Welcome Routine and Student Folders

So Tuesday was the first day of school for my school district, and it was fun to wandering into classrooms and seeing all my old students.  I won't start official therapy until next week; the first week of school is usually about finding where all my kids are and getting my caseload together.  I will have 4 special education preschool classes, several preschool speech therapy only kids, and I will probably have a few k-5 as well.

I am also setting up my materials for my speech room routine. I like routines.  It makes my life easier.  It also makes my students' life easier, because they know what to expect and what they are supposed to do, which makes them more independent.

This is my welcome routine, which I made using lessonpix.com:

Welcome Routine

By vcverve at LessonPix.com
 

I use this with all of my students who come to my room.  I review it several times after introducing it my students can either do this independently. Occasionally I have to refer them to the list to get them back on track.

This week I got every thing ready to put student folders together for the new year.

Shipping labels, pocket folders, and a reward chart are the main items.  You can download my reward chart for free teacherspayteachers.com here.

On the first session, my students will pick a color for their folder.  I will then put a shipping label on the folder and either myself or the student will write their name on the label. Afterwards, they get to decorate their folder with stickers.

Inside the folder I keep their data sheets and reward chart.

I keep the folders in a file box I bought from Big Lots many years ago.

I made the dividers with poster board and shipping labels.

Most 4 year old's can recognize the first letter in their name.  After some practice they are able to look for their letter, and then recognize their own folder.  Some of my 3 year olds can also do this, but if they can't, I am able to help them pretty easily without getting out of routine myself. 

It's taken me a few years and adjustments to make this system work for me, and this is the first year I haven't felt the need to tweak it a bit.  It's helped reduce behavior issues, and has helped keep me organized.  Hopefully it will give you some ideas.

Do you have a welcome routine?  What is it?  Leave a comment below.

Data Keeping

I have worked in variety settings as an SLP: Skilled Nursing, Long Term Care, Early Intervention, HomeHealth, and Schools.  I can safely say that no other setting has even close to the same amount of paperwork as the schools.  Medicaid, IEPs, SATs, Progress towards goals, Early Childhood Outcomes Data, Reports, REED's, etc.  And school SLP's have larger caseloads than  SLP's in other settings, so all of that paperwork is multiplied exponentially.  I am not complaining. The truth is I understand the need for most of it and do believe the bulk of it is for the benefit of the student.  A well written IEP protects my student and that makes it worth it for me.

But sometimes the paperwork can be a bit overwhelming, and it's easy to get behind.  I run at max efficiency, and still don't get everything done that I need to in my "duty day."  The hardest thing to keep up with is my daily logs.  As the name suggests, the best practice is to document daily.  But throw in three IEP's in a week (That never ever get started on time) and somehow my daily documentation time is out the window.    That might mean that I am documenting Tuesday kids on Friday.  Unfortunately, age has taken it's toll, and I have learned the hard way that I can't rely on memory. So I need clear ways of taking and keeping data.

This isn't as hard for my students that I see in the speech room.  It's usually a very small group and I can take data as I go.  The real challenge are our Developmental Preschool classrooms.  My school has 3 DD pre-schools classrooms, each with an AM and a PM class. The classes are typically 8 students  and I see them all at once.  So taking data as I go is a little difficult. 

That's why this weekend, I spent time working on this data sheet:

I haven't put it into use yet, but I'm hoping that with a few check marks, I will have a good picture of what each student did each day.  I haven't put it to use yet, but I think this will work better than using a notebook or sticky notes.  And if I get behind on notes, I won't have to rely on my memory to create documentation.

You can download this file for free at my Teacherspayteachers store.  If you do use it, be sure to let me know what you think.