Common Core Teacher Rating Scales for your Language Evaluations

Let me start by saying that I work with a fabulous bright group of SLPs in the Chapel Hill--Carrboro City Schools.  At least once a month we get together from across the school district and do so many necessary tasks:

• case studies
• discuss Medicaid rules and guidelines
• peer review for student evaluations
• talk about business (lots of this!)
• problem-solve (yes, we do encounter problems)
• attend continuing education
• exchange information
• celebrate weddings, retirements, babies

I feel so fortunate to be on such a team which is led by lead SLP, Beth Burns.   Each year, she thinks of a few vital group projects for all of us to work on.  One year, it was to develop a systematic way to implement RtI.  Another year, it was to develop a system for a consistent peer review process to determine whether children who have been evaluated met North Carolina eligibility guidelines for speech/language services.

This year, our group project has been to develop teacher checklists that are aligned with the new Common Core.  These checklists are to be completed as part of a child's speech/language evaluation.

Why do we require teacher checklists in our school system?

       For a child to receive speech services in a school setting, there must be evidence of impact of the communication impairment in the classroom setting.  As part of an evaluation, I usually observe a child, and gather work samples, but as a group, we require teachers to fill out a checklist rating educational impact of the speech or language problems for each child undergoing an evaluation. With the new Common Core curriculum being implemented next year, we felt the checklists needed an overhaul for better alignment.  It was a collaborative project and I can't take credit for much, if any.  The resulting checklists looked great, though, and I can't wait to start using them.  So far, we have developed language checklists for grades K-1, and for grades 2-3.  The other grades are coming soon!   I also have links to our pragmatic checklists.  With all of these, there were a couple of minor formatting glitches after uploading to Google, mainly in the column headings--no big deal, in my opinion.

No need for you all to reinvent the wheel.  Our lead, Beth Burns, gave the go ahead to share.  Use with your kids in the evaluation process; but if you want to show the checklists in a conference or someplace where there is an audience, please give a shout out to the Chapel Hill--Carrboro speech pathologists! I'm humbled by my co-workers!
  When more checklists become available, I'll post them.

Click here for Teacher Checklist for Language k-1

Click here for Teacher Checklist for Language 2-3

Click here for Teacher Checklist for Language 4-12 (This was just added!)

Click here for Teacher Checklist for Pragmatic Language k-3

Click here for Teacher Checklist for Pragmatic Language 4-12

Kites Over Everything---Printable adapted book to download free

Title page and page one

I had a creative burst of energy last night and found time to write my own kite book.  This comes either as a pdf or Boardmaker file. If you try to print in Boardmaker, set your settings to 'portrait' and not 'landscape' so it will all line up right.  There is a separate page for the sentence strip and icons.  If you want to know why I like to take the kids kite flying, and where we do this, check out my blog entry where I explain it all here.

Two of the pages

Kites go on all the pages.  The lines are a carrier phrase with different last word.

Sentence strip with manipulative icons.

I used this today, and it was perfect for the children who need help formulating a sentence to describe a picture.  It's great for the concept of 'over', and you can fly the little kite icons over things in your room too!    ("Kites over the computer!"   "Kites over Jimmy!")








I can't wait to go actual kite flying!  Even if you can't actually take your kids out to fly kites, the book is still good!  Enjoy!

Click here to download the book in Boardmaker


Click here to download the book in pdf


Click here to download the sentence strip and icons in Boardmaker


Click here to download the sentence strip and icons in pdf