Greetings,
Sandra and Deborah gave great suggestions. I taught special education preschool for a decade, which included low incidence disabilities (children with autism and visual impairments and children who were deaf or hard of hearing). I see the challenges I had are still there. For me I literally had to build a lesson plan from scratch, because every class was so different and every child's need was so different, but since our classes are a lot smaller it makes that individualization more feasible.
I really like Sandra's idea of observing, going to the standards of your state, and building from there, because that is what I did. I also regularly did formal and informal assessments to see if what I was doing was working. All teachers do assessments, but for special education documentation is even more important as you want to be the guide for the next teacher, because as you see there are very few guides and when you teach special education preschool, you're the beginning of the journey and everything you do and document will be used by future teachers, so I was always mindful of that.
If you want to add more communication elements into your classroom reach out to the speech pathologist. The great thing about teaching special education preschool is that you have many professionals (occupational therapists, speech pathologists, and psychologists) who are more than happy to support you in creating your goals and as a new special education teacher their expertise is invaluable.
My speech pathologist was my best friend when I taught in classroom where students had hearing impairments.
I will definitely be following this thread.
Cheers,
Lark
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Lark Sontag
MA, Early Childhood Education
Alumna Pacific Oaks College
Trainer, Adjunct Early Childhood Education Faculty, and Early Childhood Education contributor to 30seconds
New York Metro
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-15-2019 05:19 PM
From: Lydia Sussman
Subject: Lesson Plans in Preschool
Hello fellow teachers and professors,
I am teaching a special ed grad course for teachers of Deaf and Hard of Hearing children. I will be supervising a preschool student teacher and the lesson plans used for k and up (which I was given) are just not appropriate for preschool. Also, so hard to guide teachers in special ed to allow for more following of children's lead and allowing for learning through play. In the public schools there is SO much about accountability that I feel that preschool is being pushed in the wrong direction. I hope to influence this student teacher and her master teacher (who was also my student) to be more aware of current ideas. Does anyone have anything that would be considered a lesson plan with room for language objectives, but also allowing for more freedom of play and classroom setup. Also any suggestions for getting away from the need in special ed to "teach" more?
Thanks so much,
Lydia Sussman
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Lydia Sussman
Adjunct Professor
Cal Lutheran University
Studio City CA
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