PROMOTION OF TRANSITION SKILLS IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION Kristen Perez

Transition Skills: What supports positive post-school outcomes?  Self-determination  Self-awareness  Persistence  Goal setting  Career awareness  Community interaction/awareness  Choice-making  Time-management  Conflict resolution

Why are these necessary to learn in elementary?  Elementary education is a FOUNDATION for future learning.  Skills learned in elementary school are built upon in high school.  If students do not learn necessary skills in elementary school, they cannot be expected to participate appropriately in transition at a higher level.

Teaching moments: Promoting Self-Determination  Provide opportunities for students to tell you what they need:  Students can ask for a choice, ask for help, or ask for a break if they are struggling with an assignment.  Unless there is a threat to child safety, avoid interfering until a student asks for your help.  Ask questions. Give your students a chance to tell you when something works for them or to offer suggestions for what they think might help.

Promoting Self-Determination: Why do this?  The ability to seek out help when necessary and explain your needs to others is crucial in adult life.  Students with disabilities must learn to advocate for themselves and speak about their needs and accommodations.  Providing these opportunities early on promotes independence and necessary preliminary skills for self-advocacy later in life.

Teaching moments: Promoting Self-Awareness  Allow students to assess their own work or behavior:  How do you think you did on this assignment?  What were you supposed to do for this assignment or during this time? Did you do it?  Did you follow the directions, do your best, ask for help when you needed it?  Provide opportunities for students to discuss their strengths and limitations:  Would you be good at ….? Why or why not?  Was this something you found interesting?

Promoting Self-Awareness: Why do this?  The ability to discuss yourself (your interests, strengths, limitations, needs) is crucial to leading an independent life.  Providing scripts and opportunities for students to discuss themselves on a regular basis will make them more aware of and comfortable with the process of divulging personal information to people when necessary.

Teaching moments: Promoting Persistence  Encourage students to finish ALL tasks. Find what motivates your students, and use it as incentive.  Teach them methods to deal with frustration.  Take a break, talk it out with someone, go back to basics.  Suggest alternative strategies for completing an assignment.  “Chunk” it into smaller portions, group tasks, brainstorm before formulating responses.

Promoting Persistence: Why do this?  Difficult or time-consuming tasks must be completed not only to earn grades, but to gain services and carry out responsibilities as an adult.  Insurance forms, college financial aid or scholarship forms, tax forms, driver’s license, rental forms, waiting in offices (TAG agency, SSI, medical offices, etc.), completing classwork and employment tasks.

Teaching moments: Promoting Goal Setting  Have students keep a “Goal Journal”  Discuss a class goal at the beginning of the week, and have students record the goal and steps taken to meet the goal in their journals.  In this same journal, students will write one goal for themselves for the week, list the steps they plan on taking to meet this goal, and record their daily progress in meeting the goal.  If individuals (or the class) do not meet their goal at the end of the week, have them write in their journal and discuss as a class reasons they were unable to attain the goal. If goals are attained, have the write and discuss what made them successful at achieving their goals.

Promoting Goal Setting: Why do this?  Everyone has “goals,” but a goal without a plan is just a dream.  Teaching students to create a plan to achieve their goal and providing time for them to reflect on these choices and how they affected attainment of the goal will improve their ability to make goals and attain them in the future.  The journal acts as a script or template for students to refer to, in order to remember the basic steps in planning for a goal.

Teaching moments: Promoting Career Awareness  During social studies or language arts, when appropriate, take time to speak on the careers described in readings.  In language arts, relate character traits to their careers (if mentioned).  In social studies, if appropriate, discuss the different jobs relating to that unit.  Provide opportunities for students to talk about careers they see in the community or that family members have.  Integrate career exploration, whenever possible. Encourage exploration through library books, classroom discussion, and class activities.

Promoting Career Awareness: Why do this?  Choosing a career is a long process that influences early choices, such as what high school courses a student will take and what extra-curriculars they will become involved in.  Providing opportunities for early exploration broadens student knowledge of possibilities, allows for early elimination of unsuitable career choices, and offers ample time for suitable career preparation.

Teaching moments: Promoting Choice-making  Provide students with options, and allow them to make regular, independent choices:  Where to sit during free time  Lunch choices  Which assignment they want to complete first  Allow time for the student to evaluate their choice:  Did you make a good choice?  Would you make the choice again? Why or why not?  What other choices could you have made?

Promoting Choice-Making: Why do this?  Every day, each of us makes several choices both big and small.  The ability to make these choices for themselves allows students to learn how to make appropriate choices, and provides more opportunities for independence.

Teaching moments: Promoting Time-management  Provide opportunities for students to self-regulate and manage their time:  Give a visual cue to the amount of time students have to complete a task.  If the assignment is long or very involved, teach the student how to “chunk” it into smaller tasks.  Provide instruction on how to keep track of assignments in a planner.

Promoting Time-management: Why do this?  As students progress in their education and into adulthood, deadlines become shorter, stricter, and more important.  Providing time-management strategies early makes it more likely that these methods will become routine, and students will be less likely to forget or miss important deadlines. Managing one’s own time promoted independence.

Teaching moments: Promoting Conflict Resolution  Talk the student through the conflict, and ask questions: What do you think the problem is? How does this make you feel? What can you do to control your emotions? What could you do to fix the problem?  If possible, implement the student’s solution, and allow for time to reflect: Did your solution work? If not, what would be a good alternative? What caused the conflict/problem? Would there be any way to prevent it or stop it from happening again?

Promoting Conflict Resolution: Why do this?  As students get older, they become more and more responsible for resolving their own conflicts, both in school and in the community.  Teachers and adults will not always be around to fix student problems. NOW is the time to teach the skills and processes for students to problem-solve.

Elementary Transition Lessons and Assignments  Book Reports  Book choices and report questions can target specific transition skills.  Science experiments  Experiments can be linked to safety skills, community awareness concepts, and career possibilities.  Guest speakers  Utilize guest speakers who can further explain classroom lessons, while also exposing students to a variety of community members and careers.

Elementary Transition Lessons and Assignments  Math lessons  Make math applicable to real world by designing lessons that correspond to life applications.  Computer lab  Use time in the computer lab to not only practice academic skills, but necessary computer skills, such as typing and word processing.  Allow students to use age-appropriate interest surveys and career exploration programs.

IEP and Promotion Meetings: Student involvement in the IEP  Parent and General Education input documents  Include one for the student!  Every student, regardless of age or ability, can participate in their IEP meeting in some way  Students can introduce themselves, their interests, their abilities, and their difficulties in IEP meetings in a variety of ways (in person, videos, posters, PowerPoint, or other multimedia methods).

IEP and Promotion Meetings: Promotion meetings as assessment  Promotion meetings from elementary to middle school can act as a model for future transition meetings.  Allow the student to participate in a way that will appropriately assess his/her ability to lead an IEP and demonstrate necessary transition skills.  This meeting can act as a baseline assessment for middle school teachers to determine what skills are present and which need more work.  Student ability at the promotion meeting can also demonstrate to elementary educators the effectiveness of teacher instruction and provide ideas for improvement.