Lori, Nichole and I spent 2 days last week learning the very latest on how to best determine eligibility for Specific Learning Disability. We learned so much about Patterns of Strengths and Weaknesses and Cross Battery Assessment, I think it will take me a long long time to process it all. We will be having several trainings in the spring to get you guys accustomed to this new way of thinking. It's really exciting and I feel you will be much more comfortable with it than the current model.
I would like for you guys to talk with your principals and determine a time for building level special education teams to meet with me on a monthly basis. Each month I'd like for you to bring one or two Student Profile (PLOP) pages in preparation for full implementation of Standards Based IEP's. This will give you some time to practice using the new system and when we reach April, you will just need minor editing and you'll be ready to roll. :) Let me know what the available times/days are and I will pencil you in my schedule!
I wanted to share with you guys an interesting fact I heard recently "The 30 Million Word Gap"-Betty Hart and Tod R. Risley (1995).
- Given a 100 hour week (14 hour working day)
- Average child in professional families: 215,000 words of language experience
- Average child in working class families: 125,000
- Average child in welfare families: 62,000
- Given a 5,200 hour year
- Professional families: 11.2 million words
- working class families: 6.5 million words
- Welfare families 3.2 million words
- In 4 years of such experience, an average child in a professional family would have accumulated experience with almost 45 million words
- Working Class: 26 million
- Welfare: 13 million
- Children in professional families are exposed to over 30 million more words/language experience than children in welfare families.
Have a wonderful weekend!!!
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