Continuity of Learning During COVID-19 Resource Database

The Unified Young readers Club is a great inclusive activity for a younger audience and accompanies Special Olympics Young Athletes play with books and study guides that support teachers as they address such topics as inclusion, awareness, friendship, bullying, and acceptance to audiences of both students with and without intellectual disabilities. Each book has a theme that relates to multiple state academic standards, and aligns with the precepts of positive school climate initiatives.

To successfully launch the 2020-2021 school year for students with disabilities, state education agencies (SEAs) have an essential leadership role to play in supporting local school systems to plan for multiple scenarios, including services delivered in-person, through distance learning, and via blended approaches.

The purpose of Inclusion Tiles is to support understanding of the true meaning of diversity and meaningful inclusion. Meaningful inclusion is hard to put into words and action, and these tiles help to start the conversation and support people of all ages along their inclusion journey.

STEP, the Parent Training and Information Center in Tennessee released an easy-to-use Return to School Planning Guide to help families prepare for how their children with disabilities will receive the services and supports outlined in their IEPs. A Spanish version of the guide can also be found on the STEP website.

This lesson, featuring Karen McWilliams, a 504 Coordinator and Dyslexia Teacher in Rochelle ISD in Texas, supports educators in using technology to teach foundational reading skills to students in elementary grades using a variety of facilitated activities to support phonemic awareness, phoneme–grapheme correspondence, irregular and high-frequency words, writing, and connected text. The collection, adapted from content developed by the University of Florida Literacy Institute, includes a tip sheet, a video examples, and slides illustrating the lesson.

These videos illustrate how parents and grandparents can implement the NCII reading and mathematics sample lessons to provide additional practice opportunities. In addition to the video examples, a tip sheet is available to help parents implement the lessons.

This video and tip sheets provide an example and strategies for how educators can implement the NCII reading and mathematics sample lessons through virtual learning. The video illustrates a sample lesson using explicit instruction principles being delivered by an educator virtually and the tip sheets provide considerations for educators delivering instruction and how they can collaborate with families to provide additional practice opportunities using the sample lessons.

This Voices from the Field video shares the experiences of four teachers in the Exceptional Children department in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools as they adjusted to delivering instruction during COVID-19 restrictions. They discuss the importance of communicating with families, how they have adapted virtual instruction and used instructional materials, their thoughts for continuing efforts in fall 2020, and their advice for other teachers.

This resource was developed by a coalition of projects that are funded by the Office of Special Education Programs in response to requests from state and local educational agencies and parents about how to hold and participate in virtual individualized education program (IEP) meetings. While intended to meet a need during the COVID-19 pandemic, the content is designed to have broader applications.

This Voices From the Field piece includes a discussion with Laura Hamby and Ann Jolly from the Exceptional Children department in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools about how they have addressed teaching and learning challenges related to COVID-19 restrictions. They shared some of the strategies they implemented during Spring 2020 to support special educators in their districts to meet the needs of students with disabilities and their families.

NCSI presented a multi-part webinar series sharing best practices for state special education leaders to make the best use of available resources during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. NCSI and invited experts shared information to help state leadership teams make informed decisions amid current circumstances, ensuring leaders are poised to continue high-quality educational programming for students and families.

To successfully launch the 2020-2021 school year for students with disabilities, state education agencies (SEAs) have an essential leadership role to play in supporting local school systems to plan for multiple scenarios, including services delivered in-person, through distance learning, and via blended approaches.

COVID-19 has caused an unexpected rapid transition to online content delivery for many. Thankfully, there are already many great resources on how to effectively teach online. Here we’re sharing some of our favorite resources.

In this webinar, Dr. Anita Archer teaches high leverage instructional practices for in-person and remote learning. Consistent with an explicit instruction approach, Dr. Archer demonstrates each practice, actively engages her audience, and sets educators up to successfully pivot their effective instructional practices into the current content.

This resource focuses on the accessibility supports already available on the devices many families may already have in their homes to support continuity of learning with accessible educational materials.