Talking to Students about Standardized Testing

It's that time of year with standardized tests looming on the horizon...

Many of my students are showing signs of stress and anxiety regarding the upcoming tests. We are working through a unit on stress and stress management in our social thinking groups and the topic of tests is top on the stress chart for most of my students.

I have definite feelings and opinions on the one-size-fits-all, high-stakes testing issue, but that is not a problem we're going to solve today, unfortunately. In the meantime, I thought I would share some strategies and a tool I am currently using with students to help de-mystify the whole testing routine and help them realize that they've got the tools they need to keep their stress levels low. 

First of all, I use the story of The Wizard of Oz with my students to help them understand the purpose for benchmark tests and state standardized tests. I tell them that at the beginning of the year, we start off walking down the Yellow Brick Road with our friends. Along the way, we will learn many things and the goal is to make it to the Emerald City to see the Wizard (representing the total learning for the year) by summer vacation.

I tell them that their job is to do the work to learn and practice new skills along the path. A few times a year, the teachers want to check to make sure they are moving father down the Yellow Brick Road and getting closer to Oz. We do those checks through benchmarks and (in our case) STAAR tests. I tell them that taking those tests is the same as when we use a ruler to measure distances. The tests measure the distance we've traveled down the Yellow Brick Road. My students seem to really understand this analogy and it has calmed down some of the anxiety.

Along with the Yellow Brick Road story, we do what we can to de-mystify the big, scary test. We look at examples of released tests so they can see that the questions don't look any harder than work they do successfully every single day at school. We make lists of things we know, want to know, and then have learned about what to expect.

Finally, we review the powerpoint below which can help answer nagging questions. Feel free to use this powerpoint with your students if it would be helpful for them.

One piece of advice is to not assume that your students know information that you think would be common sense. For example, after our last district benchmark test, I found out that the biggest source of stress for one of my students who was in an oral-administration group, was that the administrator didn't spell out for him how to indicate to her that he was ready to move on. He needed to be told explicitly what to do ("When you are finished answering the question, look at me. That will let me know you're ready to move on.")  Also, for kids on the Autism Spectrum, please take the time to show them the space where they will test (and the administrator if it is not going to be you) BEFORE the test. The more you can take the mystery out of it, the less anxiety they will have to deal with.

And finally, encourage parents to keep it all in perspective. Kids only stress when they pick up on stress from the adults in their lives. In the long run, remember that these tests are NOT good indicators of successful learning, job readiness skills, or how successful they will be in life. They only indicate how well they've learned to answer multiple choice questions and bubble in answer sheets. I reinforce to parents that the most important thing to me is how well kids make progress toward IEP goals and how they show their learning in everyday and authentic learning tasks.
Click here to download the powerpoint to your computer.

Check Out Our Sensory Break Space!

I'm doing my happy special ed teacher dance! You know....the one that goes like this?

Yes, I'm a Seinfeld fan. I mean, seriously, how many moments in our lives are identified with Seinfeld references?! Low talkers, close talkers, fat free yogurt, "No soup for you!", Mulva, puffy shirt, Festivus for the rest of us, Junior Mints. In fact, when I searched for this image I started laughing so hard my TA thought I had lost my mind! I know, I know...Topic Twister invaded my brain for a minute. Sorry about that! Back to the topic ~ Our New Sensory Break Room!

This year our school had a classroom that was being used for other purposes. My brilliant and fantastic principal gave us permission to expand our sensory break space into this room since our space was so limited in our tiny little classroom. I'm counting my lucky stars to have it for as long as I get it. I know it is HIGHLY unlikely we will have it next year. So, we are enjoying it while we do!

Check out our Gross Motor Center (complete with racetrack!)....

Our Fine Motor Center....

And our Calm Body Center...

I change out the activity offerings in each center (except the gross motor center which remains the same) on a weekly basis so it can stay interesting to the kids.

The kids check in at the Learning Zone poster when they enter the room.

They then choose a center that will help get their bodies into the green learning zone.

We are also working with Leah Kuyper's Zones of Regulation curriculum to help us identify "tools" for our ready to learn toolbox.

This week, we will be working to identify the effect various "tools" have on our emotions. Each child will have his own "toolbox" available.  Click here to download a copy of the toolbox.

This space has been such a blessing! We are able to start our days feeling good, conduct periodic sensory breaks as needed (or as scheduled!) during the day, and end our day in the room while we wait out the noisy chaos of dismissal. This has helped us start and end our days feeling calm!

I know that it is unlikely that we will have this space every year, but even if we don't I can use the same centers model with smaller and easier to store activities.

Thanks for checking our our Sensory Break Space!
~Kelley

Hands-on Lesson on Using Your Filter by Kelley

Here's a quick hands-on lesson to illustrate the concept of using your verbal filter to keep the group feeling calm.

We define what a thought is...

We use thought bubbles and various pictures to identify main topics group members like to think about.

We then discuss the idea of "smooth" vs "prickly" thoughts and comments. Smooth thoughts and comments are those that keep the group feeling calm and keep the interaction moving forward. Prickly thoughts and comments are those that make others feel uncomfortable and stop the interaction. Here's the visual that we use for prickly and smooth interactions. You can download it here.

We pass around a smooth ball and a prickly ball to further reinforce the concept of which was more comfortable.

After reviewing the smooth vs prickly concept, we define what a filter is and why we use filters in our communities (coffee, cleaning water, etc). We then introduce the idea of a brain filter that keeps prickly thoughts in our heads and allows smooth thoughts to be verbalized.

You'll need a container, a pitcher of water, a strainer, food coloring, a bag of small sticks/rocks/mulch, and small strips of laminated paper with a sharpie marker.

We ask the group to decide on a color that will represent smooth thoughts. This was a minefield of negotiation and group decision making in itself! Finally, they came to the decision that they would use blue food coloring to represent smooth thoughts.

We mix up the blue water in the pitcher and then identify various prickly comments that could disrupt an interaction and cause prickly thoughts in others. We write them down with a sharpie on laminated strips of paper and added them along with the sticks (which represented other prickly comments or behaviors such as turning away when a peer is talking or interrupting) to the water pitcher.

We then pour the contents through the strainer (representing our brain filter) to model keeping the prickly comments in our heads and letting the smooth comments be expressed.

I hope that you'll find this activity to be helpful in your social and speech groups!

Easy Lessons to Target Play Skills & Sharing

Orlanda and I have spent a considerable amount of time over the past 6 weeks in our collaborative speech/social thinking groups working with our "littles" on basic play skills and sharing. We have two small groups (4 kids each) that we needed to target these skills. One group is made up solely of Kinder students who have significant speech and language delays (both articulation and pragmatic language) and ADHD. The second group is made up of Kinder and 1st grade students who all have pragmatic language deficits, but are "higher" than the first group. The students in this group have Autism Spectrum Disorder and Speech Impairment.

We grouped the lessons in this unit into indoor play skills and outdoor play skills.
During the outdoor play lessons we listed different activities that the kids like to play outside and which were solitary activities vs activities they do with others. After choosing a few of the most common activities on the lists, we taught the explicit rules and defined the "hidden rules" for those activities. We read portions of The Social Skills Picture Book by Jed Baker, PhD that related to outdoor play.

We then took the kids outside to the Kinder playground when no other students were outside to practice taking turns with the balls and playing a simple game that required joint attention. The kids did a great job.

Next, we began to target indoor play skills. We specifically wanted to make sure to address the kinds of activities the kids engage in Kindergarten and 1st grade "centers". We again made lists of activities they did indoors and divided them into solitary vs activities done with others. We read applicable parts from The Social Skills Picture Book again and discussed "hidden rules" for playing with others during centers. We spent several sessions watching and discussing the lessons on sharing and taking turns from Playtime with Zeebu. The kids loved Zeebu and it provides a great anchor to remind students to share in the inclusion setting.

We spent a session reading a picture book on sharing. For the Kinder students with less language sophistication, we read Will Sheila Share? by Elivia Savadier. For the combo Kinder/1st grade group, we read I Am Extremely Absolutely Boiling by Lauren Child.

Finally, we spent several sessions practicing sharing and indoor play. During the first session, we used wooden trains and train tracks (which worked really well since there is an example of sharing/not sharing with trains in the Zeebu video). During the second session we used Legos. Before the first session we spent time teaching various phrases that could be used to initiate play and to help facilitate sharing using this visual.

When we played with train tracks I initially "controlled" access to the tracks handing out one or two to each child and then prompting them to use the scripts to ask for more from me or from a peer. When we did the Lego activity, Orlanda gave each child a small pile of Legos that they eagerly started building with individually. Sure enough, they soon wanted more. They were prompted to ask a friend for a piece. Ya gotta love a little sabotage! :) We do have a few students who we wanted to target accepting "no thanks" from their peer for an answer while we also had one particular student who tends to get run over by his peers and we wanted to help him know it was ok to say "no thanks" at times. This led to some interesting interactions!

I have worked on generalizing the skills from small group to the inclusion classroom by using this powerpoint social story. I just load it on one of the classroom computers in the specific classrooms and prompt the kids to read it (either independently or with me) before center time. Feel free to download it for your use!

Click here to download the "Playing with a Partner" Social Story

I hope that you will find the lesson ideas and tools to be useful with your students.  ~ Kelley