ECE blogs of note

I'm not sure if I've mentioned the Teacher Tom blog before.  It is, by far, one of my favorites.  He encompasses so much of what I want to say in regards to educating young children. . .yet he does it SO much better!   His blog is a must and currently, he's written about the best of the best in the ECE blogisphere.  Check it out and you will not be disappointed.

It's been awhile. .. .

It has been awhile since I've posted.  Things have been hectic and crazy busy, but it's no excuse!  Since my last post, I've found some wonderful resources (through FACEBOOK!) that I would like to collect here.

The Parent Resource Center of Taylor County
Yes, this is a shameless plug for my employeer!   However, we've got a GREAT links page with lots of wonderful parenting and home visiting resources.  Take time to check it out--you will find some unique sites there. :-)

The Teacher Tom Blog
By far, this is my FAVORITE ECE blog out there.  I will likely start making this be part of the required reading in my Rassmussen classroom's!

BBFT Resources
This, I will admit, is a shameless plug to an earlier post where I've shared resources that I really enjoy.  I wrote a lot more when I was actually in the ECE classroom versus now, when I'm on the administrative and higher ed. side of things. 

BBFT Consulting
Shameless plug for my school consulting firm.  :-)

Social/Emotional Resources
Exactly what it sounds like!

Let the Children Play
A wonderful blog which focuses on the importance of PLAY (a passion of mine)

Books of interest

Currently, I am reading (and rereading) two books of interest in my current Walden class.  The first, Tinkering Toward Utopia, is written by David Tyack and Larry Cuban.  This particular book examines the history of education reform, politics role in the reform process, the "grammar of schooling," and why some reforms don't stick.  I'm currently on my second reading of the book and I look forward to discussing it more with my classmates.  The second book, Experience and Education, was written by John Dewey.   I am in the process of my first reading of this text and I am enjoying it.  I find John Dewey's contribution to education interesting and this book was written in response to how some of his prior work was being interpreted.

What I have found most intersting between the two books are the concepts about what "real school" looks like.  This was something that I definitely struggled with as a preschool teacher.  I was given a certain idea about about was a "real" preschool classroom should look like and how the day should run.  Yet, that preconceived notion did not work for my students.  It felt strange to break the mold and do something innovative in my classroom, yet, it was exactly what they needed.   Do you do anything in your classroom that is innovative?  What does "real" school look like to you?

Speaking engagements and Developmental Milestones.

Life has definitely gotten busy over the past few months in regards to my roles with  Head Start and Early Head Start, in addition to teaching at NTC.  I have been in the interview process for an instructor position at another college and still continue to try and push ahead with my doctoral program.  Personally, I'm going through some changes, including a recent engagement.    I'll be honest, it has been hard to balance everything this summer!

With the new school year fast approaching, I wanted to make you all aware of some upcoming trainings I'll be doing either through NTC or various conferences in Wisconsin.  I also wanted to post some links to pages that pertain to developmental milestones.  I hope your first day of class goes well (or if you've been in class all summer, it continues to go well)!  Remember that play is a child's work and don't forget to:

Keep playing,

Rachael

2010 Speaking Engagements

• September 25, 2010--Literacy with Preschoolers
• October 5, 2010--Autism #1
• October 12, 2010--Autism #2
• October 14, 2010--NTC ECE book club
• November 2, 2010--Autism #3
• November 9, 2010--Autism #4
• March 17, 2010--Facing the Challenge (Challenging Behavior Training)  

Developmental Milestones

Understanding typical development is an important skill to have in the Early Childhood field.   Here are a few great resources to support you in understanding what typical development looks like.  Remember that all children develope at different rates, however. :-)

Your Child
CDC
Baby Center
The Whole Child

When Parents & Teachers Disagree About What Is Developmentally Appropriate

When Parents & Teachers Disagree About What Is Developmentally Appropriate

We did it!

We did it! My agency was notified earlier this month that we've received Early Head Start funding! We will be providing services to pregnant women and children under the age of three. This is an exciting time for my employer and I am proud to be a part of the excitement. I am including some resources below that pertain to Early Head Start, IDEA part C, Resources for pregnant women, and Infant/Toddler Mental Health. Enjoy!

Early Head Start
EHS NRC
Early Head Start Benefits for Children and Families
Special Quest B-5

Idea Part C
Nectac
Wrights Law
Special Education in Plain Language
Wisconsin B-3

Infant/Toddler Mental Health
Zero to Three
WAIMH

Resources for Pregnant Women
Accessing Women's Health Care
Postpartum Depression
Wisconsin Women's Health Foundation
Center for Women's Mental Health


Early Childhood Screening
Children's Health Alliance of Wisconsin
WI Child Find

Did I miss something? If so, leave me a comment and let me know!

Keep Playing,

Rachael

Autism Talks

This has certainly been an exciting year for me on the Adjunct teaching front. I have been picking up more continuing education classes for NTC and I am very excited to be doing a three-part Autism series in the Spring. It will be offered at the Medford, Antigo, and Wausau campuses. I will be covering a number of topics during these talks such as what are Autism Spectrum Disorders, common forms of Autism Treatment, how to seek a diagnosis or make a referral, supporting children on the Autism Spectrum in your classroom, and much more. It should be a fun and educational three days.

Speaking of In-home therapy, I ran into a family that I used to work with this evening. What a treat! It's always to run into families and get updates about how the children I used to support are doing. In this case, the child is doing very well, receiving minimal services. I had a pretty significant weight loss since I worked with that particular family, so I was pretty surprised that the mom recognized me.

This week I am including some resources that are specific to Autism Spectrum Disorders, advocacy, and treatment. I hope you find them helpful and interesting. Have a great weekend!

Keep playing,

Rachael :-)

Autism Society of Wisconsin
Autism Society of America
M-Chat
Polyxo.com
The Gray Center
The Play Project
Floor Time
Natural Environment Teaching
National Institute for Mental Health
Making Visuals
Tony Attwood
Wisconsin Children's Long-Term Support Waiver
Wisconsin Autism Insurance
The Autistic Self Advocacy Network
Autism Advocacy

Mentoring new teachers

One area of interest I have is the retention of highly qualified Early Childhood teachers. All too often I hear of excellent EC teachers leaving the field to go work for a school district or leave the field all together. I spend a lot of time wondering, "why?" I often get the response that this happens, "because of the money." While that may be true in the short run, I have a hard time believing that this gets to the heart of matter. There is quite a bit of research that indicates that people are really not any more happy because of money, as long as their basic needs are being met. When I think about how to retain teachers in the field, I think about all the reasons why I thought about leaving the field from time to time. . . .

• My work load was too heavy
• I was not receiving enough support at work
• I did not feel valued
• I did not know what I was getting into
• I did not receive adequate training

I propose a method of addressing some of the above concerns might be the mentoring new teachers by experienced teachers. There is some research regarding this topic, however, not as much as I would like to see. Particularly, I have not discovered much for current (within the past four years) research in this area. In Wisconsin, teachers who pursue a DPI license, are paired with a mentor in order to hold their Initial Educator License. However, this is not required of E/C teachers in our state. Other states, such as California, New York, and Montana have mentoring program and could be used as a model for the state of Wisconsin.

Are you an E/C teacher who has been part of a mentoring program? Did you find it beneficial? If yes, why? If no, why?

Below are some links to Mentoring programs within Wisconsin School districts. Again, these are specific to elementary schools, not specific to preschool or childcare centers. However, they could certainly be used as a template if your preschool or child care center wishes to begin a mentoring program.

Keep playing,

Rachael :-)

New Teacher Mentor Handbook
Mentoring Teachers Course at UW-Stout
New Teacher Mentor Check List
New Teacher Center Wisconsin
Wisconsin New Teacher's Academy

Touch and Go (Reprint from Exchange Every Day)

Childcare Exchange has an e-mail newsletter chocked full of interesting tidbits. Below is one of the tidbits I received recently. I found it interesting especially since I recently presented on the topic of attachment, which touch is an important part of.

The following story of Tad Waddington appeared in Psychology Today (November 2009):

"Monkeys go nuts and die if they are not touched. Touch is critical for survival and well being, so we carried 'our little monkey' everywhere and learned that humans have a latent ability to do anything one-handed. Our son, now a teenager, continues to be what Californians call 'centered' and normal people call 'well adjusted.'"

Updates and Such

Wow--it has sure been a busy couple of weeks. I've returned from my trip to Hawaii with lots of motivation to work on my KAM and the courage to start my first statistics course in December. My new Head Start position has been really enjoyable. Today I had the opportunity to present to our lead teachers and family advocates information about the effects childhood trauma. I then went into a little bit of information regarding one of our screening tools, the DECA (which has been developed by the Devereux Early Childhood Initiative). Additionally I provided information about attachment and teacher-child relationships. Overall, I think it went okay. Our group of lead teachers can be a bit of a tough crowd, so I'm just happy folks weren't snoring away as I presented.

I'm quite excited because North Central Technical College has again asked me to present a variety of topics for continuing education. I even will be doing an Autism series at three of their sites. My hope is that my patience will pay off and I will get asked to teach a "for credit" class soon.

Finally, next week I'll be meeting with some staff to help plan for a child who has some extreme challenging behavior. I thought it might be nice to link to some of the resources that I shared with that staff person in hopes that you'll find them helpful also.

Functional Behavior Assessment
Functional Behavior Analysis
What Works Brief 9
What Works Brief 10
What Works Brief 11
Paul White Training
Becky Bailey's 10 'To-D0's' for Discipline
Using Conflicts as Teaching Moments
Using Daily Conflicts as Learning Opportunities

Extra Resources!

This has been a busy week! I'm getting everything ready to head to Hawaii on Friday, getting things planned for some trainings I'll be doing in the spring, and getting my feet wet in my new position with Head Start. This week has brought some interesting challenges my way and thus a few new resources to share with you all. Here they are, enjoy!

Rasmussen College Early Childhood Blog
NAMI
BP Kids
ADHD child
Conduct Disorders
DECI
Typical Speech Development
Talking Child
Sharin' with Sharron

Consulting

I'm going to take the leap of faith and try my hand at a little private consulting. Mainly because I've been getting asked alot about different kids or ides for setting up classrooms to accomodate children on the Autism Spectrum. My website can be found here.

In other news. . . .
I have offically transitioned into my new Head Start position of Special Services Manger. So far, so good! I'm enjoying conducting Vision and Hearing Screenings and I am looking forward to the Birth to Three transition meetings that I will be attending. I have also been managing I.E.P's and helping teachers come up with ways to support children with I.E.P's in their classrooms. I'm trying to organize some training for teachers, in the future also, so if you're interested in donating your time to present a topic drop me a note!

Helpful Special Education Links:
DPI Early Childhood Special Education
LD Online
IDEA

Social Emotional Resources

Wow, what a whirlwind this month has been already! July went by so quickly and now my Head Start year has begun. I'm excited and a little overwhelmed right now. First and foremost, I'm trying to get airline tickets nailed down for my second residency. I'm lucky enough to be attending this residency in Hawaii and I'm looking forward to it!

I've also recently been promoted to the Special Service Manager where I'm working. This is a position that focuses on Disability Services and managing services such as Vision and Hearing screenings, along with Mental Health Visits. I'm eagerly waiting to start that position and I am getting the classroom ready for my replacement in the mean time.

Finally, my local NAEYC affiliate is working hard to get our fall kick off rolling. We're going to be offering our DAP training that night along with a training by staff from the Registry. Speaking of DAP, my state NAEYC affiliate (WECA) began a great book club discussion about the DAP. It sounds like we may be doing it again in the fall, so I hope all of you will sign up and join in! Needless to say, things have been busy!

This is a week of Social Emotional Training! Today and tomorrow I'm attending a training that is presenting information from the Center on the Foundations for Social Emotional Learning (CSEFEL). Particularly, we are focusing on the bottom components of the Pyramid Model. This is not new information for me. I have been using many of the resources suggested and promoted for most of my time working with young children, but I'm finding the training interesting from a training and technical assistance point of view.

There is great information about how to adopt the Pyramid Model that can be found here. I'm looking forward to the training tomorrow and finding out more about an additional two-day training that covers some of the most extreme behavioral challenges found in the early childhood setting. CSEFEL describes these children as needing intensive interventions. What's wonderful about CSEFEL is that all the materials are available on their website for FREE. This included the facilitator's handouts and power points. There's also a variety of helpful links on the CSEFEL site that are quite useful in understanding and implementing strategies such as positive behavior support.

Sunday through Tuesday I will be at a Loving Guidance training (sometimes referred to as Conscious Discipline also). This training will not be presented by Becky Bailey, the founder of Loving Guidance, but will be presented by the only two certified presenters in the state of WI. I've met them both when I was presenting at the UW-Whitewater EC conference. They were all delightful so I KNOW that the training will be a fun and educational time! What's great is that the information I'll be getting at this training will only further compliment what I've received from the CSEFEL training. I've used some of the ideas suggested in these trainings but it will be great to look at things from a trainer's perspective.

With all the training I'm going through this week, I feel like I'm not getting ANY writing done. Also, currently I'm looking for a proof reader. I specifically need someone who is familiar with APA formatting. I have found that I'm not able to submit things to my university writing center as often as I would like so I'm hoping finding my own editor/proofreader will be more convenient.


That's it for now! Gotta run

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Statistics and Research and Data! Oh my!

Research, and now statistics, has taken a strong hold over my life. I'm currently laid off for the summer, so I have been able to dedicate most of my time to Attachment theory research and writing. As I am reading though my journal articles for the Depth section of my KAM, I am bombarded with statistics terminology that I do not really understand.

I am also reading lots of references to all sorts of prior research and different testing models used in the education field. Again, much of this information I had little or no knowledge of until I really started digging into my reading. Therefore, I am putting together some resources here that have helped me make more sense of these statistics terms, research models, and testing models.

For those of you who are not statistically inclined, as myself, you might enjoy reading these things to help you better understand journal articles or the foundations that some of your curriculum is built upon. Enjoy!

Stats Glossaries--I have been using these frequently since I have not had a statistics course in years. Yes, I have listed several glossaries. This is because I was unable to find everything I needed in one place.
Glossary 1
Glossary 2
Glossary 3
Glossary 4
Glossary 5
Glossary 6

Research Organizations (places that conduct research)
The National Institute for Early Education Research
There are many wonderful research tools here. Specifically, I like the expert data base. State data is also available.

The National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center
Research information regarding early childhood special education topics.

Early Childhood Research Institute on Inclusion
More research regarding early childhood special education

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
This organization conducted a large study called, "Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development." This study was longitudinal (over many years) and is referenced in many of the journal articles I am reading about teacher-child relationships. Also, it I found it interesting that my state of Wisconsin was a participant in this study. This organization has its own listserv and I though it would be interesting to join.

The National Center for Education Statistics
There is lots of usable data here for anyone needing some! This is a nice resource for anyone who is interested in research in the field of early childhood education.

Testing M0dels (different testing models used)
Woodcock Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised
This is a test designed to measure cognitive ability for children 2 and over. It is referenced several times in a variety of journal articles that I'm currently reading. This test is considered to be reliable and valid.

Bayley Mental Development Index
This test is intended for children 2 and under and is also for measuring cognitive abilities. This is part of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development and is pretty commonly used.

The Child Behavior Checklist
Used for reporting behavior. This has been referenced and in several research studies.

Early Childhood Measures
A list of many of the early childhood measures available.

Notable Contributors (Secondary Contributions in the Depth Section of KAM 1).
Dr. Robert Pianta
This name continually comes up in regards to studies involving teacher-child relationships. Some of his notable contributions include the MyTeaching Partner Website and the author of several journal articles.

Erin O'Connor
Another name that seems to come up frequently in current studies regarding attachment and relationships.

Kathleen McCartney
Kathleen is the the Dean of Harvard,s School of Education. She has several journal articles published and also a few books.

Assessing Research
Information on how to assess research can be found here. Additionally, other topics regarding research are located on this website.

APA Formatting
I'm required to follow APA style in my work with Walden University. Those of you have not had the good fortune of working in APA style, well, consider yourself lucky! For those of you who have to learn APA, here are some additional resources, besides my trusty APA manual (a must).

More on attachment theory

Right now I'm living and breathing attachment theory, forms of attachment, and how attachment affects teacher-child relationships. I'm exploring how teacher-child relationships affect behavior (or vice versa) and academic achievement. I'm thinking that I want to do something regarding how to improve teacher child relationships, especially with those children that teachers deem as, "challenging" for my application project. As teachers we all seem to understand that having a good relationship with students is a good thing. In fact, for some children it serves as a protective factor. We know this, yet, sometimes we allow the challenges of the day to get the best of us and we have a hard time developing those postive relationships.

How do you build positive relationships with your students, even those students who you let "push your buttons?"

Some "nifty" links

Research, research, research. I have research on the brain. Here are some nifty links regarding research in or of early childhood education.

Center for the Study of Child Care Employment
Early Childhood Community
Early Childhood Research and Practice
National Institute for Early Education Research
Center for Early Childhood Research
Early Childhood Research Collaborative
Early Childhood Research Institute on Inclusion
Child Care and Early Education Research Connections

Sensory Processing Disorder

Although it may not result in an IEP, Sensory Processing Disorder is a real challenge for some children, their families, and their teachers. Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) can be difficult to diagnose because it can look like other challenges and there are still some doctors who refuse to believe that SPD is a real disorder.

So, what are things that I do in my classroom? First, I will take an informal assessment of a child a suspect is experiencing some sensory issues. I use this one. Keep in mind, I'm not an OT (nor do I play one on TV!). I do, however, have about ten years experience working with children on the Autism Spectrum and have learned to recognize what sensory problems can look like. Based on what my assessment reveals, I will then incorporate activities into that child's day to help give that child proper sensory input. There are some wonderful activities here. I also enjoy activities from the book, The Out of Sync Child Has Fun. This assessment and set of activities I plan out are not designed to diagnose a child, but are there to help make that child's day more enjoyable and productive in the classroom.

SPD Resources
OkayCare.com
SPD Foundation
Sensory Integration
Incredible Horizons
The Gray Center
The Out of Sync Child
Work to get SPD in the DSM-5
Advanceweb.com
Ang Therapist
SPD Companion

Using Visuals in Your Classroom

My classroom is visual rich. I work with many children who are on the Autism Spectrum and have found the use of visuals so helpful. They also become a source of interest for the children who are not on the Autism Spectrum. My other students will often take interest in the schedules and as for me to make them their own (which I do). I do have a large visual schedule posted, but for some children I have smaller more detailed schedules. It really just depends on what the individual child needs. Here are some resources about visual schedules that I would like to share with you. Enjoy!

General info about why visual schedules are helpful
IRCA Articles
Autism Information Message Board
Teaching Children with Visual Supports
How and Why
Places to make picture cards (for those of you without Board Maker)
Mrs. Riley
Cindy's Support
Do2Learn
PictureSET
Visual Schedule Samples
Autism Papers
Lucas Works
Child Autism Parent Cafe
Set BC

Attachment Theory

I'm currently working on my Ph.D in Early Childhood through Walden University. We use something called a KAM Model in my program, which is essentially writing several large papers. This process really allows me to get into what I'm studying, which currently is Attachment Theory and teacher/child relatiohships. I've decided to include some resources for you regarding Attachment Theory. Enjoy!



Noteable Contributions
Melanie Klein
John Bowlby
Mary Ainsworth


Teacher/Child relationships
Harvard Graduate School
Vanderbilt University
Research Connections
Administration for Children and Families
Psychology Testing Center
Improving Teacher-Child Relationships
Relationships and Stress Levels in Children
Supportive Teacher-Child Relationships

Attachment Theory
Types of Attachment
Attachment Theory
Close Relationship Questionaire

Reactive Attachment Dissorder
Rochester Institute of Technology
DSM-IV Criteria
RadKid.org
Attachment.org