepts necessary for understanding the lesson

When choosing your key concepts, keep in mind the following:

Background knowledge
ELLs with limited or interrupted schooling may not have that same level of knowledge as their peers, especially when it comes to historical or cultural topics. When starting a new lesson, look for references or concepts that may need to be explicitly explained.

Language proficiency
Students may already possess content knowledge that they cannot yet demonstrate in English. Look for opportunities to make associations between students' experiences and new content.

Perspective
Students may have a different perspective on the content than their peers. These differences provide an important opportunity for class discussion and learning as long as they are handled in a sensitive and respectful ways.

In addition, plan to find out what students know about the topic you are teaching before getting started. This will help you fill in gaps and build on prior knowledge. A great tool for this activity is a Circle Map, in which you place the main topic in a small circle and add student ideas in a bigger circle around the topic. You may wish to allow ELLs to use their native language with peers for a quick brainstorm before presenting their ideas to the whole class.

Identify content and language objectives

These objectives are a great way to focus on the most important information and language structures you want your students to master. Content objectives focus on the material while language objectives focus on vocabulary or language structures that students should be able to use throughout the lesson (Haynes and Zacarian, 28).

Think about how you are going to:

introduce these concepts using simple language,

break the concepts down into the most basic elements,

keep the objectives visible to students during the unit (i.e., post them on the board or provide a simple outline to keep in binders).

Identify key vocabulary and academic vocabulary

Identify key terms, words, idioms and phrases - TWIPS, according to Dr. Zacarian (19). Choose the vocabulary that your students need to know in order to support their reading development and content-area learning, in addition to key content vocabulary. Remember to prepare student-friendly definitions for TWIPS ahead of time. It may be helpful to look at other social studies vocabulary lists as well.

In addition:

Look for problem areas
Clarify potential areas of confusion, such as homonyms or words with more than one meaning.

Include signal and directional words
Remember that students may also need explicit instruction in signal or directional words ("because" and "explain"), especially those words that are likely to appear frequently in the content materials or activities.

Don't overlook the basic words
There may be many words used through a lesson that native English-speaking students will understand but that ELLs don't know. Keep an eye out for these words, no matter how basic, and make a list of words that your students have questions about so that you can refer back to it when teaching the lesson in the future.

Use visuals and manipulatives when possible
Having a visual reference for new words is particularly helpful for ELLs.

Keep words visible and accessible to students
Post words on a word wall, or try using a "portable word wall" chart that students can put in their binder. The chart might include categories such as new words, old words, people, everyday words, words to review, etc. (Haynes and Zacarian, 59-60).

Remember to include lots of student practice
For students to really know a word, they must use it - or they will lose it. Use new words in class discussions or outside of class in other contexts if appropriate, such as on field trips. Give the students as many opportunities to use and master the new vocabulary as possible, both in writing and speaking activities. You may find this six-step process for teaching academic vocabulary from Dr. Robert Marzano helpful.

Prepare to preview the text

One strategy is a "chapter walk", where students predict what the chapter will be about based on pictures and highlighted features of the textbook.

An activity like this may take some time at first because it's time-consuming to teach. If you use it with regularity, however, it will become easier and quicker, and students will be able to do this on their own at the beginning of a new chapter.

You can also use the "BIG FOX" strategy, published by McGraw-Hill. This graphic organizer helps students pick out important terms and pieces of information before reading. I recommend practicing this strategy with some simple readings about familiar topics before jumping in with the textbook. The students will understand the strategy better if they start out with concepts that they understand.

Prepare multimedia, visuals, and related readings

These resources can be used to build background knowledge and provide context for ELLs, especially when students are learning new concepts and words. Ideas include:

Using photos from books, magazines, or the Internet to supplement textbooks.

Showing brief, focused video clips of history or social studies programs.

Listening to a short podcast or radio clip of an interview or speech.

Discussing additional readings such as related articles, poems, letters, and graphic novels.

Enlist native language support when possible

These strategies can help students identify content they already know, or master new concepts before transferring those ideas and learning how to express them in English:

Collaborate with a bilingual paraprofessional and identify areas where bilingual language support will be most helpful.

Look for related content materials in the students' native language from publishers like Scholastic or National Geographic/Cengage.

Plan group work in which students can use their native language with peers to discuss main ideas or vocabulary words.

Plan to include group work throughout the unit

Peer learning activities such as Reciprocal Teaching and Think-Pair-Share can be powerful tools for engaging ELLs with content learning.

Use modeling and clear instructions to ensure students understand:

how the activity works

their role in group work

the objective of the activity

any key vocabulary or phrases they should be using.

Here are some other tips on group work for ELLs from Haynes and Zacarian:

Assign students group roles that match their language ability (37).

Promote students to new roles as their language skills improve (42).

Make sure that mainstream students understand that they will be working in diverse groups, and that everyone's contributions are important (41).

Keep an eye on the balance of student participation; if some students are speaking more than others, ask them to think of some ways to even participation out (42).

Ask students to reflect on their group work after they have finished an activity. Haynes and Zacarian include a chart in their book with some guiding statements for student reflection (48).

Plan plenty of opportunities for students to interact with the content

Give students lots of opportunities to engage with and review the material in different ways:

Graphic organizers
Use graphic organizers to review key concepts and vocabulary words.

Flash cards
Have students make their own flash cards with pictures, definitions, key facts, etc.

Working with the text
Teach students to underline, highlight, and make notes. You may also find that sticky notes, Wikki Stix, and highlighting tape are a big hit with students (68). According to Haynes, some school districts order extra textbooks for their ELL classes so that teachers can keep a highlighted copy on hand as a student reference.

Use acting
Have the students write skits about the material they are learning, or create an activity in which students provide a physical representation of a particular event or vocabulary word.

Be creative and flexible with writing assignments

Writing can be an important way for students to show what they've learned:

Be creative and flexible
When choosing writing activities for students, be creative and open to different ways for students to express their new knowledge. I have seen students successfully convey what they learned by writing letters, poems, news articles and mosaics with vocabulary key points. Writing an essay may be more difficult for ELLs, and although they need to learn how to write a good essay eventually, they should be allowed to demonstrate their learning through a variety of writing activities.

Look for writing exercises that relate to the topic at hand
This may include a biography or autobiography, a letter from the point of view of a historical figure, or a short news article about a famous event.

Provide models
Give ELLs explicit structures and sentence frames to follow. Frames may vary in complexity and specificity, but they will help students to model correct structures and usage from the beginning.

Plan to adapt homework and assessment as needed

While it's important to have high expectations of ELLs, it is also important to have realistic expectations of the amount of work they can do. Haynes and Zacarian note, "The teacher's goal should be to making learning accessible and meaningful for every student without lowering expectations or sacrificing rigor" (104-105).

They continue in Chapter 7 of their book to provide a number of helpful rubrics and step-by-step procedures for evaluating your homework and assessment activities with ELLs in mind. In Twenty-Five Quick Tips for Classroom Teachers, Haynes suggests that teachers "adjust homework assignment to your ELLs' English language proficiency (and) modify assessment so that your ELLs have an opportunity to show what they have learned."

As you look for ways to help your students learn this new content, remember that you aren't just teaching them required social studies standards - you are helping your students adjust to a new life and country. That preparation has a potentially significant ripple effect because your students may be helping their own parents navigate this new country as well, and they may need to prepare for a U.S. Citizenship exam one day in the future.

Through social studies lessons, you also can prepare your students to be engaged and well-informed participants in our society and democracy, an opportunity they might not have had in their own country due to their religion, gender, or ethnicity. When you think about it that way, teaching ELLs to master new social studies content is so much more than adapting a lesson plan - it's a chance to prepare a new generation of young people to lead us into the future.

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Preparing an Engaging Social Studies Lesson for English Language Learners

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Consider the following scenario: A fifth-grade teacher was preparing her class to learn about the American Revolution. She enlisted the students' help in acting out the events that led to the Revolution with elaborate props and exercises. When the class ended, the students were told they would read more about the Revolution the following day.

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ESL/ELL Resources to Succeed in School | Accredited Schools Online

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English Language Learners (ELL) have a wealth of resources available to help them succeed in school. Find guidance for teachers, parents, and students here.

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ELA/ELD Resources - Curriculum Frameworks (CA Dept of Education)

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Resources Supporting Implementation of the ELA/ELD Framework.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Make Social Studies rubrics online for FREE!

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by Susan M. Brookhart

The word rubric comes from the Latin word for red. The online Merriam-Webster dictionary lists the first meaning of rubric as "an authoritative rule" and the fourth meaning as "a guide listing specific criteria for grading or scoring academic papers, projects, or tests." How did the name for a color come to mean a rule or guide? At least as far back as the Middle Ages, the rules for the conduct of liturgical services-as opposed to the actual spoken words of the liturgy-were often printed in red, so the rules were "the red things" on the page.

In this book, I will show that rubrics for classroom use are both more and less than the dictionary definition suggests. They are more because rubrics are good for much more than just grading or scoring. They are less because not just any set of rules or guides for student work are rubrics. This first chapter lays out some basic concepts about rubrics. Chapter 2 illustrates common misconceptions about rubrics, and Chapter 3 describes how to write or select effective rubrics.

What is a rubric?

A rubric is a coherent set of criteria for students' work that includes descriptions of levels of performance quality on the criteria. Sounds simple enough, right? Unfortunately, this definition of rubric is rarely demonstrated in practice. The Internet, for example, offers many rubrics that do not, in fact, describe performance. I think I know why that might be and will explain that in Chapter 2, but for now let's start with the positive. It should be clear from the definition that rubrics have two major aspects: coherent sets of criteria and descriptions of levels of performance for these criteria.

The genius of rubrics is that they are descriptive and not evaluative. Of course, rubrics can be used to evaluate, but the operating principle is you match the performance to the description rather than "judge" it. Thus rubrics are as good or bad as the criteria selected and the descriptions of the levels of performance under each. Effective rubrics have appropriate criteria and well-written descriptions of performance.

What is the purpose of rubrics?

Like any other evaluation tool, rubrics are useful for certain purposes and not for others. The main purpose of rubrics is to assess performances. For some performances, you observe the student in the process of doing something, like using an electric drill or discussing an issue. For other performances, you observe the product that is the result of the student's work, like a finished bookshelf or a written report. Figure 1.1 lists some common kinds of school performances that can be assessed with rubrics. This list by no means covers every possible school performance. It is just meant to help you think of the types of performances you might assess with rubrics.

Figure 1.1. Types of Performances That Can Be Assessed with Rubrics

Playing a musical instrument

Doing a forward roll

Preparing a slide for the microscope

Making a speech to the class

Reading aloud

Conversing in a foreign language

Working independently

Products

Constructed objects

Written essays, themes, reports, term papers

Other academic products that demonstrate understanding of concepts

Wooden bookshelf

Set of welds

Handmade apron

Watercolor painting

Laboratory report

Term paper on theatrical conventions in Shakespeare's day

Written analysis of the effects of the Marshall Plan

Model or diagram of a structure (atom, flower, planetary system, etc.)

Concept map

This list is not meant to suggest what your students should perform. State standards, curriculum goals, and instructional goals and objectives are the sources for what types of performances your students should be able to do. When the intended learning outcomes are best indicated by performances-things students would do, make, say, or write-then rubrics are the best way to assess them. Notice that the performances themselves are not learning outcomes. They are indicators of learning outcomes. Except in unusual cases, any one performance is just a sample of all the possible performances that would indicate an intended learning outcome. Chapters 2 and 3 cover this point in greater detail. For now, know that the purpose of the list in Figure 1.1 is to describe some of these performances, so you can recognize them as performances and as suitable for using rubrics, when they are appropriate indicators of your goals for student learning.

About the only kinds of schoolwork that do not function well with rubrics are questions with right or wrong answers. Test items or oral questions in class that have one clear correct answer are best assessed as right or wrong. However, even test items that have degrees of quality of performance, where you want to observe how appropriately, how completely, or how well a question was answered, can be assessed with rubrics.

Rubrics give structure to observations. Matching your observations of a student's work to the descriptions in the rubric averts the rush to judgment that can occur in classroom evaluation situations. Instead of judging the performance, the rubric describes the performance. The resulting judgment of quality based on a rubric therefore also contains within it a description of performance that can be used for feedback and teaching. This is different from a judgment of quality from a score or a grade arrived at without a rubric. Judgments without descriptions stop the action in a classroom.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of different types of rubrics?

Rubrics are usually categorized by two different aspects of their composition. One is whether the rubric treats the criteria one at a time or together. The other is whether the rubric is general and could be used with a family of similar tasks or is task-specific and only applicable to one assessment. Figure 1.2 describes the different types of rubrics and the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Figure 1.2. Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Types of Rubrics

Each criterion (dimension, trait) is evaluated separately.

Gives diagnostic information to teacher.

Gives formative feedback to students.

Easier to link to instruction than holistic rubrics.

Good for formative assessment; adaptable for summative assessment; if you need an overall score for grading, you can combine the scores.

Takes more time to score than holistic rubrics.

Takes more time to achieve inter-rater reliability than with holistic rubrics.

All criteria (dimensions, traits) are evaluated simultaneously.

Scoring is faster than with analytic rubrics.

Requires less time to achieve inter-rater reliability.

Good for summative assessment.

Single overall score does not communicate information about what to do to improve.

Not good for formative assessment.

Description of work gives characteristics that apply to a whole family of tasks (e.g., writing, problem solving).

Can share with students, explicitly linking assessment and instruction.

Reuse same rubrics with several tasks or assignments.

Supports learning by helping students see "good work" as bigger than one task.

Supports student self-evaluation.

Students can help construct general rubrics.

Lower reliability at first than with task-specific rubrics.

Requires practice to apply well.

Description of work refers to the specific content of a particular task (e.g., gives an answer, specifies a conclusion).

Teachers sometimes say using these makes scoring "easier."

Requires less time to achieve inter-rater reliability.

Cannot share with students (would give away answers).

Need to write new rubrics for each task.

For open-ended tasks, good answers not listed in rubrics may be evaluated poorly.

Analytic and holistic rubrics

Analytic rubrics describe work on each criterion separately. Holistic rubrics describe the work by applying all the criteria at the same time and enabling an overall judgment about the quality of the work. The top panel of Figure 1.2 defines analytic and holistic rubrics and lists advantages and disadvantages for each.

For most classroom purposes, analytic rubrics are best. Focusing on the criteria one at a time is better for instruction and better for formative assessment because students can see what aspects of their work need what kind of attention. Focusing on the criteria one at a time is good for any summative assessment (grading) that will also be used to make decisions about the future-for example, decisions about how to follow up on a unit or decisions about how to teach something next year.

One classroom purpose for which holistic rubrics are better than analytic rubrics is the situation in which students will not see the results of a final summative assessment and you will not really use the information for anything except a grade. Some high school final examinations fall into this category. Grading with rubrics is faster when there is only one decision to make, rather than a separate decision for each criterion.

On balance, for most classroom purposes I recommend analytic rubrics. Therefore, most of the examples in this book will be analytic rubrics. Before we leave holistic rubrics, however, I want to reemphasize the important point that all the criteria are used in holistic rubrics. You consider them together, but you don't boil down the evaluation to the old "excellent-good-fair-poor" kind of thinking along one general "judgment" dimension. True holistic rubrics are still rubrics; that is, they are based on criteria for good work and on observation of how the work meets those criteria.

General and task-specific rubrics

General rubrics use criteria and descriptions of performance that generalize across (hence the name general rubrics), or can be used with, different tasks. The tasks all have to be instances of the same learning outcome-for example, writing or mathematics problem solving. The criteria point to aspects of the learning outcome and not to features of any one specific task (for example, criteria list characteristics of good problem solving and not features of the solution to a specific problem). The descriptions of performance are general, so students learn general qualities and not isolated, task-specific features (for example, the description might say all relevant information was used to solve the problem, not that the numbers of knives, forks, spoons, and guests were used to solve the problem). Task-specific rubrics are pretty well described by their name: They are rubrics that are specific to the performance task with which they are used. Task-specific rubrics contain the answers to a problem, or explain the reasoning students are supposed to use, or list facts and concepts students are supposed to mention. The bottom panel of Figure 1.2 defines general and task-specific rubrics and lists advantages and disadvantages for each.

Why use general rubrics? General rubrics have several advantages over task-specific rubrics. General rubrics

Can be shared with students at the beginning of an assignment, to help them plan and monitor their own work.

Can be used with many different tasks, focusing the students on the knowledge and skills they are developing over time.

Describe student performance in terms that allow for many different paths to success.

Focus the teacher on developing students' learning of skills instead of task completion.

Do not need to be rewritten for every assignment.

Let's look more closely at the first two advantages.

Can be shared with students at the beginning of an assignment. General rubrics do not "give away answers" to questions. They do not contain any information that the students are supposed to be developing themselves. Instead, they contain descriptions like "Explanation of reasoning is clear and supported with appropriate details." Descriptions like this focus students on what their learning target is supposed to be (for example, explaining reasoning clearly, with appropriate supporting details). They clarify for students how to approach the assignment (for example, in solving the problem posed, I should make sure to explicitly focus on why I made the choices I did and be able to explain that). Therefore, over time general rubrics help students build up a concept of what it means to perform a skill well (for example, effective problem solving requires clear reasoning that I can explain and support).

Can be used with many different tasks. Because general rubrics focus students on the knowledge and skills they are learning rather than the particular task they are completing, they offer the best method I know for preventing the problem of "empty rubrics" that will be described in Chapter 2. Good general rubrics will, by definition, not be task directions in disguise, or counts of surface features, or evaluative rating scales.

Because general rubrics focus students on the knowledge and skills they are supposed to be acquiring, they can and should be used with any task that belongs to the whole domain of learning for those learning outcomes. Of course, you never have an opportunity to give students all of the potential tasks in a domain-you can't ask them to write every possible essay about characterization, solve every possible problem involving slope, design experiments involving every possible chemical solvent, or describe every political takeover that was the result of a power vacuum.

These sets of tasks all indicate important knowledge and skills, however, and they develop over time and with practice. Essay writing, problem solving, experimental design, and the analysis of political systems are each important skills in their respective disciplines. If the rubrics are the same each time a student does the same kind of work, the student will learn general qualities of good essay writing, problem solving, and so on. If the rubrics are different each time the student does the same kind of work, the student will not have an opportunity to see past the specific essay or problem. The general approach encourages students to think about building up general knowledge and skills rather than thinking about school learning in terms of getting individual assignments done.

Why use task-specific rubrics? Task-specific rubrics function as "scoring directions" for the person who is grading the work. Because they detail the elements to look for in a student's answer to a particular task, scoring students' responses with task-specific rubrics is lower-inference work than scoring students' responses with general rubrics. For this reason, it is faster to train raters to reach acceptable levels of scoring reliability using task-specific rubrics for large-scale assessment. Similarly, it is easier for teachers to apply task-specific rubrics consistently with a minimum of practice. General rubrics take longer to learn to apply well.

However, the reliability advantage is temporary (one can learn to apply general rubrics well), and it comes with a big downside. Obviously, task-specific rubrics are useful only for scoring. If students can't see the rubrics ahead of time, you can't share them with students, and therefore task-specific rubrics are not useful for formative assessment. That in itself is one good reason not to use them except for special purposes. Task-specific rubrics do not take advantage of the most powerful aspects of rubrics-their usefulness in helping students to conceptualize their learning targets and to monitor their own progress.

Why are rubrics important?

Rubrics are important because they clarify for students the qualities their work should have. This point is often expressed in terms of students understanding the learning target and criteria for success. For this reason, rubrics help teachers teach, they help coordinate instruction and assessment, and they help students learn.

Rubrics help teachers teach

To write or select rubrics, teachers need to focus on the criteria by which learning will be assessed. This focus on what you intend students to learn rather than what you intend to teach actually helps improve instruction. The common approach of "teaching things," as in "I taught the American Revolution" or "I taught factoring quadratic equations," is clear on content but not so clear on outcomes. Without clarity on outcomes, it's hard to know how much of various aspects of the content to teach. Rubrics help with clarity of both content and outcomes.

Really good rubrics help teachers avoid confusing the task or activity with the learning goal, and therefore confusing completion of the task with learning. Rubrics help keep teachers focused on criteria, not tasks. I have already discussed this point in the section about selecting criteria. Focusing rubrics on learning and not on tasks is the most important concept in this book. I will return to it over and over. It seems to be a difficult concept-or probably a more accurate statement is that focusing on tasks is so easy and so seductive that it becomes the path many busy teachers take. Penny-wise and pound-foolish, such an approach saves time in the short run by sacrificing learning in the long run.

Rubrics help coordinate instruction and assessment

Most rubrics should be designed for repeated use, over time, on several tasks. Students are given a rubric at the beginning of a unit of instruction or an episode of work. They tackle the work, receive feedback, practice, revise or do another task, continue to practice, and ultimately receive a grade-all using the same rubric as their description of the criteria and the quality levels that will demonstrate learning. This path to learning is much more cohesive than a string of assignments with related but different criteria.

Rubrics help students learn

The criteria and performance-level descriptions in rubrics help students understand what the desired performance is and what it looks like. Effective rubrics show students how they will know to what extent their performance passes muster on each criterion of importance, and if used formatively can also show students what their next steps should be to enhance the quality of their performance. This claim is backed by research at all grade levels and in different disciplines.

Several studies of student-generated criteria demonstrate that students can participate in defining and describing the qualities their work should have. Nancy Harris and Laura Kuehn (Higgins, Harris, & Kuehn, 1994) did research in their own team-taught classroom to see what sorts of criteria primary school students could generate for a "good project." They found that their students, in grades 1 and 2, were able to define criteria for group projects. At the beginning of the year, most of the criteria were about process (for example, the group members getting along with each other). In December, students were able to view examples of projects, and with continued brainstorming and discussion they began to see the importance of substantive criteria (for example, the information contained in the project). By the end of the year, about half the criteria students chose were about process and half were about product. This study shows us that students need to learn how to focus on learning-and, more important, that they can begin to do this as early as 1st grade.

Andrade, Du, and Wang (2008) investigated the effects of having 3rd and 4th graders read a model written assignment, generate their own list of criteria, and use rubrics to self-assess the quality of the written stories and essays they then produced. A comparison group brainstormed criteria and self-assessed their drafts but did not use the rubric. Controlling for previous writing ability, the group that used the rubrics for self-assessment wrote better overall, and specifically in the areas of ideas, organization, voice, and word choice. There were no differences between the groups in the areas of sentences and conventions, presumably areas of much previous drill for all young writers. Andrade, Du, and Mycek (2010) replicated these findings with students in 5th, 6th, and 7th grade, except that the rubric group's writing was evaluated as having higher quality on all six criteria.

Ross, Hoagaboam-Gray, and Rolheiser (2002) taught 5th and 6th grade students self-evaluation skills in mathematics, also using a method based on criteria. Their self-evaluation instruction involved four strategies: involving students in defining criteria, teaching them how to apply the criteria, giving them feedback on these self-evaluations against criteria, and helping them develop action plans based on the self-evaluations. Controlling for previous problem-solving ability, students who self-assessed using criteria outscored a comparison group at solving mathematics problems.

Ross and Starling (2008) used the same four-component self-assessment training, based on criteria, with secondary students in a 9th grade geography class. Students were learning to solve geography problems using global information systems (GIS) software, so the learning goals were about both accurate use of the software and applying it to real-world geography problems, including being able to explain their problem-solving strategies. Controlling for pretest computer self-efficacy (known to be important in technology learning), the treatment group outscored a comparison group on three different measures: production of a map using the software, a report explaining their problem-solving strategies, and an exam measuring knowledge of the mapping program. The largest difference was for the problem-solving explanations.

Hafner and Hafner (2003) investigated college biology students' use of rubrics for peer assessment and teacher assessment of a collaborative oral presentation. There were five criteria: organization and research, persuasiveness and logic of argument, collaboration, delivery and grammar, and creativity and originality. Originally the rubric was developed and then modified with discussion and involvement of students. For the study, the same rubric was used for a required course assignment three years in a row. The instructors were interested in finding out whether the information students gained from peer evaluation was accurate, whether it matched teacher input, and whether this accuracy was consistent across different years and classes. The short answer was yes. Students were able to accurately give feedback to their peers, their information matched that of their instructor, and this was the case for each class.

Summing up

This chapter has defined rubrics in terms of their two main components: criteria and descriptions of levels of performance. The main point about criteria is that they should be about learning outcomes, not aspects of the task itself. The main point about descriptions of levels of performance is that they should be descriptions, not evaluative statements. The "evaluation" aspect of assessment is accomplished by matching student work with the description, not by making immediate judgments. Finally, the chapter has presented some evidence that using this kind of rubric helps teachers teach and students learn, and it has invited you to pursue your own evidence, in your specific classroom and school context.

KEYWORDS

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What Are Rubrics and Why Are They Important?

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by Susan M. Brookhart The word rubric comes from the Latin word for red. The online Merriam-Webster dictionary lists the first meaning of rubric as "an authoritative rule" and the fourth meaning as "a guide listing specific criteria for grading or scoring academic papers, projects, or tests."

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Informal vs. Formal Assessments

In order to properly understand what informal assessments are, we should first differentiate them from formal assessments. Formal assessments are designed to tell how well a student has progressed as evaluated against other students. These are standardized tests, tests that are presented and graded in a formulated, consistent manner, such as the SAT 9, ACT, and so on. These tests, through the gathering of data, are used to evaluate how students are doing when compared to a larger group of students.

On the other hand, informal assessments are those that are used to evaluate a student's own performance and progress individually. In the classroom, these take numerous forms and are simply the teacher's, student's, and parent's way of measuring that student's progress.

Types of Informal Assessments

A few types of informal assessments are as follows:

Tests and quizzes - this is the typical way students are evaluated for their acquisition of knowledge, usually consisting of elements such as multiple-choice questions, true and false questions, short-answer questions, fill-in-the-blank questions, and so on.

Grading - this is how teachers normally assign value to a student's work. It consists of giving either numerical or alphabetical grades, or a combination of both, to student's products. In other words, if you miss, say, 10 questions on a 100-question test, you would get a 90/100, or 90%.

Portfolios - this is an assessment tool that is great for helping students, as well as their teachers and parents, to see their progress over time. Students collect completed assignments in a single folder or portfolio. By looking at all of their work over the course of time, they can see how they have improved and/or where they need more work.

Written samples - this entails any type of written work that students create to show their comprehension of material. It can take many forms, the essay being the most common.

Project-based assignments - this type of assignment is usually quite extensive and allows the student to show off his or her accomplishments in a variety of ways. The student creates a project of some sort that illustrates his understanding of what he has learned over time.

This is, of course, not an all-inclusive list. While there are other types of assessments that can be used, these are the ones normally found in the modern classroom.

Examples of Informal Assessments

Considering the aforementioned types of assessments, let's now look at some examples of how they are incorporated into the classroom.

Quizzes, Tests, and Grades

Grading, of course, fits within all types of informal assessments as it is usually integrated into most assignments as a way to evaluate that individual piece of work. Starting with tests and quizzes, teachers will often provide lessons over a given period of time. Throughout that time, they may provide quizzes to see how well students are 'getting' the information.

A quiz may be an exam as short as one question or as long as, perhaps, ten. It will usually be easier than a test. Quizzes also help the teacher see who is paying attention to the material and who is not: If students do poorly on a quiz, it's a good bet they are not really paying attention or perhaps they are missing too much class. Whatever the reason, it provides at least some insight as to how they are doing on a periodic basis.

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informal assessments in the classroom: examples & types - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Informal Assessments in the Classroom: Examples & Types - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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In order to properly understand what informal assessments are, we should first differentiate them from formal assessments. Formal assessments are designed to tell how well a student has progressed as evaluated against other students. These are standardized tests, tests that are presented and graded in a formulated, consistent manner, such as the SAT 9, ACT, and so on.

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Cite this guide: Armstrong, P. (2010). Bloom's Taxonomy. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/.

Background Information | The Original Taxonomy | The Revised Taxonomy | Why Use Bloom's Taxonomy? | Further Information

The above graphic is released under a Creative Commons Attribution license. You're free to share, reproduce, or otherwise use it, as long as you attribute it to the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. For a higher resolution version, visit our Flickr account and look for the "Download this photo" icon.

Background Information

In 1956, Benjamin Bloom with collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl published a framework for categorizing educational goals: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Familiarly known as Bloom's Taxonomy, this framework has been applied by generations of K-12 teachers and college instructors in their teaching.

The framework elaborated by Bloom and his collaborators consisted of six major categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. The categories after Knowledge were presented as "skills and abilities," with the understanding that knowledge was the necessary precondition for putting these skills and abilities into practice.

While each category contained subcategories, all lying along a continuum from simple to complex and concrete to abstract, the taxonomy is popularly remembered according to the six main categories.

The Original Taxonomy (1956)

Here are the authors' brief explanations of these main categories in from the appendix of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives ( Handbook One, pp. 201-207):

Knowledge "involves the recall of specifics and universals, the recall of methods and processes, or the recall of a pattern, structure, or setting."

Comprehension "refers to a type of understanding or apprehension such that the individual knows what is being communicated and can make use of the material or idea being communicated without necessarily relating it to other material or seeing its fullest implications."

Application refers to the "use of abstractions in particular and concrete situations."

Analysis represents the "breakdown of a communication into its constituent elements or parts such that the relative hierarchy of ideas is made clear and/or the relations between ideas expressed are made explicit."

Synthesis involves the "putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole."

Evaluation engenders "judgments about the value of material and methods for given purposes."

The 1984 edition of Handbook One is available in the CFT Library in Calhoun 116. See its ACORN record for call number and availability.

Barbara Gross Davis, in the "Asking Questions" chapter of Tools for Teaching, also provides examples of questions corresponding to the six categories. This chapter is not available in the online version of the book, but Tools for Teaching is available in the CFT Library. See its ACORN record for call number and availability.

The Revised Taxonomy (2001)

A group of cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists published in 2001 a revision of Bloom's Taxonomy with the title A Taxonomy for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. This title draws attention away from the somewhat static notion of "educational objectives" (in Bloom's original title) and points to a more dynamic conception of classification.

The authors of the revised taxonomy underscore this dynamism, using verbs and gerunds to label their categories and subcategories (rather than the nouns of the original taxonomy). These "action words" describe the cognitive processes by which thinkers encounter and work with knowledge:

Remember

Understand

Interpreting

Exemplifying

Classifying

Summarizing

Inferring

Comparing

Explaining

Apply

Analyze

Differentiating

Organizing

Attributing

Evaluate

Create

In the revised taxonomy, knowledge is at the basis of these six cognitive processes, but its authors created a separate taxonomy of the types of knowledge used in cognition:

Factual Knowledge

Knowledge of terminology

Knowledge of specific details and elements

Conceptual Knowledge

Knowledge of classifications and categories

Knowledge of principles and generalizations

Knowledge of theories, models, and structures

Procedural Knowledge

Knowledge of subject-specific skills and algorithms

Knowledge of subject-specific techniques and methods

Knowledge of criteria for determining when to use appropriate procedures

Metacognitive Knowledge

Strategic Knowledge

Knowledge about cognitive tasks, including appropriate contextual and conditional knowledge

Self-knowledge

Mary Forehand from the University of Georgia provides a guide to the revised version giving a brief summary of the revised taxonomy and a helpful table of the six cognitive processes and four types of knowledge.

Why Use Bloom's Taxonomy?

The authors of the revised taxonomy suggest a multi-layered answer to this question, to which the author of this teaching guide has added some clarifying points:

1. Objectives (learning goals) are important to establish in a pedagogical interchange so that teachers and students alike understand the purpose of that interchange.

2. Organizing objectives helps to clarify objectives for themselves and for students.

3. Having an organized set of objectives helps teachers to:

"plan and deliver appropriate instruction";

"design valid assessment tasks and strategies";and

"ensure that instruction and assessment are aligned with the objectives."

Citations are from A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.

Further Information

Section III of A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, entitled "The Taxonomy in Use," provides over 150 pages of examples of applications of the taxonomy. Although these examples are from the K-12 setting, they are easily adaptable to the university setting.

Section IV, "The Taxonomy in Perspective," provides information about 19 alternative frameworks to Bloom's Taxonomy, and discusses the relationship of these alternative frameworks to the revised Bloom's Taxonomy.

This teaching guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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by Patricia Armstrong Print Version Cite this guide: Armstrong, P. (2010). Bloom's Taxonomy. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/. Background Information | The Original Taxonomy | The Revised Taxonomy | Why Use Bloom's Taxonomy? | Further Information The above graphic is released under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

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Tools

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Field Work

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CH 11- Grammar, Spelling, & Handwriting 

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CH 11- Grammar, Spelling, & Handwriting 

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Sample References from a Huge Research Base Favoring Handwriting

Berninger, V., Rutberg, J., Abbott, R., Garcia, N., Anderson-Youngstrom, M., Brooks, A., & Fulton, C. (2006). Tier 1 and Tier 2 early intervention for handwriting and composing. Journal of School Psychology, 44, 3-30.

Berninger, V.W. (2015) Position paper submitted June 20, 2015 to Ohio State Legislature entitled Research Report in Support of OH 146.

Dinehart, L. H. (2015). Handwriting in early childhood education: Current research and future implications. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 15(1), 97-118.

Feldgus, E., Cardonick, I. & Gentry. R. (in press). Kid Writing in the 21st Century. Los Angeles, CA: Hameray Publishing Group.

Gimenez, P., Bugescu, N., Black, J. M., Hancock, R., Pugh, K., Nagamine, M., Hoeft, F. (2014). Neuroimaging correlates of handwriting quality as children learn to read and write. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8(155). doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00155

James, K. H., & Englehardt, L. (2012). The effects of handwriting on functional brain development in pre-literate children. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 1(1), 32-42.

Puranik, C. S., & Alobaita, S. (2012). Examining the contribution of handwriting and spelling to written expression in kindergarten children. Reading and Writing, 25(7), 1523-1546.

Piasta, S. B., & Wagner, R. K. (2010). Developing early literacy skills: A meta-analysis of alphabet learning and instruction. Reading Research Quarterly, 45(1), 8-38. doi:10.1598/RRQ.45.1.2

Puranik, C. S., & Lonigan, C. J. (2011). From scribbles to Scrabble: Preschool children's developing knowledge of written language. Reading and Writing, 24(5), 567-589.

Puranik, C. S., Lonigan, C. J., & Kim, Y.-S. (2011). Contributions of emergent literacy skills to name writing, letter writing, and spelling in preschool children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 26(4), 465-474.

Stevenson, N. C., & Just, C. (2014). In early education, why teach handwriting before keyboarding? Early Childhood Education Journal, 42, 49-56.

Sollinger, M. (2015). Close your laptop. Handwriting could make you smarter. Public Radio International, Development & Education/Innovation Hub posted July 12, 2015. http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-12/close-your-laptop-handwriting-cou...

Links to posts on the importance of direct spelling instruction:
Connecting Spelling Books to Reading Scores 5 Reasons Your Child's School Needs Spelling Books-Part 1
Dr. J. Richard Gentry is the author of Spelling Connections for Grade 1 through Grade 8. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and find out more information about his work on his website.

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5 Brain-Based Reasons to Teach Handwriting in School

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Cognitive psychology and neuroscience support teaching handwriting in school.

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Of all the writing I have done with students in elementary school, teaching poetry writing has been the most exhilarating and successful. Kids love it; they are energized by the myriad of possibilities and the total writing freedom. Teachers love it too; it's fun and easy to teach, and all kids thrive.
Teach all students how to successfully write poetry with Kids' Poems!
Several years ago, when I began teaching young children how to write free-verse poetry, I was amazed at how creative and insightful all kids became. Students who struggled with forming letters and words and with writing sentences, and who found writing in school burdensome, blossomed in this genre. Free from restrictions in content, form, space, length, conventions, and rhyme, they could let their imaginations soar. Proficient writers also shone. For all children, their choice of words improved, and their joy in innovating surfaced. For some students who felt constricted by the requirements of school writing (journals, letters, and assignments), poetry writing freed them up.

Kenneth, a first grader, was one such student. The act of writing was physically difficult for him, and the traditional process was unsuccessful. Adult expectations for good handwriting also contributed to his dislike of writing. His teacher, Kevin Hill, commented on the impact of poetry writing: "With poetry, Kenneth was unleashed, and his talents were all over the page." Fascinated by the world around him, Kenneth could finally use writing to express himself freely. Poetry writing gave him a creative outlet for his mature understanding of nature in a way that made him feel comfortable, assured, and successful. (See "Spring" below.)

Other children also wrote easily and confidently, about sports, school, friends, pets, nature, likes and dislikes, their families, and what was on their minds. Their poems displayed energy, rhythm, passion, shape, and keen observation.

What's more, the voices of individual students were evident in their poems and convinced teachers that young students could indeed write with "voice" - a personal and unique style. Kevin Hill comments, "I could actually hear individual students' voices. Even without the child's name on the paper, I would often know who wrote the poem."

Introducing Poetry

Teaching poetry writing so that all kids are successful requires an in-depth introduction, including exposure to lots of poetry. While the initial session will last about one hour, follow-up sessions, including student writing, may be shorter as less demonstrating becomes necessary. Typically, the whole class session includes demonstrating poetry writing through one or two of the following:

Sharing and discussing kids' poems (10-15 min.)

Writing a poem together (10 min.)

Teacher writing a poem in front of class (5-7 min.)

Mini-lesson on features of poetry (5-10 min.)

Brainstorming before independent writing (5 min.)

Writing a poem independently (15-25 min.)

Sharing and celebrating (10 min.)

During our introductory session, I limit the demonstration to sharing and discussing kids' poems. It is these poems most of all that will provide the confidence and models that spur budding poets into confident action. Sharing poems written by other children sends a clear message: "Kids just like you wrote these poems. You can write poems too." I want to dispel any notions about writing being constrained, hard, or requiring strict conventions. I want students to write with ease and joy, and exposing them to kids' poems is the best way I know to accomplish that goal. Or, as one first-grade teacher put it, "they don't see themselves as poets till they see other children as poets."

As students listen to and read poetry, I want them to see and hear immediately that a poem:

Can be about anything

Can use few words

Has a unique form and shape

May or may not have rhythm and a beat

Often ends with a punch

Has a title

May use invented spelling

Let's us get to know the poet

Is easy to create

May be serious or humorous

Usually expresses important personal feelings

I read aloud and show at least five or six kids' poems, such as the ones included below. These poems are written by students just like yours - students who excel in school and students who struggle, students who like to write and students who avoid it. These are first-draft poems, thoughtfully conceived but quickly written with minimal revision. Our purpose is for students to discover the fun and joy of writing.

After reading a poem, I ask students, "What do you notice? What do you like?" We often comment on what the writer did and note many of the following as we discuss the poem as a whole:

Pen to the Page

At the beginning of a poetry-writing session, I usually do some oral brainstorming. Rather than asking every student what he or she is going to write about (which is time consuming and allows for only a brief response), I will ask several to talk in detail about what they think they might like to write a poem about. With the whole class "listening in," I talk with each poet. These one-on-one conversations encourage each student to pursue a topic in which he or she is interested, and to think about word choice, beginnings, endings, and so on.

I let them know that we'll have about 15 minutes of "quiet" writing with voluntary sharing afterward. I also tell them to put their name and a date on each poem so we have a permanent record of their work.

Students go back to their seats (or writing places) to begin their poems. Almost everyone settles down and gets to work right away. As they do when writing in other genres, kids quietly share ideas and help one another with spelling.

As children begin to write, I circulate about the room and briefly talk with each student, kneeling down so I am at eye level. My main purpose here is to encourage, support, and affirm each writer's efforts. Sometimes, if a student is having difficulty choosing a topic about which to write, I may need to have a brief one-on-one conference.

Celebrate the Poems

After the sustained writing time, students are invited to share their poems. Because poems are usually fairly short, sharing time goes quickly. All children get a chance to read aloud if they choose to do so.

Sometimes, students will stand at their desks and read their poems. Other times, we gather as a class in the reading-writing-sharing area, and each child reads his or her poem in the "author's chair." Some days we pair up or read in self-selected, small groups.

The purpose of the sharing is to celebrate students' efforts. I point out only what the writer has done well. Sharing the poem congratulates the writer, affirms the effort, serves as a possible model for other students, and encourages the writer to continue writing. When the writer reads, we also clearly hear the voice of the poet. At times, students instantly appreciate the quality of a poem and spontaneously applaud. Sometimes, to generate conversation, I'll ask: "What did we learn about the poet that we didn't know before?"

There is little critique during sharing time. Once again, our purpose in writing poetry is to free kids up to write, to make poetry writing fun and easy, to play around with language, to write without concern about "correctness," and to give everyone confidence in their abilities as writers. For all of that to happen, our focus must remain on honoring children's writing efforts. Our first poetry-writing session (and all sessions) ends with this celebratory sharing.

For other teachers and me, poetry writing has proved to be the easiest, most joyful, and most successful writing many students have ever done. I wish you the same ease, joy, and success.

- Bridget Frantz, Grade One

Shop poetry books that spark creativity and engage students.

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Kids' Poems: How to Introduce Poetry to Elementary School Children

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Of all the writing I have done with students in elementary school, teaching poetry writing has been the most exhilarating and successful. Kids love it; they are energized by the myriad of possibilities and the total writing freedom. Teachers love it too; it's fun and easy to teach, and all kids thrive.

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Implementing Common Core means a much greater emphasis on teaching nonfiction texts than many of us have been used to in the past. Although the vast majority of adult reading is nonfiction, humans are naturally drawn toward fictional stories and accounts. Therefore, it can be hard to get into the mindset of promoting nonfiction as a fundamentally enjoyable type of reading.

This can be especially true in the lowest grades when we are appealing to children who up to this point in their lives have been comforted by books like "Goodnight Moon" and "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish."

I often find that while some kids naturally engage with and love reading non-fiction texts, there will be others who are turned-off by it. How can a teacher turn a bored and disengaged kid into one who just eats up those fascinating facts?

Books are the foundation

Well, no kidding, right?

But I've seen many classroom libraries that could use a thorough review of their nonfiction selections. In real estate they say it's all about "location, location, location." Well when it comes to nonfiction books, it's all about "engagement, engagement, engagement."

Here are the ground rules.

Extremely focused on topics of interest

The books must be about subjects that children of that age are naturally interested in: straightforward and informative on narrow topics that they really care about.

Sure, there's room for stretching their interests in new directions, but when you're trying to draw them into reading, subjects in which they are interested and want to know more about form the magic gateway.

Extremely bright and colorful

Humans are visual learners and when you're trying to transition a child from learning by watching to learning by reading, the hook is awesome illustrations.

Focused on your curriculum

As you'll see below, a great strategy for introducing nonfiction is to tie it into the other things you are studying in your classroom. Know what you'll be teaching for the coming year so you can review your classroom library with a critical eye to ensure that the appropriate topics are present.

Kids may not naturally be interested in some of these books, but you will create interest as you teach.
I cover how to build and organize your classroom library here.
Video tips: engaging kids in nonfiction

Generating student interest in nonfiction texts

Once you are well-stocked with nonfiction books, use these ideas to hook your students into reading them eagerly. Learning facts can be a lot of fun, particularly if you reinforce a fact-focused pursuit of knowledge.

What's the question?

Here's a technique I use when I am teaching nonfiction. It's very simple but really gets those little brains working. I teach my kids that any time we're reading nonfiction we're answering a question, and their first job is to figure out what question a text might be answering.

I'll model this in read-alouds to begin with. I read the title and maybe the first paragraph of our nonfiction text and then I ask students:

"What question is this book answering?"

This really gets them thinking about the text and often generates some interesting answers. Over time they get really good at figuring out that answer.

Encourage inquisitive independent reading

When my students read nonfiction independently they have to note the following in their reading journals:

The title

A summary of the first paragraph

What question they think the text is answering

They write down the answer to their question after they've read just a small portion of the text and then review it again when they finish the whole text.

Often it turns out that a text may be answering a different question than one originally thought, which can be pretty thought provoking to kids.

Encouraging nonfiction involvement

Once you've hooked kids on interesting facts, make sure they have ways to develop this interest on their own. I recommend getting a few composition books and keeping them with your classroom library or a writing center if you have one.

You can label them with various broad topics if you want, but the key is to encourage the children to fill them with interesting facts they find as they are reading.

Other kids will enjoy reading these tidbits and you will also be able to gauge whether there is a developing trend of interest in a particular topic so you know which books to buy next.

Teacher read-alouds

... with a nonfiction slant. The classic teacher read-aloud is the perfect place to start, and the video above will provide tips for you.

Encourage nonfiction reading that is aligned with fiction reading

If you are reading the book "Little Bear Goes to the Moon," then pull out those nonfiction books on space travel to satisfy the natural curiosity that will develop in your classroom.

Look for nonfiction disguised as fiction

Certain genres such as "biography" read almost like a story. All too often adults have the mental image of nonfiction as being an encyclopedic collection of factoids. In reality, most modern nonfiction is quite engaging, and this is true even down in the first, second and third grades.

You can also start with historical fiction and follow it up with a factual account. This works particularly well with social studies curriculum.

Reinforce with writing

Speaking of biographies, every student has a perfect nonfiction topic about which they can write: themselves! Getting your kids to start writing nonfiction early is another great reinforcement activity for engagement.

The easy way for kids to journal their way through reading!

Nonfiction classroom decorations

There are tons of it of interesting charts available on factual topics. Don't hesitate to put up a few of these, rotated throughout the year to keep them fresh, to build interest in a particular area of the curriculum.

Once kids show interest in the visual display of the posters, they can easily be guided to the aligned books.

Placing a row of books under a poster is a natural way to encourage them to make that jump from reading a poster to reading a more in-depth treatment.

More from Classroom Caboodle

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Teaching Nonfiction with Maximum Engagement

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Implementing Common Core means a much greater emphasis on teaching nonfiction texts than many of us have been used to in the past. Although the vast majority of adult reading is nonfiction, humans are naturally drawn toward fictional stories and accounts.

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The recommendations in this guide cover teaching the writing process, teaching fundamental writing skills, encouraging students to develop essential writing knowledge, and developing a supportive writing environment. All of these practices are aimed at achieving a single goal: enabling students to use writing flexibly and effectively to help them learn and communicate their ideas.
Download full practice guide >
Recommendation 1: Provide daily time for students to write

Level of evidence: Minimal

Providing adequate time for students to write is one essential element of an effective writing instruction program. However, recent surveys of elementary teachers indicate that students spend little time writing during the school day. Students need dedicated instructional time to learn the skills and strategies necessary to become effective writers, as well as time to practice what they learn. Time for writing practice can help students gain confidence in their writing abilities. As teachers observe the way students write, they can identify difficulties and assist students with learning and applying the writing process.

How to carry out the recommendation

The panel recommends a minimum of one hour a day devoted to writing for students, beginning in 1st grade (For students in kindergarten, at least 30 minutes each day should be devoted to writing and developing writing skills.). The hour should include at least 30 minutes dedicated to teaching a variety of writing strategies, techniques, and skills appropriate to students' levels, as detailed in Recommendations 2, 3, and 4 of this guide. The remaining 30 minutes should be spent on writing practice, where students apply the skills they learned from writing-skills instruction.

Time for writing practice can occur in the context of other content-area instruction. In science, for example, lab reports require detailed procedural writing and clear descriptions of observations. Students also can write For students in kindergarten, at least 30 minutes each day should be devoted to writing and developing writing skills. imaginary diary entries of people from the time period they are studying in social studies. Additionally, students can write before, during, and/or after reading, to articulate what they already know, what they want to know, and what they learned. When teachers integrate writing tasks with other content-area lessons, students may think more critically about the content-area material.
Download Recommendation 1 >
Recommendation 2: Teach students to use the writing process for a variety of purposes

Level of evidence: Strong

Writing well involves more than simply documenting ideas as they come to mind. It is a process that requires that the writer think carefully about the purpose for writing, plan what to say, plan how to say it, and understand what the reader needs to know. Instruction should include the components of the writing process: planning, drafting, sharing, evaluating, revising, and editing. An additional component, publishing, may be included to develop and share a final product.

Teach students the writing process

1. Teach students strategies for the various components of the writing process

Students need to acquire specific strategies for each component of the writing process. Students should learn basic strategies, such as POW (Pick ideas, Organize their notes, Write and say more), in 1st or 2nd grade. More complicated strategies, such as peer revising, should be introduced in 2nd grade or later. Many strategies can be used to assist students with more than one component of the writing process. For example, as students plan to write a persuasive essay, they may set goals for their writing, such as providing three or more reasons for their beliefs. Students should then devise a plan for periodically assessing their progress toward meeting these goals as they write. As students evaluate their draft text, they may reread their paper to determine whether they have met the goals they articulated during planning. If not, students may revise their writing to better meet their goals.

2. Gradually release writing responsibility from the teacher to the student

Writing strategies should be taught explicitly and directly through a gradual release of responsibility from teacher to student. Teachers should ensure that students have the background knowledge and skills they need to understand and use a writing strategy. Then, teachers should describe the strategy and model its use. Teachers also should articulate the purpose of the strategy, clearly stating why students might choose to use it as a way of improving their writing. Teachers then should guide students to collaborate in small groups to practice applying the strategy. Once students demonstrate an understanding of the strategy, the teacher should encourage students to practice applying it as they write independently. Teachers should make sure they do not release responsibility to students too early.

3. Guide students to select and use appropriate writing strategies.

When students initially learn to use writing strategies, teachers frequently should discuss when and how to use the strategies throughout the writing process, as well as why the strategies are helpful. Once students learn to use a variety of strategies independently, through the gradual release process, teachers should help them understand how to select appropriate strategies and use them across a range of writing tasks.

To help students select the appropriate writing strategy, teachers might consider posting strategies on a wall chart in the classroom. One column of the chart might include a list of all the strategies, and another column might provide a list of situations in which these strategies could be used. Once students are able to use a strategy effectively and independently, they can identify and add situations to the chart. Students also can identify opportunities to apply strategies in different content areas.

4. Encourage students to be flexible in using components of the writing process

Writing requires flexibility and change. Once students have acquired a set of strategies to carry out the components of the writing process, they need to be purposeful in selecting strategies that help them meet their writing goals. They also need to learn to apply these strategies in a flexible manner, moving back and forth between different components of the writing process as they develop text and think critically about their writing goals. For example, plans and already written text may need to be revised and edited numerous times to communicate more effectively, and writing must be polished to make it suitable for publication.

Teach students to write for a variety of purposes: How to carry out the recommendation

1. Help students understand the different purposes of writing

Students should understand the purpose of each genre (to describe, to narrate, to inform, or to persuade/analyze) so that they can select the genre best suited to their writing task.

2. Expand students' concept of audience

Writing for different purposes often means writing for different audiences. To help students understand the role of audience in writing, it is important to design writing activities that naturally lend themselves to different audiences. Otherwise, students may view writing in school as writing only for their teacher. When discussing writing purposes, teachers and students can generate a list of potential audiences for a given writing assignment. Students then can choose the audience that best fits their writing topic.

3. Teach students to emulate the features of good writing

Students should be exposed to exemplary texts from a variety of sources, including published or professional texts, books and textbooks, the teacher's own writing, and peer samples. Exemplary texts can illustrate a number of features, including text structure; use of graphs, charts, and pictures; effective word choice; and varied sentence structure.

4. Teach students techniques for writing effectively for different purposes

Students also must learn to use techniques that are specific to a purpose of writing. When developing a persuasive essay, for example, students can use the TREE (Topic sentence, Reasons-three or more, Ending, Examine) technique, whereby they make a plan for their paper that includes what they believe, reasons to support their beliefs, examples for each reason, and an ending.
Download Recommendation 2 >
Recommendation 3: Teach students to become fluent with handwriting, spelling, sentence construction, typing and word processing

Level of evidence: Moderate

When basic writing skills become relatively effortless for students, they can focus less on these basic writing skills and more on developing and communicating their ideas. However, younger writers must typically devote considerable attention to acquiring and polishing these skills before they become proficient. Spelling skills can affect the words students choose because they may be less likely to use words they cannot spell. Students also need to be able to generate strong, interesting sentences that vary in length and complexity in order to convey their intended meaning and engage readers.

When a student's writing contains spelling mistakes and poor handwriting, it can be difficult for the reader to understand what the student is trying to convey. Word processing programs can make many aspects of the writing process easier for students, including assisting students with spelling and handwriting difficulties to write more fluently.

How to carry out the recommendation

1. Teach very young writers how to hold a pencil correctly and form letters

Early writing instruction should begin with demonstrations of how to hold a pencil comfortably between the thumb and forefinger, resting on the middle finger. Teachers also should show young writers the most efficient and legible ways to form each letter, regardless of whether print or cursive script is used. Teachers also should show young writers the most efficient and legible ways to form each letter, regardless of whether print or cursive script is used. Because handwriting is a motor skill, it works best to practice in multiple short sessions. Students also should apply their handwriting skills in sentences and in authentic writing activities.

2. Teach students to spell words correctly

A relatively small number of words (850) account for 80 percent of the words elementary- grade students use in their writing. Teachers should help students learn to spell words they commonly use. Although many elementary schools have an explicit spelling curriculum, teachers should connect spelling instruction with writing as much as possible. Students should be encouraged to learn words they frequently misspell, as well as words they wish to include in their writing. Teachers also should help students acquire the skills they need to generate and check plausible spellings for words.

3. Teach students to construct sentences for fluency, meaning and style

Students should learn to write strong sentences that convey their intended meaning and engage readers. Teachers should focus sentence-level instruction on sentence construction, encouraging students to consider the meaning and syntax of the sentences they develop. Teachers also should explicitly demonstrate how sentence construction and sentence mechanics, such as punctuation and capitalization, interact to form strong sentences. Students also need instruction on how to use a variety of sentence structures in their writing.

4. Teach students to type fluently and to use a word processor to compose

Students should be introduced to typing in 1st grade. By 2nd grade, students should begin regular typing practice. By the end of 2nd or 3rd grade, students should be able to type as fast as they can write by hand. Instruction in typing should be accompanied by instruction in how to use a word processor.
Download Recommendation 3 >
Recommendation 4: Create an engaged community of writers

Level of evidence: Minimal

Students need both the skill and the will to develop as writers.97 Teachers should establish a supportive environment in their classroom to foster a community of writers who are motivated to write well. In a supportive writing environment, teachers participate as writers, not simply instructors, to demonstrate the importance of writing. By taking part in writing lessons and activities, teachers convey the message that writing is important, valued, and rewarding.

How to carry out the recommendation

1. Teachers should participate by writing and sharing their writing

Teachers should model how the ability to write affects their daily lives, demonstrate the importance of writing to communicate, model the perseverance required to create a good piece of writing, and express the satisfaction that can come from creating a meaningful text. For example, a teacher could draft a letter or an email to a friend in front of students, thinking out loud to make the invisible act of composing - which occurs internally for experienced writers - more visible to students.

2. Give students writing choices

Teachers should provide opportunities for student choice in writing assignments - for example, choice in selecting writing topics or the freedom to modify a teacher-selected prompt.One way to foster choice is for students to keep a notebook in which they record topics for writing. Teachers also need to provide instruction and opportunities for students to practice writing to prompts.

3. Encourage students to collaborate as writers

Teachers can encourage students to collaborate throughout the writing process by brainstorming ideas about a topic, responding to drafts in a writing group, or helping peers edit or revise their work. Collaboration also can take the form of collaborative writing, whereby students jointly develop a single text.

4. Provide students with opportunities to give and receive feedback

Students need to know whether their writing is accurately and appropriately conveying its message. One way students can determine this is by sharing their writing and responding to written and verbal feedback from the teacher and their peers. Although teachers should provide feedback to students through teacher-student conferences and rubrics, peers also should be encouraged to participate in the feedback process. Students also need to be taught strategies and appropriate language for written feedback.
Download Recommendation 4 >

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Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers

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The recommendations in this guide cover teaching the writing process, teaching fundamental writing skills, encouraging students to develop essential writing knowledge, and developing a supportive writing environment. All of these practices are aimed at achieving a single goal: enabling students to use writing flexibly and effectively to help them learn and communicate their ideas.

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An eVoc strategy is an electronic or technology-based strategy that teachers can use to develop students' vocabulary learning and interest in words. We use the term eVoc both to highlight that the strategies rely on digital tools and resources and to suggest the evoking of learning potential that is possible when technology and media are part of the instructional mix.

As literacy educators, we need to use the tools that 21st-century technologies afford us (International Reading Association, 2009). Nearly 100% of schools in the United States have Internet access (Wells & Lewis, 2006). In 2010, we can assume that access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) will continue to improve with the increased availability of inexpensive mobile devices and the U.S. Department of Education's inclusion of technology in education reform (National Education Technology Plan, 2010).

Although the pervasiveness of ICTs in all aspects of 21st-century life is quite clear and well accepted, it is less clear how teachers might successfully integrate technology into literacy instruction and specifically vocabulary instruction. Improving students' vocabulary is an area of urgent need if we are to develop the advanced literacy levels required for success in school and beyond (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006; Graves & Watts-Taffe, 2008). Vocabulary is also an area where teachers are asking for guidance on instructional approaches, strategies, and materials (Berne & Blachowicz, 2008). We believe that digital tools and media are available in most schools that teachers could harness now to improve vocabulary learning, tools that capture the interest of students and that provide scaffolds and contexts in which to learn with, and about, words more profitably.

The purpose of this article is to highlight 10 eVoc strategies that hold promise for improving vocabulary learning in intermediate grades and that employ digital tools and resources that are readily available and feasible to implement in today's schools. Given the fast pace of technology innovation, not all of these eVoc strategies have direct research evidence; however, they are all supported by research on effective vocabulary instruction, much of it carried out with print materials (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000; Pearson, Hiebert, & Kamil, 2007), and multimedia learning (Fadel & Lemke, 2008; Mayer, 2001).

We encourage teachers to select one or more of these eVoc strategies to try out and adapt to their particular students, curricula, and teaching context. We hope that they share their successes and limitations with their colleagues and with the broader literacy community on the Internet. In the following sections, we first summarize research on vocabulary learning and then present 10 eVoc strategies organized by three principles of vocabulary instruction applied in a digital context. Across all three areas, the role of interest and engagement with words and word learning is addressed.

What does research tell us about vocabulary learning?

Even within our increasingly visual world (Kress, 2003), words remain our pr imar y means of communicat ion. The Nat ional Reading Panel Report (NICHD, 2000) and the RAND Reading Study Group (2002) heightened the importance of vocabulary instruction for student literacy learning. Books and articles on vocabulary instruction are popular (e.g., Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2008; Blachowicz & Obrochta, 2005; Graves & Watts-Taffe, 2008), and research on vocabulary is enjoying renewed attention.

Why is vocabulary learning so important? To understand a text, one must understand the words that represent the ideas or concepts. Studies confirm the high correlation (0.6 to 0.8) between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension (Baumann & Kame'enui, 2004; Pearson et al., 2007). We also know that there are degrees of word knowledge, from "I've never heard this word before," to "I know this word and can apply it in multiple contexts" (Lubliner & Scott, 2008), as well as metacognitive knowledge about how to apply prior knowledge and strategies to vocabulary learning (Beck et al., 2008).

Of particular concern to educators is the development of academic language. Although we learn oral language that enables us to speak to one another fairly easily, learning academic language is more complex because it involves abstract literacy tasks and language not customarily used in oral speech (Fang, Schleppegrell, & Cox, 2006; Zwiers, 2007). Academic language is a second language, because all literate people must learn it to enable them to access academic content (Solomon & Rhodes, 1995).

For English learners (ELs), academic language may represent the task of learning a third language. Thus, special care must be taken to give them every advantage in learning academic language, particularly in content areas. For example, research suggests that Spanish-speaking students can be taught to recognize cognates (i.e., words with similar meanings that look and sound alike in two languages, such as operation [English] and operación [Spanish]) and use cognate information to comprehend English texts (Lubliner & Grisham, in press; Proctor, Dalton, & Grisham, 2007).

We know that there is a wide range in students' word knowledge and that as early as age 5, there is a 30-million-word exposure gap between "haves" and "have nots" (Hart & Risley, 1995). The results of this gap are manifested in students' literacy learning, particularly reading comprehension. The Matthew Effect, where strong readers get stronger and weak readers get weaker (Stanovich, 1986), as well as the fourth-grade reading slump (Chall & Jacobs, 2003), can be attributed, at least in part, to a less developed store of conceptual knowledge and vocabulary.

The good news is that we can improve vocabulary learning and address the gap by actively and systematically teaching vocabulary to our students (Pearson et al., 2007; Zwier s, 2007). Teaching words, morphology, and word origins is an important component in any vocabulary learning program. It is also necessary to provide multiple exposures to the word in different contexts and to teach word learning strategies, such as using context clues, cognate information, and deciding when a word is important to know and remember. Although teaching can make a real difference in vocabulary learning, explicit teaching of vocabulary is not enough; a dedicated teacher can teach perhaps 300-400 words per year (Beck et al., 2008).

Direct vocabulary instruction is essential, but research indicates that students with well-developed vocabulary learn many more words indirectly through reading than from instruction (Cunningham & Stanovich, 2001; Nagy & Herman, 1985). Two strategies that encourage children to read widely and deeply are to provide an array of reading materials that capitalize on their interests and to set aside time for reading during the school day and at home (Trelease, 2006). Conversations about their reading with adults and peers also strengthen students' word learning (Biemiller & Boote, 2006).

Whether directly teaching vocabulary and word learning strategies, or increasing students' volume of reading, an important research-based principle that applies across the board is to promote a lively interest in words through student expression and participation in a learning community that enjoys playing with words, builds on individual interests as well as curriculum needs, and emphasizes self-efficacy in word learning (Beck et al., 2008; Graves & Watts- Taffe, 2008).

These recommendations to improve vocabulary by encouraging wide reading, teaching words and word learning strategies, and promoting active learning and interest in words are not new. The purpose of this article is to encourage teachers to apply these research-based recommendations in new ways, using digital tools, media, and the Internet-that is, to deploy technology in service of vocabulary learning.

Despite the ubiquity of technology and media, it is not on teachers' priority lists of vocabulary instruction strategies and materials (Berne & Blachowicz, 2008). We address this gap by offering 10 eVoc strategies organized into three instructional areas. First, we offer strategies for teaching words and word learning strategies. Second, we focus on on-demand digital language tools to support just-in-time strategic vocabulary learning and reading. Third, we suggest ways to increase the volume of reading to support students' incidental vocabulary learning. Along the way, we offer ways to stimulate students' interest in words and self-efficacy. Technology, when used flexibly in response to students' varied needs and interests, can and should be part of the solution to the vocabulary gap.

Teaching and learning vocabulary

The first five eVoc strategies focus on explicit teaching of vocabulary and helping students become independent word learners.

eVoc strategy 1: Learn from visual displays of word relationships within text

Developing breadth and depth of vocabulary depends on building connections between words and developing elaborate webs of meaning (Boulware- Gooden, Carreker, Thornhill, & Joshi, 2007). Graphic organizers and visual displays highlight the relationships between words (Baumann & Kame'enui, 2004). Two of our favorite word mapping tools that support visual representation are Wordle and Wordsift.

Wordle is a free Web application that allows you to create a word cloud based on the frequency of words in a particular text. It can be used to stimulate students' thinking about the meaning, importance, and relationship of words as they analyze, create, and publish Wordles. To create a word cloud, you paste text into the applet and then manipulate the visual display by selecting the color scheme, layout, and font. Word clouds can be used to highlight keywords and themes to prepare students for reading, as well as prompt discussion after reading.

For example, we created the word cloud in Figure 1 based on an online National Geographic Kids article about the troubling disappearance of honeybees in North America. Questions about this Wordle might include the following:

What does the word cloud suggest this article is about?

What seem to be the most important words?

How do these words go together?

Why do you think the Wordle designer chose this shape of word cloud? (Hint: Think of what bees look like when they swarm.)

Figure 1: Word cloud for bees using Wordle

Students will most likely conjecture that the article is about bees. Some students may notice the less prominent words-dead and poisons-and wonder if the bees are sick. When asked about the color choice, they may speculate that the author/designer chose bright colors to get your attention, or that black goes with poison. What is important in this kind of prereading discussion is students' close attention to the words and how they might relate to one another and to the larger text that they represent. Students actively engage with meaning as they draw on background knowledge about words and concepts as well as on visual literacy skills.

The same bees word cloud could prompt a discussion after reading the article, guided by questions such as,

Do you think the word cloud captured what was most important to learn?

Are there keywords or ideas that are left out?

What superordinate terms reflect the main ideas?

As students manipulate the word cloud's layout, color, and font, they integrate verbal and visual representations, strengthening the multimedia learning effect (Fadel & Lemke, 2008) while developing an important digital literacy skill in our visual society.

For some students, the creative design aspect serves as the hook to engage them in meaning making; for others, it is the words themselves that entice them to explore meanings and relationships. Although Wordles can be published to the public gallery and printed, another option is to use a screen capture program to save the Wordle as an image, creating a bank of images on your desktop or school server. They can then be inserted into a document, PowerPoint, class blog, or other text.

WordSift is another free word cloud tool available on the Internet. Like Wordle, a word cloud is created based on text that is cut and pasted into the application. Although WordSift does not support artistic design of the display, it offers important learning supports. Each word can be clicked on to show a collection of related images, a word map, and a listing of sentences from the text that present the word in different contexts. WordSift also sorts words by difficulty and identifies academic words. Note that both Wordle and WordSift support several different languages, a feature particularly helpful to ELs (Adesope, Lavin, Thompson, & Ungerleider, 2010).

eVoc strategy 2: Take a digital vocabulary field trip

In the original vocabulary field trip (Blachowicz & Obrochta, 2005), the teacher begins with a large poster of a topic, such as weather. Students are seated on the carpet, and the teacher leads a field trip that includes having students observe and record what they saw as they read books and other materials. As students volunteer weather words, the teacher records them on sticky notes or tag board and puts them up beside the poster. After the observations are concluded, the teacher returns the students' attention to the words, repeating them and linking them to the poster. Next, students sort the weather words into conceptually related groups and engage in other semantic activities.

Teachers can create a digital version of a vocabulary field trip using a free online program called TrackStar (trackstar.4teachers.org). Like the popular WebQuest (Dodge, 1995), TrackStar allows you to collect a series of websites and annotate them so that students follow the online journey.

On the left side of the figure you can see the questions and multiple websites that we selected to guide students in finding out about weather in Alaska, where the Iditarod takes place. We selected a context where weather is extreme to heighten students' interest and to provide a dramatic contrast to their own local weather. We begin with a website featuring photos and video of dogsledding in Alaska and asked students to respond with descriptions of the weather conditions.

Next, students visit a website on the aurora borealis and look for connections between the aurora and Alaskan weather. They complete the virtual field trip with a visit to a website on weather comparisons, where they examine the differences between local weather and Alaskan weather. Throughout this process, they visit several teacher-selected websites and gain knowledge about words through multiple exposures in different contexts and through different media, including reading, viewing, writing, and conversation.

eVoc strategy 3: Connect fun and learning with online vocabulary games

No list of technology applications for vocabulary would be complete without mention of the vocabulary games that are available for free on the Internet. We recommend two sites that offer a variety of activities to engage students in playing with words and word meanings: Vocabulary Games and Vocabulary. Games include crossword puzzles, picture-word matches, word scrambles, and 8 Letters in Search of a Word (a game that can draw you in unexpectedly as you race to create as many words as possible from eight letters within the time limit). The games are supplemented with themed word lists, test preparation items, and activities on prefixes and suffixes. These sites can be bookmarked for students' independent practice and can provide a basis for whole-group instruction.

eVoc strategy 4: Have students use media to express vocabulary knowledge

The previous eVoc strategies all require student interaction, from manipulating a visual word map to taking an online vocabulary field trip. This strategy focuses on students' vocabulary representations in multiple modes-writing, audio, graphic, video, and animation (Nikolova, 2002; Xin & Rieth, 2001). The first set of examples draws on promising research with universally designed digital text (Dalton & Proctor, 2007), suggesting the benefit of having students develop word meaning as they read a definition, view graphics, listen to the word, write or audiotape a personal connection to the word, create a caption for a graphic, and complete an interactive word map (Proctor et al., 2007; Proctor, Uccelli, Dalton, & Snow, 2009). Figure 2 illustrates how students communicate word knowledge as they create a caption for an image. These types of activities offer students different modes of representation and expression and can be created with a variety of composing tools and formats, such as digital stories, photo essays, podcasts, and so on.

Figure 2: Students create captions to illustrate their understanding of contribute

Note. From Dalton, B., Proctor, C.P., Snow, C.E., Uccelli, P., & Mo, E. (2008, September). Improving reading comprehension for struggling readers: Understanding the role of vocabulary development, guided strategy use, and Spanish language supports in a digital reading environment. Final report to the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences.

A multimedia composing and presentation tool that is often underused is PowerPoint. We have certainly seen many poor PowerPoint examples (e.g., the ubiquitous three bullet points and silly clip art approach). However, we have found that PowerPoint can be used creatively for expression. In addition to benefiting from reading and viewing multimodal representations of vocabulary, recent research suggests that students may also benefit from creating multimedia representations of words in PowerPoint slides that are hyperlinked together (Pritchard & O'Hara, 2009). Working with fifth graders, Bridget (first author) created an example of a multimedia glossary item for camouflage, a word from the science curriculum (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Multimedia glossary example of camouflage using a PowerPoint template

The model elaborates word knowledge in context and illustrates how design influences the message. To provide a structure to guide students in creating their own entries, Bridget created a template that students could fill in and adapt. The template includes a space for the word, a short definition, an explanation for why the word is important, a graphic, an audio recording or sound, and a source. As students create and revise their entries, they reflect on the word's meaning (What does this mean?), its representation (How does this particular graphic and sound effect illustrate this word?) and process (What images did you consider and discard?).

Students' glossary items can be combined into a master document and sorted by word to show multiple meanings and representations (Pritchard & O'Hara, 2009). Another approach to compiling students' individual work is to teach them how to hyperlink their slides so that a view of one version of a word includes hyperlinks to others' versions of that word. Although this example uses PowerPoint as the media format, these types of vocabulary collections can be created in different modes and published online as a word wiki or word blog. This kind of collaborative publication and engagement with an external audience is characteristic of successful multimedia learning (Fadel & Lemke, 2008). There really is no end to the creative possibilities when students use media to develop and celebrate the wonder of words.

eVoc strategy 5: Take advantage of online word reference tools that are also teaching tools

Many online word reference tools are also excellent teaching resources. For example, the Visual Thesaurus website complements its fee-based content with free information such as the Behind the Dictionary and Teachers at Work columns and teacher-created themed word lists. Many use multiple distribution platforms to reach learners wherever they are. For example, the Back in School webpage of Dictionary.com (dictionary.reference.com/studenthandbook) links to Facebook, has an iPhone application, a free toolbar application, a word of the day that is communicated on Twitter or as a text message on your mobile phone, and a free weekly word explorer audio podcast on iTunes.

Develop strategic digital readers with "on-demand" vocabulary help

This section highlights two online tools that provide just-in-time support while reading. Students can develop their strategic learning repertoire as they customize their own collection of supports.

eVoc strategy 6: Support reading and word learning with just-in-time vocabulary reference support

Whether avid or reluctant reader, we all encounter unfamiliar words in our reading and need strategies for what to do when this occurs. Rather than using print dictionaries or asking the teacher, students can learn to use online dictionaries and thesauri. When they have access to word help on demand, at the point of need, both monolingual (Reinking & Rickman, 1990) and bilingual (Yoshii, 2006) students tend to use them more often than print references and improve their understanding. Many of these Internet-based tools are free (they vary in difficulty, so try out different applications to determine the best fit for your students).

Some word reference tools can be mounted on the browser toolbar, allowing you to right click on any word to look it up and have a brief definition display. More comprehensive dictionaries can be bookmarked for easy access while reading on the computer. The increasingly popular e-book readers, which are becoming more common in schools and homes, usually provide dictionary help in the form of audio pronunciations of the word and brief definitions.

Two popular free online dictionaries/thesauri are Reference.com and Merriam-Webster. Tools expressly designed for students include Word Central from Merriam-Webster , Back in School from Dictionary.com, and Yahoo Kids! American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

A strength of digital text is its capacity to communicate in multiple modes, enhancing understanding by providing two channels of input, visual/spatial and linguistic (Mayer, 2001). Merriam-Webster offers an online visual dictionary (visual.merriam-webster .com/index.php), and Enchanted Learning provides a picture dictionary for young children. Be on the alert for educational sites that offer specialized picture glossaries, such as NASA's online space picture dictionary. These sites can be added to your browser favorites. And, finally, it is important to teach students to notice and strategically use the vocabulary help that is offered on various sites, such as the word wizard that pops up when students are reading Scholastic News Online.

eVoc strategy 7: Use language translators to provide just-in-time help for ELLs

Successful ELs leverage first-language knowledge to develop their English (Adesope et al., 2010; Jiménez, García, & Pearson, 1996). Online dictionaries often support multiple languages (e.g., the Yahoo! Kids dictionary supports 90 languages), and EL students should be taught to look for this option. Another resource is the language translator. The value of a translator is that it supports learning words as they occur naturally in authentic text and allows students to view bilingual versions of a text side by side so that they can use their first-language knowledge to develop their English vocabulary. You can paste text into the translator field, select the input and output languages, and view the translation (see Babelfish, Google translator, and Bing Translator). You may also download a toolbar extension that translates any webpage automatically. Although these tools are not perfect (and may never be, given the nuances involved in translation), they are a good place to start for ELs. In fact, students often find the translator's mistakes both humorous and an entry point for discussing the nuances of word meanings.

Expand wide reading and incidental word learning with digital text

Reading widely and deeply is important for vocabulary development and reading comprehension. These two strategies help increase students' volume of reading and, indirectly, their incidental word learning (Cunningham & Stanovich, 2001; Nagy & Herman, 1985).

eVoc strategy 8: Increase reading volume by reading digital text

Class libraries, read-alouds, book clubs, and independent reading time during the school day can increase the amount and variety of student reading. However, it is challenging to find the resources and time required to provide up-to-date material, to be responsive to students' interests, and to accommodate readers at different reading levels. Teachers can dramatically expand text options for students by including reading on the Internet and other digital texts. A high percentage of students already use the Internet for homework; we can extend their learning and exploration of words in context as they read and view varied text genres on the Internet, or read texts downloaded onto a class computer, an e-book reading device, or a smartphone.

Increasing the reading of informational text is especially important for learning in the content areas, and informational content reigns supreme on the Internet. To use current events as one example, the currency of information and use of media to communicate the news is unparalleled. To begin, we recommend bookmarking quality sites that students read on a regular basis. Many educational publishers and organizations provide free online content, including articles and media about current events, some of which are generated by students themselves. A few of our favorites include the following:

A recent visit to some of our favorite sites included articles about the top stories in the news, a student blog about animal myths featured in the animated film Fantastic Mr. Fox, and an explanat ion of threesided snowflakes. The texts include graphics, video, and sound, along with written text, providing many ways of engaging with the content. Students can rotate taking on the role of Internet news repor ter, scanning bookmarked sites for interesting news to share with the class or post to a class blog. Students can also pursue individual interests as they read digital text during sustained silent reading.

A second example is based on literature students read in the classroom, generating interest in more reading by developing intertextual connections (Hartman, 1992). Using a digital poster or PowerPoint screen to show a splash of book cover images and screen captures of websites, movie trailers, and blogs invites students to pursue their interests in particular authors, books, genres, popular culture, and media.

For example, a screen displaying a book that the class is reading, such as Kate DiCamillo's The Tale of Despereaux, links to several screens, one featuring her website and online interviews, another to a site with video clips from The Tale of Despereaux movie, and still another highlighting other fantasy books and comics. The splash screens can be printed out to build a wall mural that students expand as they continue reading.

These examples highlight the value of teachers previewing Internet content. However, students will also need support in learning how to search and find their own reading materials on the Internet. This will necessitate teaching Internet safety, something that is now required to obtain E-Rate funding (Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, 2009), as well as strategies for searching and evaluating Internet content (Henry, 2006).

eVoc strategy 9: Increase reading volume by listening to digital text with a text-to-speech tool and audio books

A common concern among educators is the readability of websites and Internet content. One powerful strategy is to allow students to listen to text with a text-to-speech (TTS) tool or, when available, listen to audio narration. This provides students with access to age-appropriate content and grade-level curriculum, a right mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004. For struggling readers, TTS increases their reading speed, reduces stress, and for some, but not all, improves comprehension (Elkind & Elkind, 2007).

Fortunately, there are free TTS tools that can be mounted on the browser toolbar for easy access while reading, such as Click, Speak for Firefox (click speak.clcworld.net), or downloaded to your desktop, such as the NaturalReader free TTS utility. Balabolka is a PC-based TTS application that can run off a thumb drive. Some e-book readers such as Microsoft Reader are free to download and can be used with public domain content that is part of their e-book library.

There are also commercial TTS tools that range in price depending on the features, such as those from Kurzweil, Aeques, TextHELP, and Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D). Note that students who have a documented print disability may obtain digital versions of core curriculum texts from organizations such as Bookshare and RFB&D. To explore strategies for listening to text, check out the Learning Through Listening website. Johnson (2003) also offered suggestions for using audiobooks in the classroom in her Reading Online article, "Audiobooks: Ear-resistible!"

eVoc strategy 10: Combine vocabulary learning and social service

Many of these eVoc strategies use Web 2.0 technologies to promote social learning. They also tap into students' natural desire to create, to participate in communities, and to develop strategic competence. Recent reports on students' digital literacies highlight the importance of this kind of learning (Ito et al., 2010). This final eVoc strategy is a free online vocabulary game, Free Rice that has attracted millions of users, young and old. We believe it offers an opportunity to promote students' engagement with words while contributing to the social good.

Free Rice presents a word and four answer choices on the screen. For each correct answer, the United Nations World Food Programme donates 10 grains of rice to countries in need. The game adjusts its difficulty level based on the response, filling a bowl with rice as the player adds to his or her score. As a class activity, the teacher could project the website on screen and guide students in playing the game for 5 minutes daily, discussing choices (e.g., "I think it must be 'x' because 'y'") and strategies (e.g., "Any words we can eliminate? Does the root word give us a clue we can use?"). Students can play individually or with a partner, reporting back to class on their rice earnings and sharing intriguing new words.

In closing, we invite you to go digital with word learning. These 10 eVoc strategies use technology to support the wide reading, direct instruction, active learning, and interest in words that we know are essential to vocabulary development. In a digital world, knowing how to use the tools and resources available online is part of becoming a strategic learner. We hope that this list provides a useful and evocative jumpingoff point for integrating technology and media into your students' vocabulary learning experience.

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10 Ways to Use Technology to Build Vocabulary

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Drawing on research-based principles of vocabulary instruction and multimedia learning, this article presents 10 strategies that use free digital tools and Internet resources to engage students in vocabulary learning. The strategies are designed to support the teaching of words and word learning strategies, promote students' strategic use of on-demand web-based vocabulary tools, and increase students' volume of reading and incidental word learning.

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30 of the best educational tools for auditory

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30 of the Best Educational Tools for Auditory, Visual, and Kinesthetic Learners

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Auditory learners learn by listening; visual learners learn by seeing; and kinesthetic learners learn by doing. Different learning styles require…

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Prompting Revision through Modeling and Written Conversations
Students create a checklist outlining what effective writers do, revise his or her own writing, and engage in a written conversation to help peers with the revision process.
Cut up, Cover up, and Come Away with Ideas for Writing!
Students rework their forgotten/abandoned drafts by cutting and covering up selected words. By creatively manipulating text, they explore portal writing, a strategy for envisioning a new story or story direction.
Writing for Audience: The Revision Process in The Diary of Anne Frank
After reading or viewing The Diary of Anne Frank, students will make connections between audience and purpose and revise a journal entry with an outside audience in mind.
The Houdini Box: What Did Houdini Hide? Writing Creative Endings
Students are encouraged to understand a book that the teacher reads aloud to create a new ending for it using the writing process.
Teaching Audience Through Interactive Writing
Through interactive writing, students work together and then independently to create invitation letters for a group of their peers and their families.
A Picture IS Worth a Thousand Words: Using Infographics to Illustrate How-to Writing
Students write step-by-step instructions on topics of their own choosing. Then using Piktochart, students create their own infographics to illustrate their instructions.
Writing Workshop: Helping Writers Choose and Focus on a Topic
Students engage in writing workshop, using a timeline to focus in on and write about a specific event.
And in Conclusion: Inquiring into Strategies for Writing Effective Conclusions
While drafting a literary analysis essay (or another type of argument) of their own, students work in pairs to investigate advice for writing conclusions and to analyze conclusions of sample essays. They then draft two conclusions for their essay, select one, and reflect on what they have learned through the process.
Peer Edit With Perfection: Effective Strategies
Students take a fresh look at the revision process and help one another polish their written work through a peer-editing strategy that is simple, systematic, and constructive.
Weekend News! A Weekly Writing Activity
On Monday mornings, you're likely to be asked, "What did you do this weekend?" In this lesson, students respond to this question in a self-assessed writing assignment about their weekend adventures.
How-To Writing: Motivating Students to Write for a Real Purpose
It's not easy surviving fourth grade (or third or fifth)! In this lesson, students brainstorm survival tips for future fourth graders and incorporate those tips into an essay.
Reading and Writing About Whales Using Fiction and Nonfiction Texts
Students will have a whale of a good time in this lesson in which they use fiction and nonfiction texts to write a letter to an online scientist.

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Implementing the Writing Process - ReadWriteThink

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Prompting Revision through Modeling and Written Conversations Students create a checklist outlining what effective writers do, revise his or her own writing, and engage in a written conversation to help peers with the revision process. Cut up, Cover up, and Come Away with Ideas for Writing!

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Being able to talk and express your thoughts clearly is vital in life. Yet, too many students are graduating without sufficient experience with group discussions, or arguing their ideas effectively, and they are finding themselves unprepared for the communication demands of college and their careers.

How can we prepare our students for these rigors?

To lay a better foundation for this learning, we can do a few things: we can value oral language development, we can value communication of ideas over grammatical correctness, and we can value oral language as a powerful way to learn and remember content.

Here are three strategies to help develop oral language skills.

Strategy One: Adapt Activities to Include Authentic Talk

Adapting current activities to include more authentic, original, and extended discussions gives students opportunities to contribute more than one sentence to a conversation. Sometimes, we miss the opportunity to encourage language development. For example, many teachers use some form of a jigsaw activity, in which students get into expert groups, read a text, and answer questions or fill in charts. They then go to mixed home groups to share their information. Yet, often what happens is this: students just read aloud what another student has copied from a resource -- and opportunities for oral language development are lost.

To improve this strategy, you can have the experts engage in a discussion of what to put, in their own words, onto paper. Then, they can rehearse what they'll say - covering their papers to avoid reading aloud. Then in home groups, you can have each person glance at their notes, cover them again, and share with the group members, who listen and take notes. You can even ask students to try to speak in paragraphs, starting with a general claim or topic sentence, and then support it with evidence sentences. For example, in this video, notice how the talk evolves as students prepare their ideas for sharing.

Strategy Two: Use Activities that Develop Strong Language

Use activities that allow students to develop a "stronger and clearer" answer, as they talk to different partners successively in an activity. Instead of the all-too-common whole class discussion, with the teacher asking questions and a few students answering, ask a question and have students talk to three different partners. Or have students talk in different groups (see this 1-3-6 activity video).

A crucial aspect of this strategy is that students shouldn't say the same thing each time; rather, they need to build on the language and ideas of previous partner(s) to improve, expand, clarify, and support their evolving answer each time they share it.

Example Activities (from Zwiers, O'Hara, Pritchard, 2014):

Interview Grid: Students talk with one different partner each time, making their answers stronger and clearer each time, taking minimal, if any, notes on the chart. Note that this activity can also work using inner-outer conversation circles, such as the one in this Debrief Circles video.

Opinion Formation Cards: Students receive a quotation from the text (before it's read) that includes evidence for one side or the other of an issue. Students share their quotations and their evolving opinions, with reasons and evidence for them.

Opinion Continuum: Students share where they fall on the continuum of a two-sided issue and why. At the end, they share if they shifted at all along the continuum based on their conversations with partners.

Strategy Three: Use Strong Discussion Prompts

Try to use discussion prompts that foster evaluation in some way. Evaluation is usually needed for ranking, prioritizing, and choosing. For example, if you ask for evidence of a theme or a claim, many students just find the first three remotely evidence-y things they can, and stop there. But if you prompt students to rank the evidence from strongest to weakest, or to find the most influential cause of some war, you can often get deeper thinking and better conversation.

For instance, I was talking with a teacher who was asking this question, "How did the Civil War affect the families in the South?" I encouraged her to simply add "most affect" to force students to evaluate and discuss their opinions. When students evaluate, their ideas often differ. And if you allow them time to argue and negotiate the ideas, lots of learning can happen.

Jeff Zwiers is a senior researcher at Stanford University, working on the Understanding Language project and focusing on research and professional development projects that emphasize oral language development. His most recent book (co-authored with Susan O'Hara and Robert Pritchard) is Common Core Standards in Diverse Classrooms: Essential Practices for Developing Academic Language and Literacy. He can be reached at jzwiers@stanford.edu.
Understanding Language aims to heighten educator awareness of the critical role that language plays in the new Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards, and to improve education for English Language Learners.

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Key Strategies for Developing Oral Language

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Being able to talk and express your thoughts clearly is vital in life. Yet, too many students are graduating without sufficient experience with group discussions, or arguing their ideas effectively, and they are finding themselves unprepared for the communication demands of college and their careers. How can we prepare our students for these rigors?

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Foster Language, Reading, and Writing Improvement at Home

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In this world when there are many demands on our and our children's time, it is important to prioritize time for reading and writing. Making time now will render benefits in the future. Many people opt to read together just before bedtime. Or, your child could read to you while you are preparing dinner.

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Assessment and Accountability - English Language Arts (CA Dept of Education)

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Information regarding English Language Arts/Literacy in the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, which includes summative, interim, and formative assessment, and California's new accountability systems.

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English and language arts are two of the most basic and widely taught subjects in United States schools. The American National Council of Teachers of English separates English and language arts into five basic categories: reading, writing, speaking, listening and viewing.

In elementary school, language arts classes focus on basic reading, writing and linguistic / communication skills. Periods of silent sustained reading, cursive writing, syntax, thematic writing and vocabulary are all major focal points of elementary lessons. Through these exercises, children are expected to develop reading and writing skills at an early age.

In middle school, the English curriculum evolves and expands to include more complicated reading comprehension, such as fiction, poetry and essays. In addition, grammar and semantics become a focal point of lessons, and students begin to foster writing skills that encompass poetry, expository writing and creative writing. Students in middle school are expected to expand vocabularies and develop a mature grasp of the five categories of language arts.

High school students take mandatory English classes in which they are expected to develop analytical skills. Classes generally revolve around reading novels, essays and other forms of literature, and require students to analyze, interpret and dissect written material in order to compare, contrast and discuss elements, like theme, characters and plot. Proficient writing skills are necessary at this point as these discussions of literature typically manifest in the form of an essay or research paper. High school English is a comprehensive study, combining the five skills of language arts in order to understand literature and its value.

English is also a crucial component of college preparation, getting students ready for the extensive research and analytical skills they will be expected to utilize throughout their college careers.

Reading

Whereas language arts classes in elementary school introduce students to grammar and composition, reading classes aid students in developing their comprehension and and analytical skills. Reading classes also instruct students in vocabulary and spelling, and help them build their skills through instruction, practice and testing. The degree of reading skill increases with each grade level and prepares students for middle school and high school English, where they will apply their basic reading skills to form more complex and analytical comprehension of literature.
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English and language arts are two of the most basic and widely taught subjects in United States schools. The American National Council of Teachers of English separates English and language arts into five basic categories: reading, writing, speaking, listening and viewing. In elementary school, language arts classes focus on basic reading, writing and linguistic / communication skills.

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Readings & Poems

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Vocabulary Study Tool

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For this lesson, I the Oh, California! Handout & Worksheet A

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Academic Vocabulary, Handwriting, Grammar and Spelling

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Academic Vocabulary, Handwriting, Grammar and Spelling

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The students will be reading this book as part of this lesson.

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historical - united states - 19th century

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family & home stories (children's / teenage)

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historical - united states - 19th century

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juvenile fiction / historical / united states / 19th century

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juvenile fiction/historical - united states - 19th century

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juvenile fiction / historical / united states / 19th century

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juvenile fiction/historical - united states - 19th century

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family & home stories (children's / teenage)

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In 1849 a twelve-year-old girl who calls herself Lucy is distraught when her mother moves the family from Massachusetts to a small California mining town. There Lucy helps run a boarding house and looks for comfort in books while trying to find a way to return "home."

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The California Gold Rush

The discovery of gold in California in the mid-19th Century ushered in one of the largest migrations in American history, as tens of thousands of hopeful, excited, and just plain desperate participated in the California Gold Rush.

It all began on January 24, 1848, on the South Fork of the American River, near what is now the California town of Coloma. John Sutter had hired a number of people to build a saw mill in the area, and James Marshall was one of the people doing the constructing. On that fateful day, Marshall saw tiny pieces of gold in the runoff millwater. He collected some of the gold pieces and showed them to Sutter, who swore Marshall to secrecy.

Despite this agreement, the story got out, possibly because Marshall wouldn't have been the only one to notice the gold in the millwater. Nevertheless, the story was soon a well-travelled one, with a publisher named Samuel Brannan soon walking up and down the streets of San Francisco holding a jar full of gold. The first major East Coast newspaper to report Marshall's discovery, the New York Herald, did so on August 19. President James K. Polk told the nation about the gold discovery in an address to Congress on December 5. Before long, the rush was on and '49ers, as they were called (after the year in which they set out, 1849), descended on California by the tens of thousands.

In 1849, the gold-motivated migrants numbered 80,000. Most of those were Americans in 1849, but the following few years saw gold-seekers come from all over the world. By 1856, more than 300,000 people had followed their gold dreams to what they hoped were the gold fields of California.

In the beginning, prospectors could find gold nuggets by sifting through the top one or two layers of dirt or in streams and riverbeds, using methods such as panning. As the gold supply dwindled and desire for gold increased, prospectors employed more sophisticated methods.

Many of the '49ers and other prospectors who came to California in search of a dream found they liked the place enough to stay. San Francisco went from an 1846 population of 200 to an 1852 population of 36,000. Other California cities and towns experienced similar growth. As a result, California became a state, in 1850, its infrastructure growing by leaps and bounds: Schools, churches, roads, and businesses rose from empty land, as many people found themselves earning a good living by providing goods and services to prospectors. Supply stores, warehouses, taverns, and hotels dotted the landscape, surrounding the areas where gold was known to be.

Modern-day estimates from the U.S. Government put the amount of gold discovered in the first five years of the California Gold Rush at 12 million ounces, worth more than $16 billion in today's dollars.

Many settlers made homes for themselves by displacing (and, in some cases, ending the lives of) Native Americans, continuing a Manifest Destiny trend that had begun in the East and continued in the Midwest and South.

Many others chasing their dreams found nothing but frustration. Many prospecting hopefuls spent all of the money that they had on the search for great wealth and ended up with none of their own. For many, the travel to California would have cost a steep price, especially if they had come from Latin America or Europe or China or Australia, as a great many did. The Americans who migrated westward generally crossed the Rocky Mountains or the Isthmus of Panama to get to gold country. People who came from other countries made great use of boats that docked in San Francisco and other, more southern ports.

The legality of various prospectors' claims to gold was not at all straightforward. When Marshall first found gold, on January 24, the land was still technically owned by Mexico, although that country had surrendered to U.S. forces, ending the Mexican-American War. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which officially ended the war, went into effect on February 2. Even then, California was under the control of the U.S. Military.

American soldiers did not roam the gold fields, however. The areas were largely self-policed, which allowed for all sorts of varied rules of law. As towns sprang up, rural law enforcement made its presence felt.

What this meant for the initial waves of prospectors, however, is that the gold was theirs for the taking, no questions asked, no taxes assessed, no price to be paid other than the hard labor expended to find the gold in the first place. Protecting that find proved problematic for many. The only real solution to the lawlessness that existed in some areas was the drying up of the gold deposits, making it unpalatable for anyone looking for quick and easy wealth.

The California Gold Rush was not kind to Sutter or Marshall, either. Unequipped with his own private security force, Sutter could do little to stem the tide of prospectors who camped on the land on which he had intended to complete his sawmill. He saw his dreams of an agriculture bonanza dry up in the dust left by prospectors' boots and horses' hooves. Marshall had little luck prospecting, either. Both men died poor and forgotten, except for the part that they played in setting off the Gold Rush in the first place.

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The California Gold Rush The discovery of gold in California in the mid-19th Century ushered in one of the largest migrations in American history, as tens of thousands of hopeful, excited, and just plain desperate participated in the California Gold Rush.

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Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

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Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home.

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The California Gold Rush cartoon 1849 (The Wild West)

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The California Gold Rush | American Experience | PBS

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The discovery of gold in1848 unleashed the largest migration in United States history and drew people from a dozen countries to form a multi-ethnic society in California.

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Generalization                 Lesson            

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Generalization                 Lesson            

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Lesson Power Point

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Reading Articles

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                                                 E-Project

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                                                 E-Project

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Social Studies Grade 4
Alma L. Diaz
California Baptist University
EDU 512A             SU 2018

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Standards

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E- Resources

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E-Unit Project & Reflection

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Introduction Video

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The Start of the California Gold Rush (1849)

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Accommodations Help Students with Attention Deficit Disorders