Curriculum in Elementary Schools: Accommodations, Modifications, Differentiation with Laura Causey, MAT, CALP | Season 7 Episode 10

In this episode, The Parish School’s Curriculum Specialist Laura Causey, MAT, CALP and Speech-Language Pathologist Stephanie Landis, MS, CCC-SLP discuss the differences and similarities between curriculum modifications, classroom accommodations and differentiation. Laura and Stephanie are a part of the elementary leadership team at The Parish School working collaboratively to design and align the elementary curriculum. Throughout the episode, they explain what it means for a curriculum to be aligned with state standards, give examples of ways curriculum can be modified to support students’ specific needs, provide examples of common accommodations given to students, explain differences and similarities of modifications, accommodations and differentiation. Laura and Stephanie also touch on the difference between a therapeutic school and a school that has access to classroom accommodations or individual interventions outside of the classroom. In addition, Laura provides a variety of questions parents can ask when speaking to schools regarding their curriculum. Finally, they also discuss the co-teaching model used at The Parish School and how it is conducive to the use of accommodations, modifications and differentiation within the curriculum. 

Laura earned both her bachelors and masters degree in Teaching from Louisiana State University. Before coming to The Parish School in 2017, Laura was a 3rd grade teacher in Spring Branch ISD and at an inner-city Houston charter school, where she taught general studies, math and science. At The Parish School, she taught in the Lower and Upper elementary classrooms and provided reading intervention before moving into the Curriculum Specialist role. 

Transcript

Stephanie Landis (00:06):

Hello and welcome to UnBabbled, a podcast that navigates the world of special education, communication, delays and learning differences. We are your host, Stephanie Landis and Meredith Krimmel, and we're certified speech language pathologist who spend our days at the parish school in Houston helping children find their voices and connect with the world around them. Gateway Academy is a unique school in Houston, Texas, serving sixth through 12th grade students with academic and social challenges. Gateway's committed to teaching traditional academics while also meeting the social and emotional needs of their students with learning and social differences. Over the last 15 years, their work has been to provide students with opportunities for identity exploration, learning self-awareness, and practicing self-advocacy, opening a path to personal significance in college, career and community. For more information, visit their website at www.thegatewayacademy.org. In this episode, merit takes over hosting duties while curriculum specialist Laura Zy joins me in the hot seat to discuss the differences and similarities between curriculum modifications, classroom accommodations, and differentiation.

(01:16):

Laura and I have been a part of the elementary leadership team at the parish school working collaboratively to design and align the elementary curriculum across levels. Laura Causey is a certified academic language practitioner with over 12 years of teaching experience in a variety of settings. She earned both her bachelor's and master's degree in education from Louisiana State University and has been at the parish school since 2017. Throughout the episode, Laura and I explain what it means for a curriculum to be aligned with state standards, give examples of ways curriculum can be modified to support students specific needs, provide examples of common accommodations given to students, and explain how modifications, accommodations and differentiation are different in ways they can be similar. We also touch on the difference between a therapeutic school and a school that has access to classroom modifications or individual interventions outside of the classroom. In addition, Laura provides a variety of questions parents can ask when speaking to schools to find out more about the curriculum used there. Welcome. Today we have a special guest, Laura Causey, who is the curriculum specialist here at the parish school, and today I get the pleasure of not only being a host, but I get to be asked questions. So I'm going to turn over the lead hosting role to Meredith. You're going to be on the hotspot today

Meredith Krimmel (02:36):

Too. Stephanie, today we are going to talk about curriculum, curriculum in schools. As a parent, what does this all mean and what are you looking for when you're looking for curriculum in schools? So Laura, why don't you start with telling us a little bit about yourself since

Laura Causey (02:52):

This is your first time on our podcast? Well, yes, I'm Laura Causey. I'm the curriculum specialist here at the parish school. I've also served as a lead teacher in both the lower and upper elementary level, so I'm very familiar with our model and what we do here at the parish school. I've also taught in other public schools in the Houston area.

Stephanie Landis (03:08):

Awesome. We

Laura Causey (03:09):

Are very

Stephanie Landis (03:10):

Lucky to have you here at the parish school. And as a curriculum specialist, what do you do?

Laura Causey (03:16):

So my job, because we're kind of a specialized setting and we're a therapeutic setting, my goal is to align our curriculum with the interventions and therapies that both our speech ideal pathologists are doing, but also what our reading specialist wants us to have in the classroom to work on reading goals as well as on all the other curriculum areas such as math, science and social studies.

Meredith Krimmel (03:35):

So you're really making sure that what we say we're doing, we're actually doing in our classrooms to help our students grow academically and really as a whole child,

Laura Causey (03:43):

And also making sure that we're still staying aligned with the state standards. So what the state is requiring for each level to do. We also have to look at underlining skills and other things as well because we have to look at the social emotional development of the child. So I'm also working with our student family services to work on those goals as well because them working on their social emotional goals also feeds into being able to identify that in characters or reading. So do they know what frustration or anger is? Do they know that in themselves? Can they identify it in others? Can they identify it in a character? So everything kind of aligns. So that therapeutic approach that we have here and aligning our curriculum to match the therapies and therapeutic things that we are doing.

Meredith Krimmel (04:20):

And you talked about aligning with state standards. Can you talk a little bit more about that? I'm assuming that means that when a student leaves here in fifth grade that the curriculum that they've been receiving here should be similar to a curriculum they're receiving in a public fifth grade classroom.

Laura Causey (04:33):

Yes, so we align with the state standards. The standards get modified every few years, and my job is to look at our curriculum, our interventions, and making sure that our teachers are teaching to the standards that we are aligning with each grade level. Our classes are mixed, so we also look at vertical alignment, so we're kind of looking the primary level. That's kinder first. So we look at vertical alignment, we look at how the standards progress, how they get a little more complex when they build on each other. So we make sure that the foundational skills and they build as though they go through all of the years here.

Stephanie Landis (05:01):

So are we hitting every single state standard?

Laura Causey (05:05):

We do our best, but we are aligned, which means we are hitting majority of them, some of them we also look at our therapies and interventions and we're also looking at the underlining skill behind the state standard that might not necessarily be written directly in the state standard, but it's the underlining skill that needs to be accomplished before we can build on it, especially those language based skills that aren't necessarily in written in the state standards. But if they can't, a lot of the reading things are basically very languagey, which means that there's some language goals that we need to foster and build in order to be able to reach that state standard of being able to understand a character's thoughts, feelings, and motivations. Well, they got to know the vocabulary and language behind that.

Meredith Krimmel (05:44):

So as a parent, if you're out touring schools and you're hearing things like aligned with state standards, that's what that means. But not all schools are aligned with the state standards,

Laura Causey (05:54):

Is that right? Private schools, because they're not directly funded by the state, can choose their standards based on what the state requires, but they can also look at what their program as a whole requires and they could have a different idea on different program or alignment or whatever they're being reaccredited by. They might have standards that they have to hit as well. We're also accredited and we have things that we have to hit through that as well, and part of that is aligning it with state standards.

Stephanie Landis (06:18):

That's interesting. I think as a parent, I never really understood the difference between, well, first I didn't know what the state standards were, and then as I was learning more, I was like, okay, well between private schools, public schools, different schools, everybody kind of gets to choose. And so it's been interesting to be able to work with you to figure out how to align it, but I love that we have the freedom to align it in a way that best meets our students where they are. As you said, speaking from the speech and language perspective on my side, I love that we get to collaborate and work together to be like, great, this is a hundred percent where we want the students to get to and now we can backtrack and build into our goals the mini steps that they need to accomplish to get there.

(07:06):

And so it's been eyeopening to see even just in my own kids as they go through the public school and private schools of how the curriculum is different in every setting and which ways the school approaches how they are going to meet those standards and getting to be a part of that. I wish that every school had the freedom to be able to look at the curriculum and be like, wow, that is really hard. Especially I see a shift in pushing some of these standards down into younger levels that I will always die on the soapbox that when it comes to math and you start giving a first grader a word problem that you're really not giving them a math problem, you're giving them a language and a reading comprehension problem, and we haven't taught them all of those language and reading comprehension skills to really just add three and five together. I don't know why we're making math so hard for the kids, but I love that Then we can go through and be like, okay, what language and other things do we need to build into it and do that? And to me that seems like curriculum modification

Laura Causey (08:17):

And when I was in the classroom, my SLP and I, because word problems were always kind of the big kicker because my students wouldn't work based on the computation skill. They would have it, they could add, multiply it divide, they could do two steps, one step where the kicker was always when we threw it into a word problem because they have to now language process and comprehend it. Also, they've got to executive functionally put it in order, and then they've got to figure out words that mean combine. Combine means to add. It also means put together. There's several different words that mean add and the kids who are with language, that's really tricky and difficult and words can have multiple meanings. They also talk about keywords that always tricks up our kids because writers of these tests can be a little mean and sometimes they'll put an addition word, but they'll put a couple other words in there and if our kids miss those clues, they won't see, oh, I have to add, but then I have to subtract because it doesn't directly tell you there's some inferring you have to do and a math problem, and that's a very high order thinking skill and there's skills that we have to work on to build their inferencing skills in order to get that.

(09:19):

So that's why it's nice here at the parish school, the speech language pathologist here at campus help me be able to align our curriculum and also see what are these underlining skills and gaps in language and in executive functioning that we need to build up first before we can even get to that standard. Just those, we can't skip those. Even though the standard is can you solve a one two word problem with fluency, but do they understand the language behind it and the wording? There's just so many little things that you have to work on to get to that standard. So that's why we are aligned where that is the goal, but we are also targeting the things that build up to that.

Meredith Krimmel (09:52):

You guys are both talking about modifying curriculum. Can you talk a little bit more specifically about what modifying curriculum means? I know a lot of schools won't modify curriculum, they'll do accommodations. Something that we do here is we can modify curriculum. Can you talk about what that means and what the difference between that and accommodations are?

Laura Causey (10:09):

So I always consider accommodations would be something like you get extended time or a shortened assignment and things like that. That would be giving an accommodation modification is when we see that the language of a curriculum is very wordy or it's got a lot of figurative language or just some abstract concepts. We try to change the language slightly or change the wording of it to a language of the students will understand, especially with a greeting. Some of our language interventions use some really complex concepts. What is a syllable? And we have to break down what is a syllable, but before we can even break down what is a syllable, it's like what is initial, what is first, what is last? What is the same? Because when you're comparing syllables, they have to know that the sounds are the same, what is same and different. So we have to work on those building skills before we can say what is a sellable? And so accommodations would be giving more time and modifying it. The modifying is looking at a language and be like, Ooh, this is really complex and abstract and breaking it down even further more so than it's written usually in the book,

Stephanie Landis (11:05):

In my opinion, often from watching Laura as well, an accommodation is everybody's still getting the same assignments, but I'm going to give you half of the assignments or I'm going to give you this word wall that you can use from or little

Meredith Krimmel (11:21):

Or a check-in

Stephanie Landis (11:22):

Or a check-in or something. To me it's akin to everybody's looking at the same thing, but this kid gets glasses, that's an accommodation. Whereas a modification is like, okay, I'm going to, we're all trying to read and our assignment is to understand this historical text, but I'm going to break it down in this paragraph to a reading level that this kid can decode and comprehend while still working on the same underlying thing. So we have here on campus, some of our reading specialists have found novels that you would see typical novels and then they found those same novels with lower reading levels so that you're still getting exposed to some of these text and they're still getting these same ideas, but we're bringing it to that child's level and modifying the curriculum so that they're still reaching the same goals. But like Laura said, maybe changing the language behind it or if there are a word problem, I'm stuck on math here, but if there's a word problem that's really, really long and five steps, we can modify it by chunking it into steps for them or breaking it down. So to me am explaining it right, Laura. Okay, so to me the difference between an accommodation is everybody's getting the same thing and a modification is that we're like, okay, this is the state standard. They went ahead and they gave us this curriculum, and how can we, instead of just giving you more time or taking away two of the five questions, how can we change what's on the paper without totally changing it so it's something completely new so that it meets your level of learning so that you can be successful in getting there.

Meredith Krimmel (13:05):

You're also talking about differentiation, right? This is a type of modification of a curriculum is a differentiating curriculum, meaning one student might need something different than another student to complete the same task.

Laura Causey (13:17):

Is

Meredith Krimmel (13:17):

That correct?

Laura Causey (13:18):

That'd be correct. I read something a few years back and it said differentiation is the vehicle and how you can individualize instruction. It's how you can reach every kid where exactly they are, because children are all very different. They have different strengths and different areas that they need to focus on. So differentiation allows you to meet their needs and be able to reach that goal, but in a way that meets where they are currently.

Meredith Krimmel (13:39):

Yeah, because thinking not every kid would need the same modifications in order to complete the task. When you're talking about syllables earlier, you might have children who already do understand same, different,

Laura Causey (13:51):

But

Meredith Krimmel (13:51):

They're still struggling with identifying syllable counts. Syllable

Laura Causey (13:55):

Types is always a big one because there's six different types and we spend a whole year trying to teach them the different types and being able to identify them so when they're reading, they can know how the vow is supposed to act. And that's a very complex and very, it's a lot of language to describe what is a syllable, and then it's like, okay, now there's six types of them and they look like this, and then the vowel does this in this case, like a close syllable. The vowel is short, but if in a vow, ee, the vow is long, the E is silent, all these things, it's vocabulary that they have to learn, but then they got to generalize it, apply it in their reading with fluency and comprehension. There's a massive brain executive functioning thing happening when reading, and that's why it's a very complex skill and that's why we work so hard here of differentiating and accommodating and getting curriculum for the students based on their reading level and also the language level that they are at. We have different reading interventions we have for primary, lower and upper, and they all build on each other. What's also nice is they also build on that language. We start with first, second, last, and then we go initial medial and finally we're trying to build that language so it streamlines all the way from primary all the way to our upper students. They're speaking the same language, they know what it means and then they can apply it.

Stephanie Landis (15:00):

And to me, differentiation can be something really large, but it can be something as small as asking this child an open-ended question, but knowing that this child struggles with open-ended questions, so I'm going to give them multiple choices or I'm going to have it be a clausal statement where I start the answer and they fill it in so that they're still able to show their knowledge and each child can show their knowledge in a way that works with them or giving the assignment and being like, okay, I take good news. For example, good news is a tradition here at the parish school where a few times a week at the end of the day, the children go through and they write about something great that went on in their day. And we can differentiate by some children, especially in primary might just be coloring a picture and the teacher writes another student we can differentiate by, we write it in highlighter what they tell us and they trace it and you can just differentiate those little ways, or we're writing the first part of the sentence and they're writing the second part of the sentence.

(16:00):

So it can be everybody's doing the same assignment and we have the same end goal and we're just giving them that just right level of support that they need to be successful. So differentiation can look a little bit that way, or it can be, we all have the same writing thing, but you get to choose the topic that you like that interests you instead of me forcing a topic on you that you're all going to get mad about and so you're not going to do your best effort. Are there other ways that I'm missing that are little ways that we can differentiate

Laura Causey (16:31):

Going on to your good news thing? Writing a lot of teachers here, especially myself, you sentence them. So we would give them the sentence and they just have to fill in the blank and then you, from there you can differentiate the stem, how much of the stem you already provide them. You can maybe just provide of the first two words, you can provide them with three options. They have to pick one and then can, when you get into more advanced, when you want a compound sentence, you can give 'em a sentence stem that has the conjunction you want in there or maybe two or three that they have to choose and they have to be able to know which conjunction applies to what scenario they're trying to say. So differentiation can also look in that form.

Meredith Krimmel (17:01):

And so for the non-educators out here, a sentence stem is,

Laura Causey (17:05):

It's sort of writing part of a sentence, but leaving some of the words blank. So like the blank blank, and you can let them finish or today and they can finish the sentence like that.

Meredith Krimmel (17:14):

And so one way you could differentiate is how much of that stem you give them,

Laura Causey (17:17):

How much of the stem it is, how many words are in the stem. And for upper elementary, we want them to do compound sentences and complex sentence. So it could be like, today I blank and blank. I enjoyed that because, and then they have to fill in all of the missing parts.

Meredith Krimmel (17:30):

So graphic organizers and things like that, those would be their supports, but are they modifications if one kid needs a graphic organizer and other kids, is that a modification or is that more like an accommodation?

Laura Causey (17:42):

I feel like it can be both because we use a variety of different graphic organizers based on the student's needs. Some of them have more visuals to help them organize their thoughts. Some of 'em have more words depending on what strategy works best For my kids, I have one for narrative writing that I really love. That starts with the six second story, the who, what, when, where, and then it goes into your transitional words and then it has an ending and then it tells them for the ending, it needs to be a thought, an action or a feeling about the event. So it gives them clues of what information goes. But as I get further along into upper elementary, it might just be like four squares first, second last, and maybe less of that queuing a prompting of what comes next because at that point they don't need it, but some friends still need those little reminders, what information goes in each box so you can differentiate and modify a graphic organizer based on what skill you're working on and where you know that student is and what they're writing and language goals.

Stephanie Landis (18:31):

And so some things fall under accommodation modification and differentiation. And typically if you're providing an accommodation, you're differentiating.

Meredith Krimmel (18:40):

Sure.

Stephanie Landis (18:40):

So most teachers out there, really great teachers are differentiating in every single classroom all over the world.

Laura Causey (18:49):

I feel like with modifications, you'll probably see the student benefits from a graphic organizer. Where you get into the modification is what type of graphic organizer that student is because one graphic organizer does not fit every student. So it's not just like, you must use this graphic organizer. It'll work every time with us. It's very nuanced and you have to look at what lagging skill they need and how a, an organizer can help them with that lagging skill, whether it's organization or is it the wording that they need help

Meredith Krimmel (19:15):

With? Sounds like it's impossible to modify curriculum without differentiating, because in order to modify, you have to do what's right for the student, which means it might be different than their peer.

Laura Causey (19:22):

And I feel like differentiation is a way you modify because some curriculums aren't going to have three different ways to do something. It'll have, this is the goal, here's the standard, here's an activity, and sometimes they'll have a level one, level two, level three kind of activity, but sometimes it really just gives you the goal result and what the end is. And then you as the teacher apply based on your student's interest. And those are all the things you have to factor in. Your student's interests, their goals, their skills, their strengths, and then you tailor the activity to them. So I feel like differentiating and accommodations kind of a different way of doing it, but I feel like as a teacher, that's what you kind of have to do to meet the students with your needs. A lot of curriculum is, it's made by companies and it's made by adults who don't always, they're not in your classroom, they don't know the kids as well as the teachers do.

(20:09):

And so the teachers, one of their great skills that they have is getting to know their students, knowing their strengths and getting to know their interests. You're going to get a lot more out of a student when you know their interests. Last, I think two years ago we had to write an argument essay that was the state standard. They're really into recess, so we wrote an argument essay to the head of school, which they presented to because that's how they wanted to present it, and they all wrote an argument essay about why they needed more recess time.

Stephanie Landis (20:32):

To your point, when especially we do want to use a curriculum and have something as a jumping off and going off point so that the teachers across levels and across classrooms are hitting the same standards and doing it in a way where not reinventing the wheel all the time, but I also think about how especially these prepackaged curriculums, they are making it for people to use in places all over the country in different cities for children. And most of the time they're aiming for the middle and they might have some levels of one up or one down, but we might have kids that are in one area like two up or three lower than that area. And so there's definitely times where we have to go in and modify even what we get within that to make sure that there's places for that. My other question, as you were thinking of this as a parent, again putting back on my parent hat before I started in here at this job and even within my role, how do you even figure out if a school that you are visiting is able to modify curriculum or if they only can offer accommodations, how do you figure out what they're using as a curriculum?

Laura Causey (21:50):

I always ask because all schools will tell you that they have certain curriculums here we use for our reading, we use a lot variety of niha curriculums. We use different options. We have two tiers for that as well. Math, we have a curriculum as well that also has a lot of options for differentiate. Schools will tell you what curriculums they're using. They're pretty open about that and they'll tell you that. Then one question I would follow up with is how do you help students who with learning differences or who need extra needs, how do you accommodate or modify if needed and they should be able to tell you and answer those questions. That would be what I always ask. I always like, what curriculum are you using? So that tells you what jumping off point and it tells you how it's aligned and how is it building upon it.

(22:28):

If they're using a certain curriculum, it's kind of building, there's vertical alignment is what you want to ask for. Vertical alignment means are they building from kinder all the way up to your oldest grade level Here we all go into fifth grade, so our teaks and standards are vertically aligned, but our curriculum is vertically aligned, which means it's building upon it and that's what you want to see. You don't want to see one year they're doing this curriculum, then they switch. That would be for me, I'd be a little bit worried when they start switching curriculums every couple of years because it doesn't give you time to streamline it and vertically aligned and is the language and are you building upon it because if you change different curriculum, the language changes, the strategies come to time, times change. So you want to see consistency with the curriculum. Are they sticking to something for a while and if they change, do they have a good reason why they change? Maybe they one in that vertical I or realize it wasn't working for their students. So that would be a question I'd follow up with. And then I would also ask, how would they assist students who need special, who have special learning differences and how do you accommodate those and see what they would say? That would always be my next question.

Meredith Krimmel (23:26):

I think this is really helpful because as a parent, I know I work in a school and I'm a speech language pathologist, but I don't really fully understand elementary curriculum. Obviously not an educator, but understanding what I'm even asking, we as parents could go out and say, okay, do you have a curriculum? Great check. And do you modify it? Oh, great check without really understanding what that means. So this gives a little bit of background when they say they modify curriculum, what does that mean? And tell me how you do that. So I can fully give me examples.

Laura Causey (23:55):

Yeah, I would also ask how do you assess, assess your students' progression through the curriculum? How do they modify or not modify? How do they progress monitor their student's progression? We have progress monitoring here, which means we're constantly doing little informal assessments, informal assessments. We have standardized assessment as well. So we are also constantly measuring how our interventions are working with the curriculum we have. So that would be another follow up would be like how do you assess

Meredith Krimmel (24:20):

Growth,

Laura Causey (24:20):

The success and the growth of the student through the curriculum, and also how the effective your curriculum is.

Meredith Krimmel (24:26):

So something that you guys have both referenced, but we haven't really called out, which I feel like is another buzzword, is you both have referenced all the language needed in math and the social skills needed in reading. So at the parish school, we have a lot of co-teaching going on, especially in our elementary classroom, well in our early childhood with speech language pathologists and educators. Can you talk to us a little bit about what that means? What does co-teaching look like?

Laura Causey (24:53):

When I first came to the parish school, that was one thing that I just fell in love with was having that speech language pathologist in the classroom, collaborating with lesson plans, but also lesson planning together, especially with writing. Stephanie and I, when we were in the classroom together, we were working on a narrative. The kids were writing their own fractured fairytales. I was working on the working elements of a fairytale. I was working on writing, she was helping me with writing goals, and we were able to make stations and we were able to work through the writing process together where I was working more on the content and the structure. And then Stephanie would push in and help them work on the organizing their words, putting the language in the right order, putting the story in the right order, sequencing. And we were able to work in tandem together and stations and hit each kid's language goals and reading goals and writing goals for this project. And then they were able to read the stories to our early childhood students and expose them to a fractured fairy tale and be able to explain what a fairytale is to students younger than them. And that was just a perfect example of working together for the common goal, me working more on the academic goals and the standard required for that level and her pushing in with the language goals that were needed and necessary to accomplish the assignment.

Stephanie Landis (25:59):

So in that example, the co-teaching was accomplished through lesson planning together so that we were making sure that we were hitting all of their needs. And then it was accomplished through station work of going through stations. But in our classrooms, our SLPs will often even just co-teach or the paraeducators might help co-teach in ways where one teacher is leading and the other teacher is going around and monitoring and then giving support with individual students and going through and checking in with them and being like, oh, here we go. And answering questions or rephrasing it, or even at times noticing something and jumping in and being like, oh, I have a way to explain that. Or one day I was co-teaching during a social studies lesson of all things and it was great and it was multisensory and we're using lots of different type of input.

(26:56):

They're watching videos, they're reading a book, they're doing a hands-on activity. But something that kept coming up was that people were coming to the United States because of persecution, and it was like persecution was said six times and then finally and the kids were answering the question and they were like, yes, they came here because of persecution and it was like, what is persecution? And they were like, I have no idea. So from a speech pathologist, I was like, okay, I can focus on the academic vocabulary and help co-teach through finding those academic vocabulary that teachers are so used to teaching that they might think like, oh, this is pretty common knowledge, or our children know this and then jump in. Or even times when it's unexpected, we were doing stories and we're all like, oh, we're all going to do a story and it's going to be based in Amazon or the Amazon.

(27:48):

And as we go through, I realize that one of the students based his story in an actual Amazon packaging facility instead of the rainforest. And it was like, oh, this is a multi meaning word and we didn't, and I was like, great, it fits the context, let's roll with it. And he had a wonderful story and we could use that, but it's just that little bit of jumping in and being like, ah, I see where the disconnect his only, he doesn't have a picture in his brain for what the Amazon Forest is, so he couldn't use that. Next time when I'm lesson planning, I need to make sure that we go through and we pick a setting or whatever word is that we know that all of the children have a schema or background knowledge for. So that's another thing that we can jump in is in the moment being like, let's build background knowledge so we can jump on this.

(28:40):

Another way we'll do it is that one teacher is leading and the other teacher is making visuals. The SLP will be there making visuals and breaking things down, or if the teacher's giving instructions, then the SLP can be on the board and putting it into our executive functioning strategy that we use here is get ready, do, done. And they can be modeling how a student would then do this for get ready, do, done, and then help the students kind of fill out their own so they know how to go through it. Especially in the upper elementary level, in the early, younger primary levels, they might be giving a model while the teacher's explaining it or drawing a picture to again go back through and give that mental image of what the teacher is talking about. So there's multiple ways that it kind of pops up and goes through. Am I missing any?

Laura Causey (29:30):

I feel like you hit 'em all. I feel like some of the ones I know when the speech pathologist will lead a lesson and they were working on past tense verbs and they needed the rule as to when is it ed and when is it? And I jumped in and was like, the rule is, and I did the teacher thing and I showed them what the rule is. So I was able to bring in our reading curriculum with the speech mythologist lesson and therapeutic approach. So they were able to work on past tense orally, but also apply the spelling rule and the reading rule as to when that sound makes suffix makes a different ending. So that's another example of sometimes it happens kind of organically where that wasn't in the plan. She said she was doing past tense and it had just happened. That question came up and I was in there and I was able to fill in the academic knowledge necessary to apply it to her lesson as well. So sometimes it happens kind of organically, but also our teachers are very intentional about the lesson planning and coordinating with their speech pathologist on what they're working on. So it looks very seamless in the classroom.

Meredith Krimmel (30:23):

So Laura, earlier you mentioned that the parish school is a therapeutic school. Can you talk a little bit more about what that means to be a therapeutic school versus just being any other kind of school?

Laura Causey (30:32):

Yes. So because of our population or populations for students with communication delays and learning differences and because of the language needs necessary, we have therapeutic intervention such as a speech pathologist that pushes in our environment. We also have a on clinic site where they also see some of our students and they will also collaborate with us and on interventions that we provide. So things like that. Our curriculum, we try to align it with therapies and interventions of language speech between pathologists are providing and also any professionals that are on our staff. We have a social emotional support staff here as well. So we try to align our curriculum as well to that.

Stephanie Landis (31:09):

The reading interventionist,

Laura Causey (31:10):

Reading

Stephanie Landis (31:10):

Intervention, providing not just teaching you to read but reading intervention very specifically.

Meredith Krimmel (31:16):

So if you're a parent looking for a school that serves children with learning differences, which could be a special school or it could be a typical private school, if you're really looking for a therapeutic program, you want to ask the question, are you aligning their academic goals with their therapeutic goals? And that parish school does that. We align their academic goals and their therapeutic goals and work them all in together.

Laura Causey (31:35):

And I would ask, do you collaborate with either therapists that are on your campus or outside therapists? We are very intentional. We collaborate with onsite therapists on our campus, but also if any of our students are seeing outside therapists, we collaborate with them and we really encourage parents to let us have these big conversations with parents included to have these conversations about what interventions they're getting provided in their therapies and how we can include them into the classroom to help them be successful in the classroom. So I would be asking that question.

Stephanie Landis (32:03):

And one of the things that I love about the way Laura has really modified our curriculum as well is that when we are teaching narratives, we're not just teaching narratives, we're also bringing in therapeutic narrative intervention programming into it. Same thing when we go into language arts. It's not just a typical language arts program. We are bringing in therapeutic programs with it to teach the same language arts skills, but making sure that we are doing it in a more intensive with more depth and with more intention than just a typical language arts program. And she does that with also then that going back and looking at the skills that you would need underneath it and support those. Whereas I think that other programs might, yes, allow an SLP to come on campus and see your kid for 30 minutes, or might let your dyslexia therapists come in and see your child for 45 minutes a few times a week, but their math programming might not have a therapeutic math intervention behind it. Whereas our math programming also brings therapeutic interventions into just the everyday classroom. So our students who aren't seeing outside therapists are still receiving therapeutic interventions throughout the day.

Laura Causey (33:18):

Yeah, I would agree. And something, when I got this role as curriculum specialist, I liked to, because I was in the classroom, so I saw a lot of what the social emotional therapists were doing on our campus and I was looking at what curriculum they were using, the conscious discipline, and then I was looking at story grammar marker and some of the curriculums that speech and pathology were using, and I was looking at how they matched or aligned with things that I was teaching, but the language might be slightly different, such as I know in social thing we talk about people files, that's the same thing as character analysis and academic language. So a way they all mesh and they all kind of have a similar idea. It's just finding the commonality and similarities. So here at the parish school, we really are very intentional with what curriculum we choose and how it could all kind of cohesively comes together to build the whole child. That's

Stephanie Landis (34:01):

Great. Alright, Laura, I'll ask you my favorite question and hopefully merits doesn't return's favor, but if you could give one piece of advice to everyone listening and it can be anything you want.

Laura Causey (34:14):

Oh boy.

Stephanie Landis (34:14):

What would you give

Laura Causey (34:16):

That's on the spot? Wow, I

Stephanie Landis (34:17):

Love putting people on the

Laura Causey (34:18):

Spot. Oh my goodness. One piece of advice. Oh wow. I think just based on everything we've talked about today, I would really, when you're looking at schools and curriculum, really look for a school that looks at embracing this child's strengths and the whole child development. I feel like when you're looking at schools, I know with my children when I'm looking at schools, I'm really looking for that whole child development and are they looking at every aspect of my child? Are they looking at the strengths? Are they looking at developing that person into a well-rounded adult?

Stephanie Landis (34:49):

Yeah, more than just a test score. Yes.

Laura Causey (34:52):

And more than just the academic skills, just so many things that we need to help foster in our children to get them ready for the world outside.

Stephanie Landis (35:00):

And that's one thing we didn't even talk about. We have so many arts here

Laura Causey (35:03):

That we didn't even

Stephanie Landis (35:04):

Go into our curriculum that have their own curriculum that helps support the whole child that it's multifaceted here

Meredith Krimmel (35:11):

For sure. Stephanie, do you want to give some advice? I think we might've asked you this before, but it's been a few years. I wonder if it's the same. If you had one piece of advice, what would you

Stephanie Landis (35:19):

Give? I would give, and it kind of goes for both therapist and teachers and parents, is to really look and meet your child where they are and then find the baby steps you need to give there all the time in the classroom. When I'm asking the kids to do something and they're like, this is too hard, I joke. I'm like, well, how do we climb a mountain? And they're like, one step at a time. Or I'll joke with them and I'll be like, how do we eat the world's largest pizza one bite at a time? It looks like it's a huge thing. And if we start with just shoving the giant piece of pizza in our mouth, we're going to have problems with it. But if we break it down and we're like, this is where we are, this is where we want to get, and here are the skills that we need, then we can go so much further.

Meredith Krimmel (36:02):

That's great. Thank you guys so much. I learned a lot. I hope our listeners learned a lot, even someone in education, I learned some new stuff. So thanks guys.

Stephanie Landis (36:10):

I have loved

Meredith Krimmel (36:10):

Learning from

Stephanie Landis (36:11):

Laura

Meredith Krimmel (36:11):

Over the years. I actually love speaking to the two of you together when y'all talk about co-teaching differentiation. I've had a lot of experience with this at this point, and you guys both are just a wealth of knowledge. So thanks for sharing. Thank you for listening to the UN Babbled podcast. For more information on today's episode, please see our episode description. For more information on the parish school, visit parish school.org. If you're not already, don't forget to subscribe to the Un Babbled Podcast on your app of choice. And if you like what you're hearing, be sure to leave a rating and review. A special thank you to Joanna Rissmiller and Mackey Torres for all their hard work behind the scenes. Thanks again for listening.