Students with moderate to severe disabilities often have communication impairments and difficulty getting their wants and needs met. Teaching language is an essential part of the job of a special educator, and yet, can be extremely complicated. For instance, think of the word “book.” While the word itself may be simple, the student has to be able to apply the word in many different contexts.
The American Consortium for Equity in Education announced that TeachTown was named a winner of the 2024 Excellence in Equity – Industry Impact Award in two categories: Company of the Year - PreK-12 and Early Childhood Solution. The Industry Impact Awards honor the PreK-20 companies, organizations, leaders, and products whose proven results have advanced educational equity and access for learners.
In the 2023-2024 academic year, the TeachTown Research Team partnered with subject matter experts across content areas to rigorously evaluate TeachTown Benchmark Assessments. These experts hold roles in both research-based settings and the practical application of this research in schools. Practitioners examined every single assessment item across 190 benchmark assessments (including all three forms of each assessment) for representativeness, clarity, and bias. Additionally, the Benchmark Assessment as a whole was assessed for comprehensiveness. To ensure a thorough assessment, each Benchmark Assessment was evaluated by 3 different experts.
I remember my first year of teaching like it was yesterday. I was brand new to the special education field, had just accepted a role serving students with autism, and was told I would have four paraprofessionals in my classroom. While more seasoned special educators may have been thrilled to be given that kind of support, I could barely grasp managing myself and my students, and now I had four teachers that I was expected to manage, as well. While college courses teach you how to provide instruction and manage paperwork/IEPs (I even remember a course about working with families!), there was no specific guidance provided on managing a team of adults. Let’s explore how to support the invaluable staff who work with our students.
If you’ve ever sung the ABCs, done the motions to “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,” or played a language-learning game on your phone, you’ve experienced multisensory learning firsthand. Chances are, you still remember some of the songs and rhymes you learned in elementary school—and that's because multisensory learning really works! Multisensory learning is an approach that incorporates various modalities and engages multiple senses. Typically, multisensory teaching strategies and activities use some combination of visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile methods.
We hear it all the time – enCORE teachers and students love the adapted library books and companion texts! The hundreds of titles across K-12 offer students an equitable, inclusive literary experience comparable to general education. Today, we are pleased to announce the completion of an update to the enCORE Adapted Library: All K-12 enCORE Adapted Library books are now available in a “without icons” version at all levels, both in PDF form and in the e-Reader form. All companion texts for grades 6-12 as well as enCORE Events Newsletters and This Just In! breaking news resources have always had text versions available without icons.
TeachTown, a leading provider of special education curriculum for students with disabilities, is pleased to announce the launch of Language Accelerator, a technology-based personalized language intervention program for PreK-Elementary students with deficits or delays in any area of language. Language Accelerator is available as part of TeachTown’s Whole Child Packages for both early childhood and K-12 instruction.
Language is a core part of how we connect with one another, and it is at the very heart of learning. For some children, language skills don’t come as naturally as they do for others. Identifying and supporting language development early can make all the difference for children with developmental delays. Language delays can have a ripple effect, impacting everything from academic skills to friendships, making early intervention a critical step toward helping children thrive in school and in the community. In this blog, we’ll cover: key language milestones from infancy to early elementary years, how to start early intervention services and get families involved, and yhe types of intervention services available at home, school, and in the community.
Language development is the process through which students acquire the ability to communicate. In typically developing children, this process begins at around 3 months of age and continues most intensely during the first three years of life. This process begins with an infant’s cry which is when children learn that crying brings food, social attention, and general nourishment. The crying develops into basic cooing at around 3 months when babies begin to understand basic speech sounds. Cooing turns to babbling, which turns to a child’s first few communicative words by age one. By two or three years old, most children know about 500 words. There are developmental checklists that lay out these foundational steps in sequential order.
When working with students with moderate to severe disabilities, relationships and a student’s motivation are central to academic success. In Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), relationship building is also called pairing. Pairing is the process of establishing yourself as a reinforcer to build a positive relationship with a child. When a teacher or paraprofessional is properly paired with a student, the student should look forward to working with the adult. It is possible to pair people, environments, and objects.