How to Be a Resource Specialist

   I spent the last few months updating the manual. I have lots of experience, but I want to make sure that How to Be a Resource Specialist is current and useful! I have added information on collaborating, IEP meetings, data, and have added new classroom activities. This manual is designed for you to read through, highlight, and pull no-prep activities immediately! I have been purposeful in discussing areas in which the new resource specialist can use advice and answers. 
   Special Education has been an interesting and rewarding career. I often say I have had the best job in town! But it can be sooooo stressful for newer teachers(and even veteran teachers), and How to Be a Resource Specialist may help with answering some questions, planning IEP meetings, and helping all students access school and learning!

No Prep Reading Units for the New Year!

Teachers are busy people! We have other lives besides our classrooms, believe it or not. The winter holiday season can be hectic to say the least, and who wants to spend this last weekend planning and prepping for January? Not me!
These 5 great books are guaranteed to hook all kids, whether used as a Read Aloud, Literature Circle, or Independent reading selection. They are all great literature, and you really can't go wrong with any of them. The units contain teaching suggestions, guided reading prompts, and each has an interactive notebook component where students can summarize each chapter, with just the right level of support.
I wrote the Little House in the Big Woods unit four years ago, and I was relieved and excited to know that I could print copies before Winter Break, and we would be ready to roll when January 8, 2018 arrives! Boys and girls alike enjoy this book. There is enough history and action for any modern-day iPad using child! Pa makes bullets for his shotgun, and there is always the story of "Pa and the Bear in the Way!"
Here are the Interactive Notebook units that I have written, which I guarantee will promote a high-quality reading experience for your students!

Little House in the Big Woods

My Father's Dragon

By the Great Horn Spoon

Stone Fox

The BFG

Of course, if you would like to save money as well as time, purchase the bundle and get all five!

Literature Bundle

Happy New Year!

Stories of the Titanic

   The Titanic always hooks kids on reading. Whether it is the trajedy, the science, the history, or the fact that they have seen the movie 5 times with their families- they love the topic! I decided to create a great Titanic unit during my last year teaching, with one student in particular. He was already an expert, beginning 4th grade, and has not cracked the reading code yet, despite his and his parents's endless work! My resource language arts class is composed of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders who require an alternate reading and writing curriculum. 

   We started with Finding the Titanic by Robert D Ballard (who discovered the remains of the shipwreck in 1986). It is readable and fascinating, chronicling the life of young Ruth Becker, who ends up being a survivor, as well as showing us photos from the cameras that Dr. Ballard sent down. The students loved it as much in 2017 as they did when I first read it with my class in 1998!
   We read more books, found photos and information on the Internet, wrote summaries and reports, and we painted! I have to admit that I have had enough of the Titanic for a while, but the resource students are Titanic experts and have read the books and written the reports to prove it!

Here is the new unit- hot off the press!
TITANIC Reading, Writing, and Art for Special Education

The students were proud of their Titanic art, and rightly so. Everyone can be an artist, and it really lets students shine, and brings out a whole other side of their thinking, planning, and pride.

Creating Community and Deep Thinking in Special Education: The Japanese Relocation

   In our Resource Room we spent several months reading about an important and tragic time in our history: The Japanese Relocation. We had the opportunity to have a guest in our classroom: a 96-year-old survivor of the Japanese internment. It seemed like the perfect time, in our current political and social climate, to learn about a shameful time in history. The children were appalled when Mrs. E told us that after her family came back to our town on the California coast, her sister did not have a seat on the all-white school bus! The other high school students had placed books on every vacant seat until finally, one girl moved her books so the Japanese-America student could sit down. They heard about the family being swept away on buses with the blinds drawn, only one suitcase for all their belongs as they made their way to the desert for internment. 

   Upon talking about the internment with our school librarian, I learned about a new book: Paper Wishes by Lois Sepahban, about a Japanese-American girl from the state of Washington who was interned with her family in the California desert. The book was a beautifully readable piece of historic fiction that I knew most of my students could access, through shared and independent reading. Needless to say, they loved it!

“Your classroom is a place where students learn how to read, write, and expand all of their language skills, but it is much more. It is a laboratory where they learn how to be confident, self-determined, kind, and democratic,” (Fountas and Pinnell 2017). 
   
   Fountas and Pinnell continue to be my mentors for teaching reading. I have yet to find a concept or philosophy of theirs that I disagree with. Children with learning disabilities, autism, and emotional disturbance still need high-quality literature and thought-provoking topics to promote the love of reading.

Students wrote letters from the point of view of a child at an interment camp, and created art depicting cold mountain regions, or deserts where the camps were located.

   2017 was the anniversary of a shameful time in our history. The Japanese relocation during World War II took place from 1942 to 1945. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which required all people of Japanese ancestry on the west coast of the U.S., to report to detention centers. These centers were located in desert and mountain areas in the west, forcing families to live in extreme hot or cold weather in desolate locations. Families were forced to abandon farms, businesses, friends, and schools, and were given a few days notice to pack their most precious belongings in one suitcase. 

   We discovered several other beautiful books to support our unit on this time in history. One was Sylvia and Aki by Winifred Conkling, which tells the

true story of Sylvia Mendez and Aki Munimitsu, and the discrimination both girls faced during this time period. Excellent and readable historical fiction which tells the story of two girls in southern California in the 40’s: Aki was sent to an interment camp with her family, and Sylvia and other Mexican-American children were denied access to the local school when they rented the house from Aki’s family. Sylvia’s father filed the historical desegregation lawsuit: Mendez vs. Westminster School District. 

Please enjoy this free unit:The Japanese Internment Literature, Writing, and Art for Intervention and Special Needs Learners

   Our students in the Resource class were riveted; there was much discussion about the injustice, and they displayed feelings of empathy and understanding as they put themselves in the place of a Japanese-American child in 1942. They wrote letters and created phenomenal artwork, and proudly told their parents about a time in history that should never be repeated. 

The Japanese Internment

Literature, Writing, and Art

for Intervention and Special Needs Learners

Sunday Comics and the BFG- Resource Students are Learning to Love Reading!

Poverty, learning disabilities, second-language barriers. This is what we are looking at in our resource class. Oh yeah, homelessness too.
We work on Common Core, do word work, guided reading, and our main focus is what is most important: the love of reading and finding the right book.
I have the honor of teaching special education resource kids at a diverse school. I teach children from college-educated families, and some who live in a home with 20+ family members paying the rent. Some of my students' parents work two jobs, and others work nights packaging fruit because they are undocumented. Some spend their nights at the overflow homeless shelter, and some are tucked in at night by two dads. What a gift to teach these children! 
I have learned many lessons on how to be the best teacher I can (and some days I'm not!), in my 35 years of special education. I have learned from teachers, parents, students, experts, librarians, and colleagues. 
They have got to find a book they love. They have got to discover that reading is more fun than gaming. They have got to realize that they are readers! I believe I have some teaching-reading skills at this point in my career, and one of them is facilitating finding joy in reading. I bring in the Sunday comics, write units for fine literature at their grade level, stock my classroom library with accessible books, and give them time to read. 
The good news is, that it is happening- they run into the room, grab a book, read with a volunteer, gobble a handful of goldfish crackers, and- they are reading!
Lucky teacher.

The BFG by Roald Dahl is a fabulous book for 4-6th graders! There are many opportunities for learning inference skills, word-chunking the BFG's great language, his wonderful grammar, and learning empathy and humor! 

This interactive novel unit helps the book become accessible for special education learners.

Growth Mindset~Our Most Magnificent Things

I love this book, The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Squires! In our special education resource room, we read the book, and summarized it with this activity: 

Growth Mindset Reading and Writng - The Most Magnificent Thing

These students are in 4th-6th grade. They completed the summary frame in their own words and illustrated it. Then they drew their own Magnificent Things! At the bottom of our bulletin board are pages from several different students' journals which I put together to tell the story. So proud of these learners!

Growth Mindset and Special Education

   The concept of growth mindset embraces the idea that intelligence is not fixed, but can develop and grow. As quoted from Carol Dweck, one of the leading researchers in the area of growth mindset, "A growth mindset isn’t just about effort. Perhaps the most common misconception is simply equating the growth mindset with effort. Certainly, effort is key for students’ achievement, but it’s not the only thing. Students need to try new strategies and seek input from others when they’re stuck. They need this repertoire of approaches—not just sheer effort—to learn and improve." 
   Teachers who encourage a growth mindset in their students teach them to persevere, try new strategies, ask questions, and work hard. With growth mindset teaching, mistakes are OK to make, and are simply a signal to try something new, or to practice skills. Growth mindset applies to academics, sports, social skills, and life in general. Growth Mindset truly applies to children with disabilities, struggling writers, and children learning English. They spend much of their academic and social energy trying to succeed, while being met with many failures and obstacles. 
   I am looking forward to this school year as I try new reading and writing activities with my Special Education Resource students and English Learners. Here are the activities I have recently been working on~ Enjoy!

Growth Mindset Bundle for Special Education, ELL, and All Students