Vision Statements for Families of Students with IEPs

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When skimming through a teacher’s Special Education binder, the collection of IEPs and 504 plans, as informative as they are, have the tendency to reduce a student to a list of symptoms, behaviors, accommodations, and strategies. Furthermore, a student’s entire learning profile and educational plan is often reduced to a snapshot—a one-sheeter used for quick reference in the classroom. 

Children benefit when supports and strategies are consistent and measurable, and IEPs are certainly informative and essential for keeping educators, families, specialists and pediatricians all on the same page. However, the downside of the IEP or 504 is that it draws attention to the negatives, weaknesses and areas of need. To adequately introduce your child to his or her educators, perhaps it’s time to get creative by supplementing the formal documentation with a more personalized vision statement!

What is a vision statement? 

In the simplest of terms, a vision statement is a declaration of one’s main goal or objective. Ideally, a personal vision statement would provide the framework for one’s intentions by aligning set goals with plans for achieving those goals. Therefore, a child’s vision statement should account for where the child would like to see himself down the road—what does his ideal future path look like?

Because the IEP offers mainly technical information—how to best support the child, what his/her needs are, how his/her diagnosis manifests, etc.—the vision statement allows parents the opportunity to share personal information about the child’s hopes for the future. This information provides valuable insight and allows the IEP team to see that student as more than a diagnosis or label. 

What should you include in your child’s “About Me” vision statement?

To construct your child’s vision statement, parents will want to prepare to clearly articulate their child’s aspirations by first talking to their child about his or her hopes for the future. Questions to ask might be:

 

  • What is something that you consider to be a personal talent?
  • What are 3 of the most important aspects of your life?
  • How would you characterize or describe yourself in 3 words?
  • What is something that you cannot live without?
  • What motivates you?
  • What do you hope to accomplish in your life?

 

In discussing these questions, parents can help synthesize the responses and streamline their child’s overall ambitions into a clear vision statement for the IEP team. This vision statement will then act as a guide for educators as they encounter and assist that student throughout the course of his or her learning.

Some examples of a student’s vision statement might be:

“To let my natural curiosity guide me and increase my motivation for learning…”

“To use my social strengths to relate to and learn about different cultures, people, and places…”

“To use my tenacity and optimism to persevere through difficult challenges…”

“To allow creativity to enhance my ability to problem-solve…”

“To be proud of my efforts by always trying my absolute hardest and giving my all…”

How is the vision statement beneficial? 

The student vision statement is instrumental in several different ways. First, because the statement expresses personal hopes and goals, it allows educators and the rest of the IEP team to see further inside the student as a whole person, not just as a diagnosis with specific needs. The vision statement also provides insight into how the student sees himself or herself; educators get a sense of the student’s self-perceived strengths and interests. These details help the IEP team reach the student on a more personalized, individual level—they are not just looking at accommodations, but also at additional motivators to help students “buy in” to the academic challenges ahead. Finally, for parents, it is important that their child will be seen as a uniquely capable and successful student, one with all of the same potential and complexities as any other child. The vision statement places emphasis on the child as a person first, not on the diagnosis or struggles. 

LE’s Back-to-School Series: Organization Hacks

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To say that back-to-school season is hectic would be an understatement—at times it can feel like downright madness. Students are excited, but anxious; teachers are enthused, but overwhelmed; and parents are relieved, yet frantic at the same time. Going back to school can leave everyone feeling a little (or a lot) stressed. However, like with many other challenges, PRIOR PLANNING PREVENTS POOR PERFORMANCE. With a little organization, these tips and tricks from Learning Essentials will help parents and students get back into the swing of things like never before!

  • Create a back-to-school shopping list after browsing your child’s school website and any course information that might be posted online. You can also reach out to content-specific department heads, also listed on every school’s website, with specific questions about course needs and necessary materials. For instance, if you are unsure of the allowable calculator for an advanced algebra course, reach out to the school’s math content specialist. Of course, additional needs may pop up later, but it’s good to have an idea of the basic needs to get your child through the first week.
  • Consider purchasing a label maker or using a Sharpie to add initials to personal items. Between new lockers, class changes, confusing schedules, and everyday chaos, newly purchased back-to-school swag tends to get lost—quickly. Adding initials or labels to items such as bookbags, lunch boxes, water bottles, jackets, pencil pouches, and coats will help to ensure that misplaced items have a better chance of being returned.
  • Make a quick “to-do” reference sheet near the door so that children can begin the process of self-checking before and after school. For visual learners, use photos to represent the “must haves” before children run out the door in the morning. Depending on age and ability, reminders might include brushing teeth, making the bed, packing clothes for P.E., grabbing the lunch box, and putting the homework folder in the bookbag.
  • If parents want children to take more initiative when getting home after school, use an after–school checklist with specific time frames so that kids know how long a typical task should take and at what time parents expect each task to be completed. To motivate kids who are new to an accountability process, consider incentivizing task completion.
  • Photocopy your child’s course schedule and keep it somewhere handy around the house and/or at work. This allows parents to quickly refer to class times to find the least disruptive window when determining doctors appointments, early dismissals, etc. 
  • Do a “practice walk/ride” to and from school before the first day so that anxious children feel more comfortable about exactly how they’ll be getting to and from school. Make a point to talk about traffic patterns and crosswalks, especially for new bike riders or families that may have just moved into the community. 
  • For young bikers, consider getting a combination lock that uses letters instead of numbers. One word is often much easier for children to remember than typical numeric combinations.
  • Designate a folder or file for any paperwork, permission slips, or forms that parents need to sign. This will avoid the last–minute chaos of trying to find the crumpled sheets in the bottom of a book bag during rush hour. 
  • Set up a whiteboard calendar in a highly-frequented area of the house to post major academic or extracurricular events and their times/locations. Consider color coding the calendar so that each family member’s itinerary is written in a specific color. Take a photo of the calendar and send a group text on Sunday so that everyone is aware of each person’s obligations and whereabouts.

Label a hanging cubby organizer with days of the week so that children can begin to plan their school outfits for the week in advance. There is nothing worse than running late and rummaging through the hamper in a fury to find a specific article of clothing. With a labeled cubby hanging in the closet, children can learn to plan ahead and build autonomy by sorting everything they need for each day’s outfit in advance—no more ransacking the drawers to find matching socks at the last minute!

Learning Essentials Back-to-School Series: Studying Hacks

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Heading back to school is exciting for many, but some students begin to feel the stress of their studies right from the start. In addition to getting organized for a smooth back-to-school transition, families can promote strong study habits and learning strategies to help ease the pressures of school. Make a note of some of the best practices that strong students employ and encourage your child to set up successful study habits right from the start.

One of the most important skills to master is note taking:

Make note of the terms or concepts that your teacher uses frequently during instruction. If she continues to speak about “tone in writing” or “GDP” [What is this? Will readers know?] jot them down and explore those concepts thoroughly on your own. Extend that knowledge by intentionally investigating what those terms mean in different scenarios. Curiosity can help move short-term memories to long-term, which means you will be more likely to not only remember those concepts, but also use them to build connections to other concepts down the line.

Use highlighters to organize your notes and study guides. For instance, for an American history exam, you may want to highlight important dates and events in yellow, key people or places in green, and vocabulary terms in pink. Whatever method you decide to use, keep the color coordinating consistent from test to test and class to class. Color coding your notes helps in several different ways. Firstly, the colors trigger visual memory, which helps with your recall during testing. Secondly, purposefully categorizing your notes by topic or concept helps to build knowledge of how certain items are related or linked throughout history. If “assassin” is a pink vocab term, it will help to remember its meaning by relating it to a green-highlighted John Wilkes Booth. Finally, highlighting helps to visually streamline your notes. When highlighting, you are identifying the crucial information and distinguishing it from the superfluous details.

Rewriting your notes by hand is a less popular study hack. It sounds like a mundane and redundant task; however, studies indicate that copying information by hand solidifies memory and recall. The key to this practice is taking time to chunk and rewrite notes a little bit at a time to make the process less tedious.

There are also several other strategies that strong students use to help them study:

Mnemonic devices are also a lifesaver when it comes to memorizing information that seems more arbitrary or random. I would definitely struggle to list the Great Lakes without the help of HOMES—Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. Another example that still helps me today is “Raven,” which reminds me of when to use affect (verb) and effect (noun). [Do most readers know this one? Does it require brief explanation? I don’t know it.] Wordplay helps with spelling as well—like this popular saying, “I before E except after C or when sounding like ‘hay’ as in neighbor or weigh.”

Another option for checking your knowledge before an assessment is to teach someone else. If you have a major math test next week, try to teach those specific math concepts and processes to a parent or sibling. In doing this, you are essentially performing a self-check of the information. Additionally, explaining an abstract concept, such as square root, to someone else allows you to really reason with and explore the process—you have to know the ins and outs of something before you can instruct someone else.

The memory palace technique is especially helpful when studying for a foreign language exam. The secret is to visualize a familiar setting, like your house or favorite grocery store. Then, when memorizing the terms in another language, you visualize where that item would go in your familiar location. For instance, in the morning I jump out of la cama and go to la cocina for breakfast.