Welcome to my website. Thanks to Grace Griffin at Odd Spoon for creating the website and getting it operational, and to Jone B Hallmark for her very creative graphic designs.
I have an Educational Therapy practice (more about what Educational Therapy is in a future blog) in Santa Fe, New Mexico where I work with children and adults with a variety of learning needs.
It's a new start for this website and a new start to the school year. Many students have returned to school or will be returning in the coming weeks. If you are the parent of a child with a 504 Plan or an Individual Educational Plan (IEP), this is the perfect time to review your child's latest IEP or 504 Plan and check-in with your child's school to make certain that everyone who will be working with your child this year has all the information that they will need to help your child start off the new school year in the best possible way. If your child does not have a 504 Plan or an IEP (ISP for private schools), but you have concerns about a smooth transition to another grade level or another school, you may also want to apply the following suggestions to get the school year off to a good start.
Some parents like to create a written profile of their child for this year’s teachers. If you are planning to prepare a profile, remember that bullets of information work best and to keep the profile short and to the point. You may choose to divide your information into sections such as your child's strengths, learning challenges, learns best when..., and interests. Stress that you hope that home and school can work together as a team. Also talk to your child's teachers about the best way to communicate with them–phone calls, emails, notes sent home, texts, etc. And when communicating with teachers don't forget to include positive comments about their teaching, or the curriculum, or the classroom, or what your child enjoys at school. Remember the old adage, "you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar."
One final thought on the topic of the new school year. Please don't wait until the first parent-teacher conference to meet your child's teachers. Attend back-to-school night, if at all humanly possible; attend school events; and find times to call, text, or email teachers to check-in periodically. If you or your child have concerns about homework, teachers, the school day schedule, other students, or anything related to school, quickly and kindly try to clear up any misunderstandings before they become problems.
Here's to a great start to the new school year!