At Snail's Pace...

ooooomg, still waiting to receive whatever study materials we're supposed to get. March is pretty much done. April will be here in less than a week, which means we've lost valuable reading and studying time to help prepare for Summer Institute. There was a whole slew of stuff we were supposed to get by now, but I think they're still working on sending out acceptance notices to the last bit of applicants for this year, so it seems things might be a little behind. Oh well. I'll suck it up and get back to my reading online. I found quite a few (great) books on Special Ed at the University's library, and I've been busying myself with learning as much as I can from those. In particular, books like The Fundamentals of Special Education: A Practical Guide for Every Teacher (Algozzine), Teaching in a Special Education Classroom (Pierangelo), The Teacher's Ultimate Planning Guide (Burke) and The First Days of School (Wong) have been especially helpful. Wong's book is excellent for things to implement and keep in mind at the very beginning of the school year, so things go alot more smoothly. This is one that I definitely plan to purchase... it's got so much great stuff for new teachers to be mindful of and implement so that we can alleviate behavior problems right from the beginning. If you get a chance to check it out, this one is definitely a good read. So much great information that I never really thought of... and being a brand-new teacher this coming fall, I'll take all the help I can get! :-)  I also have What Every Principal Needs to Know about Special Education (McLaughlin) and Wally's Stories, but I haven't begun to read these just yet. So far, I'm reading the first four simultaneously, along with the online copy of Teaching for Student Achievement that I found on Google. For now I guess, I’ll keep reading these and other things I can get my hands on about Special Ed, and continue to schedule classroom observations as much as I can before the end of the school year comes. Come on, TNTP!!!