The Socially Skilled Kids Blog

Due to the coronavirus, many schools have gone remote.  While teachers have put a tremendous amount of effort into making the transition from school, to school from home, as easy as possible…the fact is, it’s hard!

 According to Education Week, school closures due to coronavirus have impacted over 124,000 U.S. schools and at least 55.1 million students. States have closed schools into late April or May, or even closed down for the remainder of the school year!

Parents, educators, and students have had to make the move to online or Distance Learning. This mode of teaching and learning is unfamiliar to most of us.  We are all doing our very best to figure it all out, and quickly.

As an elementary school teacher, I am seeing a lot of students {and parents} doing okay with school from home, but many too, are really struggling.  Especially our kiddos with special needs.

Challenges like technology {access and knowledge}, working...

Remotely Teaching social skills can be an interesting challenge.  I have spent many years avoiding the use of technology in my social skills sessions.  I felt my kiddos got plenty of screen time, and what they really needed was face to face interaction.

While I still believe this, we are currently in a situation where we simply must use technology to teach.  

So how do you teach a social skills group on a video conferencing platform like Zoom or Google Meet?

By playing games, of course!  

Read my recent post about 22 Easy Games and Activities to play online HERE.

But saying it is one thing…actually doing it is another thing all together!

Our students are dealing with so much right now.  And on top of it all, they have to learn new technology and new appropriate behaviors to go with it.

I don’t know about you…but I have spent the first few weeks of remote teaching, remotely teaching my students how to behave appropriately...

Most of us are Remote Teaching/Distance Learning these days.  Have you started?  It can be tricky.

First, you need to teach your students how to appropriately access the technology that you will using, e.g. Zoom, Google Meet, etc. {Read all about that and grab a free PowerPoint about the rules and manners to use on Zoom, HERE. }

Next, you need to have things to do that are easy and fun!

Many of our kiddos are easily distracted and have challenges focusing on peers, in person.  Socializing online, can be even more tricky.

We need to have fun activities to keep our students engaged.  They need to be fairly short in length {under 20 minutes} and they need to be super easy for both teacher and student to access, i.e. low prep. and few materials needed.

Why?

Well… certainly we all come to this situation with a different skill set, but many of us are not technology experts and on top of that, we may be feeling the stress of everything that is going on with...

Teaching Remotely?  Sure, I can do this…

Then as it came near… I started to panic.  It’s not as easy as it sounds…remote teaching.  And it comes with a whole new set of stressors.  But special educators are some of the most resourceful people I know!  

We WILL figure this out!

Before You Start

If you haven't started remote teaching yet {or even if you have}, my top recommendation for preparing yourself is to practice some self-care.

Why?

Because like our students, we need to practice a new skill so that it is more easily accessed during times of stress….because there will be stress, there will be mistakes, and at times, it will be messy.

Beating yourself up about it, wont help.

If self-care is not something you are particularly good at doing…here are some ideas.

Things you can do for yourself:

• Make a list of self affirmations that are meaningful to you and have them handy.  Practice...

Many students with special needs struggle to engage in conversations.  Why?  Well, there could be many reasons related to each child’s specific set of challenges and abilities.  But the biggest reason, in my mind, is the number of skills needed, to successfully engage in a conversation.

There are literally dozens of skills needed.  On top of that, these skills change based on the type of conversation, the number of people involved, etc.

Oy! 

Is it any wonder that engaging in conversations is challenging for our kiddos!

In my blog post, Teaching Conversational Skills To Special Education Students, you can learn about how and why to teach conversational skills to your special students.  You can also sign up to join us in The Teacher’s Lounge and grab a great Freebie: Conversation Poster and Tips & Tricks to engaging in a conversation.

Something I spend a lot of time on with my students is, Responding To Others in a...

Have you ever watched a group of your special education students having a “conversation?”  It can be very awkward, to say the least.  To be fair, I see similar behaviors when watching regular education students too. The students are talking…but are they having a true conversation?

A conversation is defined as a back and forth verbal exchange between two or more individuals.  Of course there is sooooooo much more to it.  Click Here to read the post with my top 10 recommended social skills needed to have a great conversation.  One of those very important skills is to RESPOND to others.  

When I watch my students{who haven’t used my strategies for having great conversations} engaging in a conversation… what I typically see is one child talking, then another child talking, then another…usually overlapping each other, rarely on the same topic, and sometimes with little to no regard for each other.

One of the...

Engaging in successful conversations can be very challenging for our kiddos with special needs.  Read more about why this seemingly simple activity is not-so-simple for those students, and get some helpful & free tips and tricks to help, HERE.

Probably the biggest reason that conversations are challenging for our students, is because, like so many things, there are actually many skills involved.  Conversation may be one word…but the skills involved in executing it…are numerous and complex.  They involve things like, Perspective Taking and Self-Regulation, which are often difficult for students with special needs. 

Here are my Top 10 picks for the most important skills needed to be taught to special education students, to help them engage in better conversations with their peers:

1. Physical Proximity

How many times have you seen your students talking to someone as they are walking away or as the other person is...

Many children who are typically developing find engaging in conversations to be quite easy.  They have picked up on the necessary skills naturally and with informal practice over time and in their day-to-day interactions with others.

But for our kiddos with special needs, we may need a more explicit approach.  Conversational skills often need to be broken down into small, manageable steps.  Each of those steps may need to be explicitly taught, practiced, re-taught, practiced in multiple environments, and so on.

Before we talk about how to teach conversational skills, let’s talk about why to teach conversational skills.

Our students need to be able to engage appropriately in conversations, to have successful social interactions.  However, this is not a quick and easy skill to teach, as there are many variables to consider.

Within the context of social interactions, we have many different types of conversations; from formal to informal, chit chat to...