IEP goals and common core

[hypocore]

Originally Posted by ADVentive

The problem I see with testing her with flash cards, is that she won't be very interested in completing the task. It was hard enough getting her to participate with the letter factory toy. Just because she doesn't want to participate in the task, doesn't mean she doesn't know the material though.

Totally understandable.

Mastery, when it relates to academics, means they must be able to independently prove they know the material and that translates to no assistance. Assistance comes in the way of things like vocal prompts and visual cues, which include color, pictures, patterns and so on.

I do early childhood education and an example is when first teaching a young child colors, we usually begin with the verbal cue of hearing the actual color word side by side with showing them something of the matching color. So perhaps we start with red and show them a red apple and verbally state as such. They will begin to associate the word red with the apple, however they won't understand the color red until they can visually see a distinction between it and other colors. So, we find things in their surroundings and separate out the red things, like blocks, crayons or stuffed animals. We've now given them the visual cues that these are different from the others because they are red and the others are not.

Once they have been able to show they can distinguish red from other colors, then you move on to the names of the other colors. Often shapes are added in at the same time and we sort items by shapes and colors.

Many kids can master the basic colors by age 18 months, but some simply cannot until closer to 3 or even older.

Now, identifying colors and then shapes is actually the beginning of learning to read and write. The ability to visually see the difference, learn and attach the correct words they hear to things like colors and shapes must be mastered before they can progress to words and letters, reading and writing.

This is why you see many learning games and toys with colors and shapes. They are used as the next cues in helping distinguish letters and numbers. For instance, on the specific toy you linked, each letter looks like it only comes in one color. So the color red will always be connected to A, E and U (according to the picture) with this particular toy. This is a visual cue that we as adults tend to overlook but that kids see and put into their brain even if they don't quite realize it.

For more challenges you add in duplicate colors, then take away the colors then remove the sounds. It's all a progression to get to mastery.

Does that make sense? Sorry...I tend to put in too much info sometimes. lol

[figmalt]

Originally Posted by ADVentive

The problem I see with testing her with flash cards, is that she won't be very interested in completing the task. It was hard enough getting her to participate with the letter factory toy. Just because she doesn't want to participate in the task, doesn't mean she doesn't know the material though.

This is true, but it's also part of learning how to "play school," and probably more accurate to how things will be in kindergarten.

You don't have to use flash cards, you could try ABC blocks, or if you have a tablet there are lots of apps out there that focus on early literacy/alphabet skills.

This is advice you absolutely did not ask for, but I'm giving anyway. The developmental process for learning new concepts/vocabulary typically follows this hierarchy:

1. Matching - have your daughter match shapes to shapes, letters to letters. Try to use letters all of the same color (otherwise you would be testing color matching, not shape matching). Provide a prompt "match X" and praise/reward when she does it right. If necessary, help her to match using hand-over-hand, gradually reducing physical prompts as she becomes more independent.

2. Receptive Identification - this is her ability to recognize things, but not provide a verbal label. Once she's good at matching, you move on to receptive ID. Put a variety of letters, shapes, etc. (whatever you're working on) in front of her, probably no more than 4 at a time. Give her the prompt "show me X" or "give me X." Again, praise/reward when she does it. Hand-over-hand to help if necessary.

3. Expressive Identification - this is her ability to label/say the word. Once she is consistently identifying things receptively, then you can move on to having her give you the word. For example, start with, "Give me X. What is it?" [child's verbal response]. Eventually you can move on to picking up the target items and just asking, "what is it?"

Once you get to the expressive stage, there's also a hierarchy of verbal cues/prompts you can use to help provide the least amount of cueing/prompting, thus helping with independence. They are arranged below from least prompting to most prompting.

Say you're working on "tiger"
1. Ask the question "What's this?" (hopefully she says tiger, but if not go to step two)
2. Cloze procedure "It's a...." (basically start the sentence and let her finish it) (if child does not respond, go to step 3)
3. Cloze + phonetic cue/letter sound "It's a ... 't' (if no response, go to step four and so on)
4. Label + question "It's a tiger. What is it?"
5. Label + direction "It's a tiger. Say "tiger."

Again, not anything you asked for, but hopefully something to help guide whatever you're working on at home.

[TabulaRasa]

You can also embed your trials in everyday, functional activities, to combat the "and now we're going to run flashcards, won't that be engaging and great!" factor. That way, it's just a momentary thing in the middle of some reinforcing activity, not a work session. Examples include things like making/eating breakfast...it takes mere seconds to point to the "C" on the box of cornflakes and say "What is it?" and move on. Or to do the same by pointing to the letter "P" on a stop sign while walking to the park. I used to have students decorate letters that would spell their name to personalize their work space, and check their letter identification skills while hanging them up. "What comes next? "M?" Let's hang up the "M." Then it's a fun craft, not drilling letters. You can build expressive and receptive trials into your day pretty easily.

The point is that you're not relying one one easily memorized assessment tool to determine comprehension and mastery. I had a kid who was aces at receptive and expressive labeling and identification of numbers. He did it with his favorite set of magnets. One day, somebody else had the magnets, so we used an almost identical set, which he was game for. Except that the random colors were different. He didn't know the numbers, just memorized the color pattern. I ran it with tiles that were all the same color with the numbers printed in black, no dice. If you don't vary the activity and start to generalize the skill across settings and contexts, there can be unintentionally built in prompts (like the color of the magnets usually used), and prompts can be hard to fade.

[ADVentive]

Wow, this is all so helpful. Thank you all so much!