Last week I posted about the TNReady accessibility and accommodations that are being offered this year with the new testing. You can find those right here.

Today I want to dig a little deeper about two parts in the accommodations for children with IEP's or 504's, Text to speech and Word Prediction.

First let me talk about the easier of the two...word prediction. What is word prediction? From the SC Assistive Technology Program: Word prediction programs work with word processors. They predict the word a person wants to enter into the computer. The person types the first letter of a word, and the program offers a list of words beginning with that letter. If the right word appears on the list, it can be chosen and automatically inserted into the sentence. If the right word doesn’t appear, the student continues to type the next letter until it does appear. After the user chooses a word, the computer predicts the next word in the sentence. Again, it offers a list of possible words, even before the first letter is typed. Predictions are based upon the sentence content and spelling, as well as the number of times a word is used. Word prediction may be helpful to students who have trouble with spelling, grammar, or using a keyboard (by reducing the number of keystrokes needed). These programs may also help people who struggle to come up with the exact word they want to use in a sentence.

Knox County uses a program called Solo 6 which has word prediction so if your child is using Solo 6, your child is already familiar with word prediction. Sadly though, a memo dated October 14, 2015 stated that word prediction would not be live for the 2015/2016 school year. Here is the exact statement from the memo...

I am currently looking for clarification on this. This seems mean that a student can use their own assistive technology device to use for word prediction but would that also mean that the assistive technology accommodation would also need to be added to the IEP accommodation as well?

Next let's talk about Text to Speech which seems to be a bit controversial this year. In the same assessment accommodation memo it states the following...

The decision to provide the text-to-speech accommodation for both the TNReady English language arts assessment and the social studies assessment must be made based on a student’s ability to access text. Below are key questions to ask when determining the need for the text-to-speech accommodation.

504 Plans:

• •Does student have a documented decoding or fluency deficit which precludes access to printed text?
• •Is student engaged in intense Tier III intervention to address specific deficit?
• •Does student need supported reading in core academic instruction?

IEP's:

• •Does student have a documented decoding or fluency deficit which precludes access to printed text?
• •Does student have a goal to address deficit listed in the present level of educational performance?
• •Is student engaged in intense intervention to address specific deficit?
• •Is inability to access printed text included in the impact statement?
• •Does student need supported reading in core academic instruction?

Make sure when you go into your child's IEP that you aren't just being told that the state says we have to remove read aloud, now called text to speech. These questions must be asked before the IEP team, and that includes you as the parent, decides whether a child should have the text to speech accommodation. Don't just take no for an answer.

Time for an IEP meeting for my daughter.

Last year I did a blog post about my advice, you can click here to read it, but I forgot one bit of advice and that is something that I have to work on every year...putting a notebook together.

My daughter's notebook is a 3" 3 ring binder, and that is not even including the 2 full file folders I have for all of her testing and school work from the previous years. 

This is what I recommend you keep in your child's notebook...

• All Progress Monitoring and Universal Screener papers. These should come home every 4.5 weeks if your child is in RTI tier 2 or 3 but you may need to ask your child's teacher for them.
  
• Report cards and state testing results. Make sure you make a copy of the report card before you send it back in to school.
  
• If your child has an IEP keep all those papers together as well. ALL papers...prior written notice, notes, the actual IEP including any drafts you receive.
• Emails. Print all emails and keep them together in one spot.
• Current schoolwork. Now, I am not saying keep every single piece of paper that comes home but anything that is significant. If you are concerned about math, keep math papers, if you are concerned about spelling and writing, then be sure to save those papers.
• I also keep a tab for dyslexia papers and I make sure I have extra copies. You have heard me say this before but teachers don't get trained on what dyslexia looks like while they are in college, so having some information to hand out will be helpful.

The more organized you are the easier it is to attend meetings and be able to speak about your child.