Aim and Drop

Show the child how to drop a clothespin, spool, or dry pasta (uncooked) into an empty milk jug or plastic container with a large opening. Play the game as long as the toddler enjoys it. Let them shake the container and enjoy the sound it makes.

Snacktime Helper

Older toddlers will enjoy helping to make their own snack. They can help twist open lids on jars; open containers; spread cream cheese, hummus, butter, jam, or jelly; scoop out applesauce; and more. The more a child can do by themselves (with your support), the faster they will learn and the more skilled they will become.

Macaroni String

This classic activity is great for strengthening fine motor skills. String necklaces out of dried pasta with big holes (tube-shaped pasta, such as rigatoni, works really well). The children can paint the pasta before or after stringing it. Make sure they have a string with a stiff tip, such as a shoelace. You can also tape the ends of a piece of yarn so it’s easier to string.

My Favorite Things

Help children make a book about all their favorite things. Clip or staple a few pieces of paper together for them (let kids choose a favorite color). Have children show you what pictures to cut from magazines, and show them how to glue pictures on the pages. Children can use markers, stickers, or crayons to decorate pages, and you can write down what they say about each page. Let children “write” their own name—it may only be a mark, but that’s a start!

Sticky Shapes

Show the child how to press Colorforms (or a similar sticky plastic material) onto a window or mirror. Invite them to try it, too. Next, show the child how to press two or three forms together to make a line or picture on the window. This fun activity helps develops the thumb and forefinger pincer grasp needed for many fine motor tasks.

Funnel Fun

Working over a water table or sand pile, place a basin full of scooping material beside a funnel and a container for catching the material. Place the funnel on top of the container to catch the material, and scoop, spoon, or use your hands to transfer the material from the basin to the funnel. Show the toddler how to do this and let them try it. (With funnel activities, it’s also fun for the child if you vary the material used for scooping. Changing the type of funnel can further vary the experience.)

Pounding Pegs

Place a pegboard and plastic hammer in front of the child. Holding the hammer, demonstrate how to pound the board. Invite the child to try. (If a peg is too small a target, try flipping a plastic cup over and using the hammer to hit the bottom of the cup.) A more advanced exercise is to invite the child to pound golf tees into foam blocks. Provide this activity if the toddler seems to be ready for a greater challenge.

Sorting Objects

Give children egg cartons or muffin pans. Put some common objects such as shells or cotton balls into a plastic bowl. Let children use a little spoon or tongs to pick up the objects and put them in different sections of the egg carton.

Draw What I Draw

Have children copy a line that you draw, up and down and side to side. You take a turn, and then ask the children to take a turn. Try zigzag patterns and spirals. You can use a crayon and paper, a stick in the sand, or markers on newspaper or construction paper.

Beginner Puzzles

Show toddlers how to put beginning puzzles together. You can make your own puzzles for very young children by cutting the front of a cereal box into a few wide strips. Help them aim and place the piece in the right place if they need help. Don’t forget to praise them for trying!

Have fun trying these and other activities with young children to enhance their fine motor skills. And if you have a favorite fine motor activity of your own, share it in the comments below!

Activities should be supervised at all times by an adult. Any material, food, or toy given to a young child should always be reviewed for safety first.

• Activities 1-4, 8-10: adapted from the ASQ-3 Learning Activities by Elizabeth Twombly and Ginger Fink
• Activities 5-7: adapted from Beautiful Beginnings, Second Edition, by Helen H. Raikes, Darcy D. Lenz, & Katlyn M. Hoggatt (available Summer 2026)

AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER!

The post 10 Easy Activities for Helping Toddlers Develop Fine Motor Skills appeared first on Brookes Blog.

Adapted from the new third edition of Understanding Families by Serra Acar, Marci J. Hanson, and Eleanor W. Lynch, this post clears up a few persistent myths and misunderstandings around the family-centered model of practice.

Myth 1: The Role of Professionals Is Diminishing

Truth: Professionals are vital to effective intervention. Their training, knowledge, skills, and experience complement the family’s knowledge of their own child, their preferences and priorities as a family, and their commitment to care over a lifetime.

Without equal respect for what each person brings to the relationship, there can be no partnership. This is one of the guiding principles of family-centered practice.

By the time families seek professionals for assistance and support because of concerns about their children, they want more than a friendly face. They want knowledge and assistance in putting that knowledge into the family’s context—their values, beliefs, strengths, and needs. Any interpretation of family-centered practice that excludes professional knowledge, experience, and expertise is faulty, as is any interpretation that leaves the child out of the picture.

Myth 2: Only Family Concerns Are Important

Truth: An extension of the myth that professionals are devalued in a family-centered model of practice is the myth that service providers should address only those issues that the family identifies as important. For example, if the family is only concerned that the child’s behavior is a serious problem, the professional should not mention her concerns that the child may also have hearing loss.

The truth is, this perspective runs counter to family-centered practice. If families and professionals are to develop real partnerships, professionals cannot withhold information that they consider to be important.

Professionals may consider the family’s concerns first and work on one issue at a time, making the family’s concerns the first priority. But they should also voice their own concerns and request the family’s permission to proceed. Most important, information should be given to families in capacity-building ways that support their self-confidence and ability to parent and facilitate their learning without threatening their knowledge and ability (Bruder, 2000; Trivette et al., 2010).

Myth 3: Formal Supports Are Bad

Truth: Another misunderstanding is that formal supports such as counseling, classes, or workshops on behavior support or agency-organized inclusive playgroups are inherently bad and should be avoided. Some people prefer formal supports to informal opportunities to learn, receive help, or socialize. One of the guiding principles of family-centered practice is the individualization of services to meet the preferences of diverse families.

Considerable attention has been paid in recent years to informal support—the marshaling of resources that are part of a family’s daily life, such as other family members, friends, neighbors, colleagues at work, and faith communities. Effective supports, however, may also be direct. They may include structured opportunities for families to participate in learning about resources, their child’s disability, and strategies for working more effectively with the child, professionals, and agencies. Although informal supports are important and often make us feel good, they’re rarely sufficient to address all the issues surrounding a child with a disability or serious behavioral problems.

Myth 4: Only Professionals Must Change

Truth: The belief that well-trained professionals could singlehandedly make family-centered practice a reality is a myth. For family-centered practice to be achieved, professionals, families, agencies, and policymakers may all have to change.

Family members must have the resources and desire to participate in new ways. Customizing services requires that families put forth additional effort to make selections that they consider best for their child and family. It also requires that professionals work to ensure that customized services are integrated. And agencies and policymakers must change if family-centered support is to become the norm—they must shift from the current emphasis on offering a menu of services to offering integrated programs in early intervention.

***

Each of these four myths can be overcome. At its simplest level, family-centered practice is providing supports and services that the family desires and values to enhance child and family outcomes within a respectful partnership between families and professionals. If your practice is guided by this definition, myths and misunderstandings are likely to fade away.

For more on family-centered practice and providing the best services to diverse families, get the new book behind today’s blog post!

The post Debunking 4 Common Myths About Family-Centered Practice appeared first on Brookes Blog.

Explicitly Show Students You Are a Safe, Supportive Person

Be explicitly nurturing in your interactions with students, especially those who have experienced trauma and need extra support to feel safe. Traumatized youth need more supervision and structure than other students. Support students by saying things like, “One of the ways I can show you I’m safe is by helping you with lots of things,” or “Maybe that’s something you had to take care of on your own before. Now you get to have help.” Offer help when students need it, but do so in a matter-of-fact and caring way.

-Adapted from Building Trauma-Sensitive Schools by Jen Alexander

Prioritize Rapport Building

When students see your efforts to develop a relationship with them, they develop trust and start to feel safer. Purposeful rapport building with individual learn­ers positively impacts your entire classroom climate. It fosters more positive peer-to-peer interactions and collaboration, which addresses potentially unmet needs of students experiencing emotional distress that may be connected to trauma.

TRY THIS: Improve your relationships with the learners in your classroom with these 8 Tips on Building Rapport with Students.

-Adapted from The Teacher’s Guide for Effective Classroom Management, Third Edition, by Tim Knoster & Stephanie Gardner

Provide Access to Comfort Items

When a child’s neurological system is on edge, one of the simplest things you can do is provide that child with an item that is comforting. It may be a treasured item that travels from home to school and from school to home, or something that simply stays in the classroom. The item should not be something of monetary value; rather, it is something that the student has positive associations with. Some examples are:

• Treasure boxes where students can keep those sacred items and visit with them, either on a schedule or as needed
• Sweatshirts or coats that provide a sense of safety
• Sensory items that fulfill specific needs (such as a pencil box with a top covered with fake animal fur for a student who is comforted by petting something)

-Adapted from The Re-Set Process by Dyane Lewis Carrere with Wynne Kinder

Avoid Practices that Highlight Discrepancies

Be aware of social barriers that could jeopardize students’ sense of safety and promote injustice. Handle issues such as sharing or writing about what students did on school breaks with extra sensitivity and care. This type of communication can potentially set up students to feel less than in relation to peers and therefore unsafe. It is certainly important to discuss differences honestly and openly with students in hopes of building empathy, but we must make sure our practices are not reinforcing traumatizing societal issues and generations of historical trauma.

-Adapted from Building Trauma-Sensitive Schools by Jen Alexander

Try Nontraditional Seating Positions

You might not think seating positions are related to a sense of emotional safety, but a body that is comfortable is calmer and is not sending distress signals to the brain. The often-used position of criss-cross applesauce does not create deep pressure that is neurologically calming. Offering students a variety of seating positions that are nontraditional (kneeling, side-sitting and leaning on one arm, squatting) can facilitate an increase in focus. Children often discover that locking their arms around their bent knees is helpful to keep their hands away from others or that locking their feet around the legs of the chair feels better. Standing as an alternative to sitting requires more strength and burns more stress chemicals, so it is also a good option when appropriate.

(Exercise caution in using some energy-burning alternatives recommended for students with ADHD. Yoga balls and wobble-stools burn energy but may increase dysregulation in children experiencing trauma.)

-Adapted from The Re-Set Process by Dyane Lewis Carrere with Wynne Kinder

Use Schedules to Support Felt Safety

Some traumatized students who struggle with change may need a posted daily schedule or their own personal schedule to refer to. This brings predictability and a level of safety to their routine. For young children, a visual schedule often works best, whereas older students may be able to use a written outline of the day. Pairing a looks-like and sounds-like series of behavioral expectations with places or spaces on the schedule can be helpful too. Similarly, educators can carry visual cue cards on their lanyards to remind students of regulation strategies or behavioral expectations as needed. And breaking down common procedures into step-by-step directions in pictorial or verbal form may be beneficial.

-Adapted from Building Trauma-Sensitive Schools by Jen Alexander

Determine a Student’s Safe Spaces

Students who have experienced pervasive trauma often perceive physical spaces in very different ways than other students. For example, some may need to have their back literally against the wall, where they can see what is coming at them, or they may panic at the idea of being cornered or backed into a wall. The key is to notice how different experiences impact the individual student. Notice where students go when given a choice. Keep track of where they do their best academic work. As a student becomes more self-aware, engaging them in identifying the spaces where they feel safe and can focus on work allows them to make emotionally sound choices.

-Adapted from The Re-Set Process by Dyane Lewis Carrere with Wynne Kinder

Make Safety Maps

Give students a map of the classroom or school and ask them to identify places where they feel safe and unsafe physically and emotionally. Studying patterns that emerge by looking at safety maps from many students may provide insight into systemwide issues. You may also want to privately poll your students to see whether there are any movements or activities that make them feel uncomfortable or unsafe in your classroom.

-Adapted from The Re-Set Process by Dyane Lewis Carrere with Wynne Kinder

Collaborate With Families to Meet Their Needs

Your students’ real and felt safety often depends on how well family needs for safety and health are being met. Trauma-sensitive schools encourage staff members to work proactively with parent groups and community members to address a variety of needs. You might prioritize linking families with health or social service resources in the community, creating school-sponsored programming for the summer or during breaks, coordinating with local food banks to provide free food bags for families, or organizing drives for free or low-cost clothing, toys, or books.

-Adapted from Building Trauma-Sensitive Schools by Jen Alexander

Celebrate Your School and Community

Celebrate the wonderful things specific to your school and community. Involve all youth in rituals, traditions, and celebrations that are positive and enjoyable. Safety, real and felt, certainly does not begin or end with the absence of harm; rather, it is built upon all the wonderful things that come from the joy of being in community with one another.

-Adapted from Building Trauma-Sensitive Schools by Jen Alexander

***

Stepping back and looking at the big picture, schools must also take important steps to disrupt and prevent racial trauma and develop an effective school crisis team in order to meet their overarching goal of real safety for their students.  Here are two essential resources that can help:

The post 10 Trauma-Sensitive Tips to Help Students Feel Safer in School appeared first on Brookes Blog.

These ideas were adapted from the ASQ-3 Learning Activities (for key developmental areas) and the ASQ:SE-2 Learning Activities (for key social-emotional areas). Try these outdoor activities with the young children in your life, and help them develop new skills while you’re spending quality time together.

Mystery Journey

When you’re at the park together, ask your child to follow you on a mystery journey. Invent a creative path: you might go over to the cooler, around the blanket, hop across the grass, walk backward, and slide down a slide. When you finish, let your child take a turn leading you through a mystery journey! This is a fun and energetic way to help build your child’s motor skills.

Water Pictures

This outdoor activity is a great choice for the first dry, warm day of the season. Give your child a plastic bucket of water, a paintbrush, and an old sponge. On a safe paved driveway or wooden fence, let the child paint “disappearing pictures” with the water on the cement or wood. Watch the pictures disappear as the water evaporates. Ask your child why they think the pictures vanished, and talk about what happens when water evaporates into a gas.

Super Driver

Make an obstacle course for your child outside using anything you have handy: boxes, rocks, toys, a garden hose. Let your little driver push a cart or pull a wagon through the course you set up, steering around the obstacles. Give your child a big hug at the finish line!

Stuffed Animal Picnic

A warm spring day is the perfect time for an outdoor picnic. To make yours extra special (and give social and communication skills a boost), have your child bring their teddy bear or other favorite stuffed animals on the picnic. Pack a basket just for the stuffies with a blanket, napkins, pretend food, and plastic plates and tea cups. You and your child can have fun “talking for” their furry friends and imagining their picnic conversations. When your picnic is done, have your child (and the bears!) help you clean up.

Map It

Go for a walk around the neighborhood with your child and point out streets, buildings, parks, or other landmarks. Then use paper and markers to help your child make a map of your neighborhood. Include the school where they will go for kindergarten. Ask, “Where do our friends live? Do we have other family members in the neighborhood?” Knowing the neighborhood is part of growing up. Your child won’t feel so far from home if they know the way home.

Cloud Chat

On a spring day when the sky is filled with puffy clouds, try this classic activity, a calming and creative way to build communication skills. Go outside with your child and lie on your back together in the grass (bring a blanket if you like) or sit together on a porch, on a balcony, or near a window where you can see the sky. Take turns describing the different cloud shapes and patterns. Point out the “cloud pictures” you see, and ask your child to describe what they think the clouds look like: “Look. There’s an ice cream cone! What do you see in the clouds?”

Splash Game

Great for developing motor skills, this game works best with a class or with a group of neighborhood children. On a hot day, have a sponge relay with large sponges and buckets of water. Divide children into two teams. Place two sets of two buckets at opposite ends of an open space, and fill one set with water. The children race to dip their sponge in the water, carry it to the empty bucket, and squeeze the water out. The first team to fill their bucket wins! You can also play catch with the wet sponges.

Nature Walk

To nurture social and communication skills, go on a nature walk with your child and take turns showing each other interesting things. Be curious together! Everything is new and interesting to them. Pick up a bug that is safe to handle and talk about it. You can talk about how the bug looks or feels. “Look at this little red ladybug. Its legs feel tickly on my hand. Do you want it to hold it?” Now it’s your child’s turn to find something interesting. They may be scared of new things. Teach your child which things are dangerous and which ones are safe.

Have fun trying these and other outdoor activities with children during the warmer weather ahead. And if you have a favorite spring activity of your own, share it in the comments below!

P.S. Don’t forget that activities should be supervised at all times by an adult. Any material, food, or toy given to a young child should always be reviewed for safety first.

Enhance the growth and development of infants and young children with these fun, easy-to-use learning activities—specially developed to complement ASQ-3 and ASQ:SE-2. Available in English and Spanish!

GET THEM HERE

The post 8 Outdoor Activities That Boost Child Development appeared first on Brookes Blog.

When you open the lines of communication with a family about developmental screening with ASQ, be sure to communicate three things up front: what screening is, why it’s important, and what the benefits are.

What Is Developmental Screening?

Help families understand what screening and developmental milestones are, so they know what to expect. Some key points to make are:

• Developmental milestones are abilities achieved by most children by a certain age.
• Developmental screening provides a quick check of your child’s development. It can be thought of as a snapshot of your child’s motor, cognitive, language, and social-emotional skills.
• Screening will help determine if your child is meeting the appropriate milestones for their age.

The post 3 Things Every Family Should Know About ASQ appeared first on Brookes Blog.

This blog post was adapted from Rich Talk With Young Children by Rebecca Rolland, the practical new guide to rich, intentional conversations that nurture all aspects of child development.

When children ask why and how questions, it is tempting to brush them off or answer with a one-word answer. But these questions are precisely the times when children are primed to learn best.

Answering these questions can:

• Stimulate curiosity: Asking why questions naturally sparks curiosity in children. It encourages them to wonder about the world around them and seek explana­tions for things they observe.
• Promote critical thinking: Answering causal questions requires children to ana­lyze information, evaluate evidence, and draw logical conclusions. This process helps develop their critical thinking skills, enabling them to make informed decisions and solve problems effectively.
• Encourage deeper understanding: When children ask why questions, they delve deeper into a topic and explore different perspectives. This can lead to a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the subject matter.
• Foster a growth mindset: Answering causal questions helps children develop a growth mindset. Their intelligence and abilities can be developed through effort and perseverance. When children explore and understand the why behind things, they see challenges as opportunities for growth.

To answer why and how questions well, try the following 10 top tips:

1. 1. Own up to not knowing. Take a playful stance toward what you do not know.
   2. Check in with what children know. For example, before teaching about dinosaurs, ask children when they think dinosaurs lived.
   3. Support ideas in the right direction. Say, “It’s true, dinosaurs did live a long time ago.”
   4. Take questions seriously. Say, “That is a good question. Does anyone have any idea?”
   5. Leapfrog questions. Use one question to spark another. If a child asks, “Why does thunder come before lightning?” try wondering questions such as, “Have you ever seen it happen the other way?”
   6. Track how questions evolve. Try out a wall or a poster that shows a sample of children’s questions over the course of a day or week. You can offer children sticky notes daily, or have a stack of them handy, and encourage each student to write or draw out a question. If needed, serve as the children’s scribe, writing down the questions they dictate. Adjust question complexity depending on children’s ages and stages. Consider a question tracker like this one:

1. Do research in the classroom and beyond. Can children find the answer by asking children in another classroom, other teachers, or the librarian?
2. Explain when there is more than one theory. You might say, “Not everyone agrees about that.” Ask what children think. Give an overview of what the common theories are, then ask if there are others. Which theory do children think is best? Why?
3. Talk about thinking! Ask children: “Did our talk answer your question? What new questions do you have? What else are you now thinking about?” Invite children to notice how their questions are changing.
4. Encourage more questions, not fewer. Remind children that scientists and other creative thinkers are always developing deeper questions.

For more guidance on having rich, intentional conversations that nurture all aspects of child development, invest in Rebecca Rolland’s new guide for early childhood professionals!

The post 10 Tips for Answering Children’s Questions Well appeared first on Brookes Blog.

Here are 10 great reasons to take advantage of this one-of-a-kind professional development opportunity:

Designed for Team Collaboration

This unique professional development opportunity isn’t just for paraprofessionals; it’s for teacher/para teams to take together. Learn new ways to dialogue and collaborate to create better outcomes for students!

Access to Unmatched Expertise

This highly engaging three-hour workshop is led by nationally recognized expert Dr. Paula Kluth (You’re Going to Love This Kid!), one of today’s most dynamic and in-demand authorities on autism and inclusive education.

Addresses Two PD Goals at Once

Every paraprofessional needs training on an ongoing basis, and every teaching team needs to figure out how to provide that support. Take both items off your to-do list with this single workshop for busy teaching teams.

Adds a Missing Piece

Paraprofessional training for learners on the spectrum is often focused on autism itself or on how to engage with individual learners. This PD opportunity adds a missing piece: We’ll cover those topics, but you’ll also go deeper into the rationale for inclusive education and strategies to create success in those environments.

One Affordable Fee for Your Team

With one cost-effective $69.00 registration, your team (a teacher and the paras they work with) can attend the workshop together on one device. Team participation in the workshop will support consistent practices, communication, and meaningful follow-through.

*Multiple devices will require separate registration for each device.

Filled with Practical Adaptation Ideas

You’ll discover 10+ on-the-spot adaptation ideas that can be taught, modeled, and used by teacher/paraprofessional teams.

Gives You Ready-to-Use Tools

You’ll be introduced to tools (e.g., paraprofessional support assessment, paraprofessional meeting menu) that you can use immediately in the classroom to enhance collaboration and student support.

Introduces Fresh New Ideas

Discover helpful support ideas that may be new to your whole team! Dr. Kluth will cover the why and how of special topics like honoring indirect communication, supporting learners with echolalia, using student fascinations as a tool for teaching, and more.

Benefits Every Member of the School Team

This workshop offers opportunities to consider how all team members—including OTs, PTs, and speech therapists—can work together to provide powerful guidance to staff members who directly support learners with disabilities.

Flexible Options for Participation

Can’t attend the live workshop? Register anyway—your team will still have exclusive access to the recording for four weeks after the training. You can watch the recorded workshop together whenever your busy schedule allows.

Sign your team up for this unique PD experience today, and get ready to strengthen your partnership and support success for every learner!

Save Your Seat Now!

The post 10 Reasons to Attend This Virtual Workshop for Teacher/Para Teams appeared first on Brookes Blog.

This post is an updated version of an article I originally wrote in 2011. Unfortunately, since that time, the literacy skills of adolescent students have not improved. This is evident in the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading results, which show that only 31% of Grade 4 students and 30% of Grade 8 students are performing at or above the proficient level.

Literacy skills are more essential than ever for success in college and the workplace, as well as for managing the everyday demands of an increasingly complex society and global economy.

Older Students Need More Support

An increasing number of middle and high schools are beginning to acknowledge the need for a school-wide approach to literacy instruction that includes multiple tiers of instruction. Tier 1 instruction consists of content-area literacy instruction for all students and is delivered within subject area classes such as history, science, math, and English. Tiers 2 and 3 provide supplemental and intervention instruction for struggling readers and writers, delivered partly in regular content classes and partly in intervention settings, including extended English/language arts blocks and individual or small-group instruction.

My new Brookes book, The Essentials of Adolescent Literacy: Integrating Evidence-Based Reading and Writing Instruction in Grades 5-12, was recently published alongside Keys to Literacy’s companion Keys to Adolescent Literacy professional development course.

Together, the book and course help secondary educators:

• Understand the unique aspects of adolescent literacy
• Offer practical instructional suggestions for teaching reading, writing and discussion skills across all subjects
• Address the needs of adolescents with learning difficulties
• Present a secondary literacy assessment model that supports individualized, data-driven reading interventions

A school-wide approach to adolescent literacy that incorporates the instructional and assessment suggestions described in the book and course requires committed literacy leadership. Effective leaders understand adolescent literacy and can develop and guide a comprehensive school-wide literacy plan that includes the structures and processes needed to meet the diverse needs of middle and high school learners.

Six Steps to Effective Literacy Planning

An effective middle and high school literacy plan should address the following six components:

1. Establishment of a literacy planning team
2. A screening, diagnostic, and progress-monitoring assessment plan to identify students’ needs and guide instructional decisions
3. A content-area literacy curriculum that addresses reading, writing, speaking, and listening in all subjects
4. Interventions for struggling students that address all components of reading and writing based on individual student needs
5. Flexible scheduling that allows for grouping based on instructional needs
6. Professional development planning

Putting the Plan Into Action

A key first step is assembling a literacy planning team that represents the major stakeholders responsible for implementing the literacy plan. Team members should include teachers from all subject areas, intervention educators, literacy coaches and specialists, administrators, and parents. Remember that literacy planning is a process, not a single event. As with most school-wide initiatives, developing and executing a literacy plan requires time and sustained effort. Planning teams should expect to spend a year developing the plan, followed by another year or two for full implementation.

Once the planning team is assembled, the next task is to take stock of what is already in place in relation to the six components. This includes gathering information to answer questions such as:

• What assessments are currently used to identify proficient and struggling readers and writers?
• How is assessment data used to inform instructional decisions across multiple tiers of instruction?
• What effective literacy practices are already occurring in content-area classrooms, and what gaps exist?
• What interventions and supplemental literacy programs are currently available for struggling students, and what is missing?
• What additional professional development do content-area teachers need to address all components of reading and writing effectively?
• What additional professional development do intervention educators need to deliver effective intervention instruction?
• Is the school schedule flexible enough to support a variety of grouping patterns for intervention instruction?

After gathering this information, the planning team can set and prioritize goals and action steps for each of the six components. Some action steps may be easy to accomplish quickly and with minimal cost, while others will require more time and resources. A concrete plan for addressing these action steps over the next one to two years is essential for sustaining progress.

The six planning components are interrelated. Action steps for one component should align with action steps for others. For example, decisions about all tiers of instruction should be based on assessment data, as should decisions about how to group students and schedule supplemental instruction. Plans for professional development should reflect the needs of teachers who will embed literacy into content instruction and the intervention goals addressed by specialists.

A literacy assessment plan is central to successfully implementing a school-wide adolescent literacy initiative. Screening assessments identify which students are struggling, diagnostic assessments determine why they struggle, and progress-monitoring assessments measure whether instruction is effective in both Tier 1 content classrooms and Tier 2 and 3 supplemental instruction. (Read my blog post Reading Assessment Model, Grades 5-12 for recommendations.)

The Critical Role of Literacy Leadership

Middle and high school administrators must play a key role in improving adolescent literacy outcomes. They must prioritize the development of literacy skills and allocate instructional time for reading and writing within the school schedule. Administrators must also support flexible scheduling and grouping practices that enable a multi-tiered model of literacy instruction across both content classrooms and intervention settings. Ongoing professional development for both content-area teachers and literacy specialists is essential to support these efforts.

Although the time, effort, and expertise required to develop a school-wide literacy plan can be challenging for many middle and high schools, there is an urgent and ongoing need to strengthen the literacy skills of adolescent learners. The investment you make now will be well worth the effort!

Ready to learn more? Contact Keys to Literacy to learn about literacy leadership support services and consulting, and invest in Joan Sedita’s new book!

The post Building Your Schoolwide Literacy Plan for Middle & High School appeared first on Brookes Blog.

Respect Family Values, Beliefs, and Practices

Each family has a unique set of routines and rituals that characterize their style of living. The family’s culture, history, ancestry, spiritual beliefs, socioeconomic status, opportunities, and place of residence all reflect and influence family practices.

In the course of service delivery, you’ll encounter families whose values, practices, and styles differ—sometimes even radically—from your own. While some practices may feel strange or at odds with your beliefs, only when providers truly respect different families’ perspectives can they effectively enter into a working relationship and overcome differences or conflicts.

Trust That the Family Knows Best

Families know best about what is needed for their child and their family. Clearly, in the case of families in which neglectful or abusive practices occur, you must intervene on behalf of the child—but in most cases, families are doing their best. You are in their lives for what may seem only a flash in time, while the family must adapt to the many facets and circumstances encountered by all family members and across all the events of their lives over time.

Be Sensitive to Diverse Backgrounds

Be sensitive to and supportive of the needs of families from diverse cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Review your daily routine, but this time, pretend that you’re transported to another country where you’re less familiar with the customs, services, and regulations. In addition, imagine you do not speak the language fluently. Alternatively, imagine as best you can what it would be like to be homeless and not have access to even the most basic survival needs, such as food and warm clothing.

These are the situations in which many families find themselves as they try to thrive and procure services. The jargon and policies associated with IEPs, IFSPs, and medical services are foreign to most people, but they’re likely to be even more perplexing to someone who is a recent immigrant to this country and speaks a language other than English or who has no concept of what these services entail. For some families, the service options may even violate cultural preferences or practices, such as engaging in interactions with strangers in places outside the home. And families struggling to survive day to day may have more critical priorities than providing education or related services for their children.

Acknowledge Family Members as Decision-Makers

Regardless of the situation and your judgments about what families need, family members are the ultimate decision-makers regarding their priorities and life choices. You can support family members by ensuring that they have access to resources and information, are full partners and participants in service decisions, and are provided the supports they need to make informed choices. Acknowledging families as decision-makers also means that you must respect the decisions they make, even when these choices are difficult for you to understand or accept.

Treat the Family Members as People First

Practitioners from the helping professions are trained to focus on a particular dimension of the individual or family. It may be the child’s motor, speech, or cognitive development or the social support services needed by the family. Regardless, the child and family members are people first. They are not cases, nor are they defined by their service needs, their disabilities or health conditions, or their living circumstances. They are not problems waiting to be fixed.

Recognize That You Are a Guest in the Family’s Home and Life

Family members are involved with each other for the long haul. You will participate for only a short time in their lives, and you are a guest for that period. It is a privilege not to be taken lightly. Whether the service is needed for an extended period or a short time, you may come into a family’s home on a regular basis and will sometimes be privy to individual family members’ intimate feelings and routines. This invitation into families’ lives carries heavy responsibility for maintaining confidentiality and a respectful presence.

Maintain Appropriate Boundaries

When building partnerships with families, most people would agree that a warm and positive relationship is valued. But it’s also important to maintain professional boundaries. A breach of conduct may interfere with the family’s ability to develop a natural support system or make their own decisions. For example, a family may come to rely on you to find needed services such as housing, food stamps, or health care. Some families may even expect you to be on call to drive them to appointments or care for the children.

While families may have crucial needs for these services, you will not always be available or able to obtain services, nor are these appropriate activities for a professional in some cases. Rather than fostering long-term dependency, help families acquire the strategies and supports they can use to advocate for and obtain services. Assist family members in feeling competent about their own abilities and developing skills to effect change and advocate on behalf of the family. Reflective practice and consultation with other team members and supervisors can be useful in preventing blurred boundaries.

Be Flexible

Families are highly dynamic systems, with their needs and perspectives constantly shifting. Service delivery structures and approaches must be able to adapt to these changing demands.

For instance, one family may prefer to have intensive supports during a crisis, whereas another may prefer to be left alone to cope with the issue within the family. Some individuals may prefer frequent opportunities to speak with you, supplemented by written materials. Other family members may prefer less frequent or less structured approaches, or they may best acquire new strategies through listening to other parents or professionals tell stories or through observing others.

Enjoy the Children and Families

Service providers are fortunate that they are welcomed into the lives of a variety of families. It’s a wondrous education and an opportunity for your personal growth in understanding, knowledge, and skills.

For many family members, particularly when practitioners are involved in interventions in a child’s early years, the service provider will hold a special place of respect and honor in their hearts for years to come. Often, you will be in the position of offering special support or lending a helping hand at a particularly emotional or difficult transition in the family’s life. The opportunity to engage at this level and in this type of relationship can bring joy and fulfillment to you and the families you work with.

Get the book behind today’s blog post for more in-depth guidance on understanding and working effectively with families!

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Dr. Stacey Alexander, Senior Manager of Services at Noah’s Ark Australia and author of the new book Attachment-Focused Early Childhood Intervention, is here to talk about the challenges of secure attachment for children with developmental concerns—and what you can do to help.

Read on for Dr. Alexander’s insights!

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I’m a psychologist with a background in early childhood intervention, child protection, disability, and family therapy. Some years ago, I became very curious about the role of attachment security in the life trajectories of children accessing early childhood intervention or disability services. I began to explore the research—and the more I explored, the more curious I became.

I discovered that forming a secure attachment could be challenging for children with developmental concerns, and that there are many flow-on effects of that. Spurred on, I did a Ph.D. study on how early childhood intervention professionals could improve the attachment security of children with a disability or developmental delay.  My study included a survey of professionals, in-depth interviews with parents and professionals, and a systematic review of attachment patterns and interventions for children with a disability or delay.

I found compelling reasons for why professionals should take an attachment focus in their work.

Why Focus on Attachment Security?

Let’s start with four reasons why attachment security is worth your attention:

1. Boost overall development: Attachment security is positively associated with prosocial behavior, communication, executive function, learning, physical and mental health, self-regulation, and social skills. Attachment security is a variable you can impact to enhance overall learning and development.
2. Reduce risk: Conversely, insecure and disorganized attachment is associated with an increased risk of emotional, behavioral, and mental health problems, maltreatment, and neglect. Children with a disability have a heightened risk of maltreatment, and/or a diagnosis of a behavioral or mental health condition. Your attachment-focused actions can reduce these risks.
3. High rates of insecure and disorganised attachment: Children with a disability or developmental delay are significantly more likely to develop insecure attachment relationships than children in the general population and are almost twice as likely to develop a disorganized attachment. Your intervention can positively influence attachment formation.
4. If not you, now, then who, when? If you are working closely with children and their parents or caregivers, then you have an amazing (and vital) opportunity to make a positive impact on their outcomes through supporting the development of secure relationships. The earlier this is done, the better. I say seize the opportunity while change is easily supported. Don’t wait until problems become entrenched, requiring more intensive, specialist responses.

How Can You Help?

Okay, so there are plenty of reasons to take an attachment-focused approach in your work, but how do you do it? Regardless of your level of experience or your professional background, there are many ways you can help.

One of the most exciting things I found in my research is that there are probably a lot of things you are already doing that are helpful. You might just be doing them for other reasons. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the quality of the relationship you have with the family is the most important factor in how successful you are likely to be in this endeavor to support the parent-child relationship. The family-professional relationship can be supported by best practice approaches, including a key worker or lead practitioner model, strengths-based practice, coaching, and working within the child and family’s regular routines and environments.

Now, within the context of high-quality family-professional relationships and a best practice approach, here are my top four ways to improve attachment security in children with disabilities or delays:

Support parent-child communication.

Whether you are working with a child on speech and language goals or on any other aspect of their development, well-being or participation, communication is at the core. It also doesn’t matter if the child is able to communicate through speech—they will be communicating through their behavior, eye gaze, body language, and sounds. The more we can support parents to understand the importance of communication with their child, boost frequency and positivity, and support timing and mutual comprehension, the more we can support the building of secure parent-child relationships.

Reduce parental stress.

Parental stress significantly challenges the formation of secure parent-child relationships. Parents may experience stress from socioeconomic factors, work pressures, relationships with others, competing demands on their time, and the experience of parenting itself. Parents of children with disability or developmental delay can face additional strains in accessing information, advice, and resources, and adjusting emotionally to their child’s diagnosis or additional needs. Statistics also tell us that families of children with a disability are more likely to be experiencing other contextual risks, such as poverty, mental or physical health problems, and family violence.

Keep a keen eye on parental stress in all that you do. Think about how you can help parents build their skills in identifying and addressing their stressors. Help them build their informal and formal support networks. Make referrals to family support services or counseling. Help parents understand the importance of looking after themselves so they can support their child. Finally, carefully consider the possibility that you may be inadvertently contributing to their stress and think about how you might be able to rectify that.

Talk about attachment.

One of the things I discovered in my research was how few professionals in early childhood intervention had learned about attachment at university. This made me think that very few parents in the general community would know much at all about attachment. You can make a difference by chatting with parents about:

• What attachment is
• The importance of attachment in their child’s development and well-being
• How to recognize their own child’s attachment behaviors
• How to support their child to feel secure

Support co-regulation.

The connection between the development of parent-child attachment is entwined with the process of co-regulation. Co-regulation is how infants and young children develop their ability to self-regulate. Self-regulation is a key factor in behavior and social interactions, thus playing a powerful role in overall development, well-being, and participation. Beginning with physically rocking and cooing a distressed infant to soothe them, co-regulation can become more complex as the child develops.

If a parent is stressed and/or was not well supported in co-regulation when they were an infant or child, you can support them to:

• Identify their own feelings, and those of their child
• Develop strategies to support a parent’s own regulation, such as mindfulness exercises or other calming techniques
• Co-regulate their child from a place of calm

An attachment-focused approach can make a positive and lasting impact on child and family outcomes. I hope this blog post has piqued your interest about supporting development of secure parent-child attachment relationships in the children you are working with. If you are currently working closely with children and families experiencing disability, developmental delay, or developmental risks, you have a pivotal opportunity. Embrace it!

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