the blog
explore our content categories
EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING | ACADEMIC | ELIGIBILITY | ADDITIONAL BLOGS & MORE!
Summer Boot Camp 2023 Reflection
Today, I want to share some insights and reflections from our recent Summer Boot Camp, an event we’ve hosted for the past four years. Summer Boot Camp spanned two weeks in July 2023 and offered daily training sessions for school psychologists. We had a great turnout,...
Best Practices for an Effective English Language Learner Evaluation
Summer Boot Camp has since passed, but today, we will take some time to reflect on one of the topics presented: Best Practices for Evaluating English Learners! Let’s take a look at 3 key takeaways from the perspectives of a bilingual and monolingual school psych on...
3 Tips to Kick Off Your School Year
Welcome to the 2023-2024 school year! Today, we're diving into my top three tips to kick off your school year and make it your best one yet. Whether you're already back in the swing of things or still enjoying those last moments of summer break, these strategies will...
3 Takeaways from Summer Boot Camp – Explaining Results Succinctly Session
During Summer Boot Camp 2023, we had sessions ranging from FBAs to Manifestation Determinations and more. One of the sessions that I was able to provide during this two-week period was a session focused on explaining evaluation results succinctly. My intent for this...
3 Takeaways from Summer Boot Camp – Q&A Session
It’s hard to believe Summer Boot Camp 2023 has come and gone! It was two weeks filled with lots of learning and sharing of ideas. For those that were not with us, we kicked things off with an open Q&A session in which participants had the opportunity to ask any...
How Many Manifestation Determinations Did You Have This Year?
At the end of each school year, I love reflecting on how things went. What areas were challenging for me? I don’t know about you, but manifestation determinations are one of those processes I sometimes find challenging. How confident are you with the process? Are...
Am I Doing This Right?
Whether you are an intern or a seasoned psychologist, we have all asked ourselves, “Am I doing this right?” Whether you’re conducting an FBA, completing a bilingual evaluation, or explaining results in a way that benefits all members of the IEP team, all school...
Organizing Tips for Fall 2023
I get a lot of questions about organization from interns, students, and seasoned psychologists alike. Now I know some of you are winding down your school year or already relaxing on the beach, but I want to share three of my favorite organization tips with you today!...
Oral Expression Tools and Interpretive Support
What is Oral Expression? Students with a disability in oral expression have difficulty putting their thoughts into speech. Astudent may also have difficulty remembering a word when needed, or being able to recall theformal names of objects. These students tend to...
Dyslexia, Dyscalculia and Dysgraphia
Over the last couple of years, terms like dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia have been used more frequently within our school settings. How comfortable are you discussing these terms with families and staff members? Let’s discuss my go-to tips that I have found...
Comprehensive and Succinct Evaluation Results Explanation
School psychs know a lot of special education jargon and are required to explain these terms to parents. What’s the best way to synthesize our evaluation results and present our findings to families in a meaningful and helpful way? Let’s explore some ways we can...
Summer Preparation for Fall 2023
My motto for every school year is “harmony.” Every year I work on organizing myself and determining my non-negotiables. Let’s walk into next school year knowing that your boundaries will give you peace of mind in the chaos of a school psych’s life! If you want to...
Frustrated About Exclusionary Factors?
Have you ever found yourself feeling frustrated about exclusionary factors? Don’t worry, you are not alone! Let’s discuss some tips about exclusionary factors related to specific learning disabilities and ease some of your frustrations! If you want to watch a replay...
When Do I Call This an Attention Problem
Many teachers and parents seem to be concerned with student attention problems. Do these concerns warrant an evaluation? If this is an attentional problem, what is the underlying cause? Let’s chat about this topic together! If you want to watch a replay of the live...
What to Ask Your Supervisor Before the End of the Year
Congratulations! You are almost there! The end of your internship or practicum hours is fast approaching, and the relationship with your supervisor may soon be ending. What final questions can you ask your supervisor to help you feel more prepared as you begin the...
What is Summer Boot Camp 2023?
What is Summer Boot Camp 2023? Our 4th annual Summer Boot Camp is fast approaching, and you don’t want to miss this year’s hot topics! Whether you are an intern, first-year psych, or a seasoned psychologist, we have a variety of sessions to help you prepare for the...
3 Tips for Evaluating Low Incidence Disabilities
Low-incidence disabilities typically refer to students who are deaf and hard of hearing, have visual impairments and orthopedic impairments. When assessing low-incidence disabilities, the process can often differ from what school psychologists are used to. Let’s...
Supporting Students’ Metacognition Skills
What is Metacognition? Have you noticed a student who struggles with monitoring their progress when completing tasks? You may see these students struggle with self-reflection and utilizing problem-solving skills to complete challenging assignments or tests. All...
3 Tips for Efficient Report Writing
Are you feeling the extra pressure of meeting deadlines and completing reports before spring break? Let’s discuss easy-to-implement tips guaranteed to make your report writing more efficient. Tip #1: The Art of Batching Tasks We all have our go-to rating scale,...
Spotlight: Supporting Students with Goal-Directed Persistence
The Executive Functioning Skill of Goal-Directed Persistence Have you consulted with a teacher about a student who struggles to meet goals related to assignments or projects? Have you observed students who are too distracted by preferred activities to complete tasks?...
Tips When Evaluating Traumatic Brain Injury
Tip #1: Consult With The Experts Assessing a student who has suffered a traumatic brain injury can be a unique and complex process, especially since many of these students have never received special education. How can school psychs be more prepared to complete a...
Helping Students Develop Time Management Skills
The Executive Functioning Skill of Time Management Have you worked with students who need help planning and organizing their time effectively? They may need help estimating how long it takes to complete a task and may need help prioritizing tasks and activities based...
The Executive Functioning Skill of Planning
The Executive Functioning Skill of Planning Have you ever worked with a student who struggles to make decisions about what part of a task is important to focus on and what part isn’t? Or what about students who struggle to create mental roadmaps in their mind when...
Task Initiation
The Executive Functioning Skill of Task Initiation Do you find yourself consulting with teachers frequently about students who struggle to start tasks independently? Or what about students who are unable to plan and decipher when a task will be completed? How can...
My Key Learnings From The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Our book club inside the Prepared School Psychologist membership community is reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Covey). Today, I want to share my takeaways from the first three habits and how they can be applied to your personal life and as a school...
Synthesizing Results Across Assessors
Your Assessment Tool Measures What? As school psychs, we often collaborate with special education assessors such as speech and language pathologists on a regular basis. Now imagine you receive an SLP’s report and as you glance it over, you realize you have little to...
Explaining Eligibility at an IEP Meeting
Explaining the Classification of Intellectual Disabilities = Overwhelm School psychologists play an integral role in explaining eligibility to parents. The weight of this responsibility can feel heavy on a school psych's shoulders, especially when discussing an...
3 Tips When Evaluating Intellectual Disabilities
Tip #1: Understanding Regulation Language Assessing a student who may have an intellectual disability can be a complicated process. Did you know that states have different languages as it pertains to intellectual disabilities, particularly adaptive functioning? Some...
Explaining Social-Emotional Results Succinctly
So Many Rating Scales… So Much Data… Have you ever sat down to write a psychoeducational report only to find yourself staring at your computer screen for what seems like an eternity? Do you find it difficult to start your report? Do you struggle with how to discuss...
3 Student Behavior Tips
Tip #1: Behavior Expectation Reminders Have you noticed that students struggle with behavior expectations once they return to school from winter break? Our students seem to forget classroom rules they once followed with ease! Let’s face it, our teachers are making...
What Has Been Working For You?
Ringing in the New Year with Self-Reflection It’s hard to believe 2023 is right around the corner! There is no better time like the new year to engage in self-reflection and get honest with yourself about what’s been working well in your school psych practice and what...
The Cognitive Capacity of Sustained Attention
Sustained attention refers to the ability to maintain attentional focus on relevant stimuli with repeated presentation over extended periods of time. It is the ability to direct and focus cognitive activity on specific stimuli. In children with attention difficulties,...
My Results From Applying the Feedback Fix
The Feedback Fix Book I don't know about you, but I have a stack of unread books on my shelf. If you’re anything like me, you may have at least read the first chapter but then get distracted because let’s face it, school psychs are extremely busy! A couple of years...
Evaluating Students for Dyslexia
Evaluating Dyslexia Many times throughout the school year, school psychologists find themselves evaluating for reading disabilities and maybe even for dyslexia specifically. There seem to be many questions about the term dyslexia and whether it’s appropriate for a...
To Report Write or Not Over the Holidays?
Should We Work Over Holiday Breaks? This topic can bring up a lot of questions about our own balance and harmony, or whether using holiday breaks is a good time to accomplish important tasks such as report writing. Just like everything in our field, there is never a...
5 Tips for Private School Evaluations
Private School Evaluations School psychologists are asked to evaluate students for special education who attend private schools, and this situation can require different approaches than the typical evaluations we conduct through the public school system. Since we are...
School Psych Week Giveaway
National School Psychology Week During the week of November 7th -11th 2022, school psychologists throughout the United States celebrated National School Psychology Week to highlight the important work school psychologists do to help all students thrive. As we reflect...
Do You Need Better Boundaries?
Working Outside Your Regular Hours Setting boundaries can be difficult to follow as a school psych, especially when our workloads are high and we want to help children. Are you one of the many psychs that take work home with them? Are you spending evenings and...
3 Tips When Evaluating Emotional Disturbance
Tip #1: Understanding Internalizing Behaviors It’s a fact that school psychologists are seeing a steady climb in the number of students with anxiety and depression. Have you ever found yourself having a conversation with a teacher about a student and when the topic of...
5 Tips When Evaluating Non-Traditional Students
Assessing Nontraditional Students Who are nontraditional students? Nontraditional students might include those who are attending an at-home school program, an independent study program, or something similar. Since these students are not attending an actual school site...
3 Tips When Evaluating Autism
Tip #1: Understand Your State’s Critera for Autism When school psychs are evaluating students and Autism is being considered, one tip to keep in mind is understanding your state’s eligibility criteria, regulations, or any additional requirements your state has....
Explaining Evaluation Results Succinctly
Psych Jargon As school psychs, we learn a lot of high-level vocabulary such as fluid reasoning, atypicality, crystallized intelligence, and psychosomatic; let’s face it, the list goes on and on! Have you ever been in an IEP meeting, and the parent asks you to explain...
Does This Student Require Special Education?
Benefiting From Special Education vs. Requiring Special Education You have just finished assessing a student and have found that he or she meets the eligibility criteria! Great news, right? Regardless of which eligibility category the IEP team is considering, one...
Dyslexia in the School Setting
Dyslexia or Lack of Appropriate Instruction? Working as a school psychologist in the middle of a pandemic created many challenges in our practice. For instance, when concerns about a student’s ability to read are brought to our attention, nowadays we begin to question...
My Top Takeaways for Summer Bootcamp
Data-Driven Decisions or Data-Informed Decisions? We recently finished our 3rd annual summer boot camp which was a two-week program, custom-designed to provide resources, learning opportunities, and professional development for school psychologists. One takeaway from...
Am I Doing This Right? And Other Questions We Ask Ourselves
Shouldn’t I Know All the Answers? After all, I am the School Psychologist! A frequent thought that enters every school psychologist’s mind may sound like this, “I should have a correct answer to every question asked of me, right?” Sound familiar? The field of school...
Providing Feedback to a Colleague When You’re Not the Boss
School psychologists wear many hats throughout their careers: assessor, counselor, consultant, mediator, and much more! We enjoy working with others and thrive on being part of a successful team! But what happens when we recognize compliance issues in a colleague's...
What to Expect During Your Internship Year
Your internship is here! What should you expect? Congratulations! You made it this far and you are officially a school psych intern! This is an exciting time in your journey to becoming a school psychologist. But with all the excitement comes many questions and maybe...
More Tips to Kick Start Your School Year
For many of you, the 2022-2023 school year has already begun! Let’s talk about three additional tips to help kick start your school year and help you become a more prepared school psychologist. We will take a closer look at how school psychs can combat challenging...
What to Expect in Your First Year
Congrats on Graduating, School Psych... Now What? Congratulations, you made it! Give yourself a round of applause! Now that you are a full-fledged school psychologist, questions may start to swirl in your mind, “what should I expect during my first year?” Keep reading...
2 Tips to Kick Off the School Year
Summer break is quickly coming to a close, and another school year is about to begin! Let's discuss two tips to help you become a more prepared school psychologist. I get a lot of questions when I talk to interns, psychs starting their first or second year, or even...
Report Writing Tips for Documenting Listening Comprehension Difficulties
Listening is the interpretation of spoken language and includes three skills:1) the recognition of discourses of sounds,2) the understanding of the meaning of individual words, and3) the understanding of the syntax of sentences This complex skill requires a...
Sample Goals for Students that Struggle with Flexibility
Flexibility is generally considered to be the behavior of switching between tasks and demands in response to changes in the environment. In essence, it's one’s ability to change one’s behavior to different contexts or stimuli in the world. Students who experience...
Supporting Students with Written Expression Difficulties
One of the most complex academic skills is writing. Written expression and expressing thoughts and ideas through writing is a highly complex, cognitive, and self-directed process. Planning, drafting, reviewing, and revising are all components that make up diverse...
Discovering a Niche in Your Education Job: Four Perspectives for Creatives in Education [Guest Post]
GUEST POST BY RYAN ESTRELLADO I used to worry about how all my hobbies and interests would advance my education career. They eventually did, but only after I let go of my expectations and started doing them for the right reasons. I’m not the only one who scrolls...
What is Working Memory?
Working Memory describes the ability to hold information in mind while performing complex tasks that involve remembering, processing, or acting on that stored information. It also incorporates the ability to draw on past learning or experiences, to apply to a present...
Math Problem Solving Strategies To Support Students
Problem solving is a mathematical process. It includes logic, reasoning, and communication skills. Mathematical problem solving is a critical skill for students because it helps students develop a generic ability to solve real-life problems and apply...
Organization Strategies To Support Students and School Teams
Organization describes the ability to design and maintain systems for keeping track of information or materials. Essentially it is the process in which one takes care of others’ belongings and their personal belongings while maintaining order in their personal...
Supporting Reading Comprehension Deficiencies & Strengthening Students’ Skills
Reading comprehension describes a student’s ability to process text, understand its meaning, and to integrate or synthesize that information with what the reader already knows. Reading comprehension is a complex skill that draws on a variety of essential skills....
Math Calculations
Math calculations describe one’s ability to count, group objects, and compute a wide range of mathematical facts and operations. Understanding numbers, basic facts, and operations is a skill that begins to develop in children as young as 1 year old. As children...
Supporting Students with Emotional Control Difficulties
What is emotional control? The executive functioning skill of emotional control refers to the ability to effectively manage emotions, so that they do not negatively impact behavior, prevent task completion, or hinder attaining goals. A student who has developed this...
Supporting Reading Fluency & Recognizing Difficulties
Reading fluency describes a student’s ability to read with speed, accuracy, and the correct use of expression. It is an essential skill required to be able to make sense of what they read, whether they are reading silently to themselves or aloud. A child who has...
Spotlight: What is Response Inhibition?
What is response inhibition? This crucial executive function is the ability to think before taking action. Young children can be impulsive and rely on caring adults to guide them and role-model response inhibition. For example, they might just step out into the road...
Reading Decoding
Reading decoding is the key to recognizing known words, then using that knowledge of familiar letters and sounds to quickly determine what new words say, when seeing them for the first time. It is an important indicator for diagnosing dyslexia, as people with dyslexia...
Testing Tips for Effective (and Efficient) Use of the WJ IV™ ACH
How many of these statements resonate with you? I am concerned about an increase in the number of referrals for special education assessments. Our school / district still has a backlog of assessments from the 2020-2021 school year. There are a lot of...
Beyond the Basic Battery: Increasing your Comfort Level with the WJ IV
There are many tools that school psychologists can use to help determine eligibility for special education as well as gather information on the whole child to support parents, teachers, and other caregivers in a child’s learning...
When (and How) Should I Dig Deeper with the Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Cognitive Abilities?
Beyond the Basic Battery: Digging Deeper with the Woodcock-Johnson® IV Tests of Cognitive Abilities Many school psychologists have their favorite assessment battery. If they are assessing a student with a suspected learning disability in reading, they likely have...
Jenny Ponzuric’s Interview on Let’s Be Honest Before We Start Pretending! The Podcast
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Today we are going to be talking with Jenny Ponzuric who is going to assist us with utilizing our time efficiently through planning and organization, and I know personally when implementing the strategies we talk about today, you...
keep in touch!
send a message
Send your questions, comments, and inquiries! You'll receive a response via email.
© 2023 Ponzuric Learning Solutions | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy | Site by Digiality Co.