What I'm working on...!

A little background...

We piloted an RTI program for phonological awareness at our school this year. We (the SLPs) screened 2 children in each classroom based on the teacher's concerns using a screener a colleague developed. If the student scored lower than 80% on any section of the screener, they would be placed into an RTI program for those weaknesses. We looked at rhyming, blending syllables/sounds, counting syllables/sounds, identifying sounds, adding sounds, deleting sounds, and manipulating sounds in words. We didn't screen kindergarten students because most of these skills are emerging at that age anyway...everyone would end up qualifying!

Which brings me to developmental norms:

• Rhyming: should be developed by age 5
• Discrimination is easier than identification which is easier than generation
• Separating words into sounds and syllables: should be developed by age 5
• Counting syllables and sounds: should be developed by age 5;6
• Blending word parts, sounds, and syllables: should be developed by age 6
• Isolating sounds in words: should be developed by age 6
• Initial sound is easier than final which is easier than medial
• Manipulating sounds in words: should be developed by age 9
• Adding sounds is easier than deleting sounds which is easier than substituting sounds

Because of these norms, we started screening 1st grade through 5th grade. You would be amazed at how many 4th and 5th graders lack these skills.

Wait...my student is 10...Does this really pertain to me?

YES!

• Poor readers ages 7-12 years were given direct phonological awareness instruction and showed gains (Williams, 1980).
• Poor readers ages 8-10 were given instruction in phonological processing and showed marked improvement not only in reading accuracy, but also in reading comprehension (Gillon & Dodd, 1995).

The brain research says it all:

When phonological awareness instruction was direct, explicit, and systematic, the resulting brain patterns of struggling readers became similar to those of children who had learned to read without difficulty (Berninger et al., 2003).

So...what am I working on?

A phonological awareness product with lots of awesome graphics to engage students who are struggling with these skills!

Can't wait to share it!! I'm 1/4 of the way done!! Here's a preview of a rhyming discrimination page:

Do any of you have a program like this in your school?

 

 

Category Fun! Sorting, Describing, and Making Associations!

I have another product!! I am really excited to use this one when school is back in session!

How many students do you have that are working on categories? I have a TON! Category naming, naming items in categories, making associations, describing with category and function, etc. The list goes on and on!

This product is an easy way to address those types of goals. Here's one page of objects with adorable graphics:





There are 24 different object cards that belong in 6 different categories. For this product, I included zoo animals, insects, tools, ocean animals, fruit, and school supplies. There are sorting mats to work on sorting items into categories and task cards to address various goals. The task cards ask students to name items that belong in a particular category, name something that "goes together" with an object, or describe 1+ element of a particular object. Those cards look like this:

This is my first product that I am actually offering for sale. It's $1.30, BUT you can win a copy by entering my Rafflecopter Contest! Enter today!







a Rafflecopter giveaway

Day 4: Monster Emotions FREEBIE!

I work with many students with autism who find it difficult to make connections between the emotions they are having and the vocabulary to express it. Today, I have another free resource for you: Monster Emotions. I must say, I ADORE these monster graphics. They are so cute! I will be using these cards to help my students learn more about emotions this coming school year. I can imagine some pretty funny role-playing/charades-like activities with these cards!

Here's a preview for you:

Hope you enjoy! Download it here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Free-Monster-Emotion-Vocabulary-Cards-1294536

I also have had several students that can identify emotions in pictures, cartoons, and others, but cannot label it when it comes to their own emotions. In the past, I have used a mirror, so that whenever they are having a feeling, I can show them what they look like to help them recognize what they look/feel like when happy, sad, angry, or mad. Does anyone else have some ideas for helping children learn how to identify emotions in themselves?

Have a wonderful day!
Grace

Day 3: Free Vocabulary Cards for School Supplies!

Another day, another freebie for you!

Today, I made some cute vocabulary cards to help students learn school supplies. I've included 12 different supplies, surrounded by a colorful polka-dot border! Here's an example of what one page looks like:

 

 

I have many students working on categories, guessing objects from clues, describing, naming, etc. I plan on using these cards when school starts...

 

Speaking of which...my countdown app says summer is over in 40 days!

 

 

I'm really enjoying my summer with my two boys and don't want it to end. We go back August 5th. How about you?

 

Here's a link to my vocabulary cards for school supplies: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Vocabulary-Cards-for-School-Supplies-for-Back-to-School-1292834

 

Enjoy!!!

 

Grace



Articulation FREEBIE! Day 2!

I have another FREEBIE for you! This is a fun, summer-themed articulation product for S, R, L, and TH. I have a lot of first and second grade groups with these target sounds. I never have an all R group or an all S group so I like to have these games that have many different target sounds. I hope you can use this now if you're doing summer school or if (like me) you are back to school in August.

I made 30 /s/ cards, with 10 cards in each position of a word. All the /s/ cards are red beach balls and look like this:

 

I also made 30 /r/ cards, 30 /l/ cards, and 30 voiceless and voiced TH cards, all color coded for sounds! I hope you can use these with your students!

The second to last page is a sorting mat to help students hear their sound(s) in words. It can also be used to organize your cards and make it easier for you to select a target for a particular student. The last page is a simple board game:

What do you think? What could make this more useful for you? Do you have suggestions for improvement?

Go to my TPT store and check it out! Download the game here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Summer-Themed-Articulation-Game-for-S-R-L-and-TH-Sounds-FREEBIE-1289856

And, last but not least, thank you to Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs for the very nice rainbow beach ball clip art!

FREEBIE! My First Freebie- Visual Directions for a Craftivity!

Today I am sharing with you my very first freebie!

Back in May, I made these adorable Mother's Day cards with my transition room students.

I used a free product from TPT to create a paper flower craft. You can find that product here: Flower Bouquet from Therapy Fun Zone's TPT store. The file includes templates for various parts of a flower that you can print onto pink, white, red, and green paper to make different designs. Yay! No color printing! Therapy Fun Zone is allowing me to post a complement to their product: visual directions to help students follow simple 1-step directions involving cutting, gluing, sizes, and colors. (Thank you Therapy Fun Zone!)

I made a Prezi with pictures of me completing each step to help the students follow the directions with as few verbal prompts as possible.

(By the way, Prezi is an awesome app to use! You can make beautiful presentations on your iPad with minimal time/effort!)

The students were required to read the directions aloud (if able) and then follow them without prompts. We worked on requesting, following directions, fine motor skills, sequencing, event retell, and receptive understanding of shapes, color, plant parts, and size. AND we had fun doing it! Here's an example of one of the pages:

My transition room students all made beautiful flowers for their mothers and required minimal assistance from adults to complete this project. With these students, we are always striving to decrease their dependence on adults for prompts, assistance, and cues. What a great way to do that!

How could you use this product? Who will you use it for? Go to my TPT store to grab it!

Grace

Clusters Complex App Review

App Name/Developer: Clusters Complex Pro by Jennifer Taps Richard, M.A., CCC-SLP of SLPath

In my post yesterday, I discussed the complexity approach and how treating clusters can lead to changes with affricates, fricatives, and stops. Amazing! This handy apps allows you to have fantastic photos of 10 complex clusters to help engage students in a fun and interactive way. The app is on sale through June 30th for $34.99. After that, the price will be $49.99 so buy it now!

Main Page

 

 

The main page contains 16 buttons to link you to student profiles, sessions, help, evidence-based practice, SLPath, quickstarts for the 10 complex clusters, and backup & restore.

Students: If you press the Students button, you go to a page to set up your students' information. There is a "?" button at the top to help you. Press "+" and enter information about that student. You can add a picture of the student, as well as first name, last name, birthday, classroom, miscellaneous notes, and their targets. It also includes a history of that student's performance on past sessions. The age is automatically calculated when the birthday is entered.

Here is a screen shot of how it will look:

By the way, my husband doesn't actually have that rockin' mustache (it's an app)


Before working with students, I would input this data, as this part can take awhile.

Sessions: When you click on the Sessions button, you can start a session by pressing the "+" sign. The screen will look like this:

Name the session and select the students that are attending the session. Under Student Settings, you can customize settings for individual students. You can choose whether or not you want to randomize the display of words, phrases, and sentences. According to motor learning theory, once the child has established the sound in words or CV syllables, you want to randomly have them produce that sound in words, phrases, and sentences. You can choose to work on words, phrases, and/or sentences, and choose what targets you want to address. It will look like this:

 

 

Once your students are set up, you can click on the "Session Settings" button to choose a theme (soccer, dogs, ballerinas- there are many to choose from!), session length, colored border, sound effects, theme video, and criteria for playing the theme video. The colored border is used to differentiate between the different targets and is one added visual that can be used. A theme video can be played at the end of the session and you can set the % accuracy the student needs to get in order to see the video.

Now you're ready to go! Click "Begin Session."

Treatment Sessions:
Clusters Complex uses photographs for target stimuli which is great for carryover for those on the autism spectrum. Here's an example page during a session using the "dog" theme:

If you press on the picture, it will read the word, phrase, or sentence for the child. You can click the check mark if the student produces it correctly, the "x" if the student produces incorrectly, the red circle to record the student's production, and the green triangle to play the recording. The red hand can be used at any time to stop the session. The numbers at the top of the screen in green and red indicate how many correct versus incorrect responses the student has had. Swipe to go to the next picture. The app will take turns displaying target stimuli for the students you have set up for the session and will display the student's name before his/her turn.

When you're ready to end the session, press the red hand or let the cards run out. The app will then provide feedback to individual students, showing the student how many were correct/could do better. It will look like this:

 

You can then click on the student's profile to access data on what words were correct/incorrect and audio files. This can all be emailed from the page. When you're finished reviewing the data, press the up arrow to return to the home screen.

Help: On the main page, you can access help that provides information on how to set up students and start sessions. Each page also has a detailed help button for that particular page.

Evidence-Based Practice: If you press this button, the authors provide you with references that support the use of 2- and 3-element clusters to affect change with clusters, affricates, fricatives, and stops. In addition, all target words used are provided so that you can choose alternate words for probes to measure progress.

SLPath: This will, in the future, provide you with updates of new developments from SLPath.

FL, FR, SKR, SHR, SL, SPL, SPR, SKW, STR, THR Quickstart: These buttons allow you to focus on 1 target and start quickly without having to set up a full session; however, only one student's data will be tracked when using this option. The data is not linked back to students that you have already set up. You can email the data to keep track of it, if needed.

Backup & Restore: This button allows you to back up your information and restore data if needed. The authors recommend that you also use iTunes to backup your information regularly.

What I like now:

• Well thought out target words with earlier developing sounds in the rest of the word so student can focus on cluster production 
• Beautiful photographs of target words
• Can individualize for each student's targets and level
• Multiple students can use the app at one time
• The app takes data and records it; this data can be emailed and/or viewed within the app
• Video rewards for success are motivating

What I would like to see in the future:

• As it stands now, the app can only be used for drill and practice; however the author has plans to update it frequently and add a card matching component
• A graphing option so that data can be viewed from multiple sessions in a parent-friendly way
• A easy-to-access/quick view of all the student's session data instead of having to click on an individual session history to see the data
• It would be nice to be able to select session dates and get an average % correct across those dates- would make it much easier during progress report writing time!

Therapy Uses:

• Phonology/Articulation: I would primarily use this app to work with students with phonological or articulation-based goals. If using the complexity approach, a wide variety of goals could be addressed by using this app, including errors with stops, fricatives, affricates, and blends/clusters.
• Expressive Language: You know how we always have strangely mixed groups! I could use this app to work on describing/EET with my language students if I have a mixed group.
• Fluency/Voice: Students could say the words, phrases, sentences using a strategy learned.
• Social Skills: You could use this app to work on turn taking skills with multiple students.

Disclaimer: Spunky Speech was given a copy of this application to review. No other form of compensation was given.

WSJ Article Calls Us "Low-Tech"

Did y'all read that article in the WSJ that called our field "low-tech" and suggested that parents can fix sound system disorders using apps at home?!?!?!

Sign the petition: https://www.change.org/petitions/avery-johnson-retract-new-speech-therapy-tools-make-practicing-at-home-easier  to get this article retracted and protect our professionalism!

And if you want to get really fired up, read the article: http://online.wsj.com/articles/new-speech-therapy-tools-make-practicing-at-home-easier-1402061561

Clusters Complex App Review Coming Soon!

Wow- life is amazing! Ask and you shall receive!

Jennifer Taps Richard, MA, CCC-SLP (who is an amazing speaker- go see her if you have the chance!) just came out with a new app targeting complex clusters. I emailed her and asked about reviewing her app and she said, "Yes!" Yay! So, I am playing around with it now and will be doing a full write up within the next day or two. From what I see so far, I like it! Go to her website: http://slpath.com/apps.html to learn more!

Why complex clusters? Because the complexity approach makes sense! Teach what is hard and you will see global changes! There is more evidence about this approach than the traditional normative approach that we use in Missouri. This is the theory: teach non-stimulable, phonetically complex, later-developing sounds to see changes with multiple sounds. This will increase your efficiency significantly!

So you need to know a little about phonemic laws to understand why using complex clusters makes sense:

1. Affricates imply fricatives: if student has errors with both, teach affricates first to see changes with affricates and fricatives.

For example: Joey has errors with "ch" and "sh." Teach "ch" to see changes with "ch" and "sh." So efficient!

2. Fricatives imply stops: if student has errors with fricatives and stops, teach fricatives to see changes with both.

For example: Sarah has errors with /s, z, k, and g/. Teach /s/ and /z/ to see changes with /s, z, k, and g/.

3. Liquids imply nasals: if student has errors with nasals and liquids, teach liquids to see changes with liquids and nasals.

For example: Johnny has "ng" and /l/ errors. Teach /l/ and look for changes in /l/ and "ng."

4. Voiced obstruents (fricatives, affricates, stops) imply voiceless obstruents: start with voiced and look for changes with voiceless.

For example: Mary has errors with /s/ and /z/. Teach /z/ first and look for changes with /s/.

5. THE BIGGIE! Clusters imply singletons and affricates...therefore, teaching clusters will cause changes with affricates, fricatives, and stops!

For example: Scott has errors with /l/ and /r/ blends, /s, z, k, and g/. Teach /l/ clusters and look for changes with /s, z, k, and g/!

6. 3 element clusters (e.g. /skr/ or /spl/) imply all other clusters. Teach 3 element clusters and look for changes with clusters, affricates, fricatives, and stops! BUT (caveat) the child MUST have the 2nd and 3rd consonant in his/her phonemic inventory for this to work.

For example: Jake has all sounds in his phonemic inventory as singletons, but clusters are hard. Treat with /spl/ and/or /str/ to see global changes with all cluster types. Jake needs to have /p, l, t, and r/ as singletons in his inventory to be able to do this.


SO, in conclusion, treating with complex consonant clusters will lead to global changes and increase your efficiency as an SLP. Which means you are getting students off your caseload faster and kickin' butt! Go to Jennifer Taps Richard's website to learn more (http://slpath.com/) and go see her speak!!!

My First Post!

I've been throwing the idea of starting my own SLP blog and TPT store for awhile now. It's summer and I have some extra time on my hands and I find myself unable to sit still! Let me introduce myself:

My name is Grace and I live in St. Louis, Missouri. I have been happily married for 7 years and have two boys, ages almost 5 and 2.

O & C showing some brotherly love

O messing with his diggers

              

 

We also have an Aussie-Poo named Wyatt. We love living in St. Louis and all it has to offer- free zoo, history museum, art museum, and science museum, plus countless family activities at your finger tips. We love it here!

I work out in St. Charles County at an elementary (K-5) school. It's a bit of a commute, so we're looking at moving closer. Also, my son starts kindergarten in the fall, and there are few options for public school in the city. I am 1 of 2 SLPs in my building and work with K-2 students as well as our transition room students. I work with a wide variety of students on my caseload and love my school!

In 2005, I graduated from Washington University with my bachelor's in Psychology and Biology. I tried working in a neuroscience lab for a bit, but found I was too far removed from helping others. We worked with microscopic worms that looked like this:

Yuck! I looked at these things so much under the microscope that I would see them moving whenever I closed my eyes! It was a lonely job and our work with neurons was far from making medicines. I decided I needed to look for another job - a job that would allow me to directly help others. A bit of soul searching and a Myers-Briggs test pointed me in the direction of speech pathology.

In 2009, I started taking the pre-requisite courses for the SLP grad program at Fontbonne University. I applied for grad school in the spring of 2010 and was accepted (with a scholarship!). I graduated with my master's in 2012 and found a job about a month later. I've been working for 2 years and think this is the job for me! I love how there are always challenges. It forces me to be a life-long learner and I LOVE learning!

That's all for now! Tell me a little bit about you!