Keeping in touch with your student's parents/guardians

I've found that making a phone call home or sending an e-mail to your student's family members can sometimes be less than successful. Although progress reports are due every 9 weeks (seriously!?), sometimes we have the over-achieving parents or the completely absent parents who need to be updated more frequently on the progress (or lack of) of their child. I've created a simple form  to keep up. Pinterest has a ton of other ideas, however, the one I created is simple and when you print it out, you can make it double sided.

Enjoy!

Speech Cards Review

Anna and I decided to review a new app for you....Speech Cards Professional from RWH Technology. You can get this fabulous app in the app store for only $4.99!! This is a GREAT app I think you all should get! It's so inexpensive and you can use it with virtually every student on your caseload!

Here's what we loved about the app:

• The speech card app is an easy, simple, fantastic app that allows the user to utilize the existing cards as well as create their own.
• The app is user-friendly in that it is easy to navigate, with large print, bright colors, and a very helpful manual.
• It comes with four basic card stacks: animals, food, initial /p/, and CVC words.
• The user can add their own photos from their library to use with their self-generated card stack.
• You can also select multiple card stacks to use within the session to increase the variety.
• You can record your voice for each card stack.
• Once you create your own card stacks, you can e-mail them to other users with the app.

This is an easy, simple and user-friendly app, as well as child-friendly! The older students can be in charge of their card stacks and these can be used as characters from stories, vocabulary, sight words, or anything you need them to be.

We would like to see, however, a "take photo" option or an "add google image" option, as seen on some other apps.

There are so many uses for this app:

• Articulation Cards
• Communication Photo Book
• Categories
• Literacy
• Social Stories
• And much, much more!!!

Check out our App Page to download this app today!!

CCSS Articulation Activity

This is an easy activity that I came up with to address articulation objectives while incorporating the common core state standards. I have to first give credit to my wonderful graduate clinician, Samantha Barksdale, for telling me about this awesome graphic organizer.

First, you take the paper (or cardstock - which we used) and fold it like a hot dog (vertically). Then, you cut strips on the top fold (10 down).

From here, you have several options/activities you can do depending on the skill level of your student. Have the students look up words with their sound in the dictionary. Then have them write the word on the top of the strip and open to write the definition.

If your student has difficulty writing, you can use one session to collaboratively find words in the dictionary that have his/her sound. Then print those words along with the definition for the next session where the student can paste onto each strip.

My students really enjoyed this activity because they were in control of what words they practiced! You can also use this as a language activity to address vocabulary words the students are learning in the classroom.

So what are you doing to incorporate the CCSS into therapy??

Data Logs & Daily Notes

I'm sure if you ask a hundred speech therapists what they do for data and taking notes, you would get a hundred different answers. Everyone takes their daily notes differently and everyone takes data differently. The most important thing, is that you DO! Your lessons and student goals/objectives are driven by the data you take (qualitative and/or quantitative). I wanted to share with you how I keep up with my daily notes and data.





Here's my clipboard with my schedule in a protective sleeve on top; under my schedule are the labels I use for my daily notes. I use these labels because it is easier to keep everything on the clipboard, rather than a binder (plus you don't have to flip back and forth when taking data on multiple students).  You can find a template with these labels here (the labels are 2"x4" shipping labels); Anna also posted about these and you can find her version here.

Each label has a place for the Student's Name (of course), Date, Time that you see the student (important for medicaid billing/auditing), Objective/s that you're working on for that session, and finally, room for your data.

At the end of the day, I simply place the labels on each student's "Lesson Plan/Progress Monitoring" page.

Each student has a page like this; it details the student identification at the top, as well as, how the student's will be monitored, what types of activities there will be and if the student has any accommodations/modifications. Prior to this page, I have the individual student instructional plan page (right off the IEP site - 'cause that's what's easiest and less time consuming). Student's are in alphabetical order and kept in a binder.

This is the easiest and most efficient way for me to collect data during my therapy sessions. In order for me to know what I'm targeting for that session, I use my Lesson Plan binder I spoke about in my post Let's Get Organized!

I hope this helps you in your practice; please feel free to share what you do!!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Sorry for the title ... had to though ... I L.O.V.E. movies! and it's way past my bedtime....but gotta finish watching my Tigers play some Saturday Night Football!! Geaux Tigers!

Any way, I just wanted to say Congratulations to Denise for winning the Conversation Builder app and Nya for winning the Question Builder app. I hope you enjoy the apps Kyle over at Mobile Education Store provided!

If you have not checked out his site, please do so; he has some amazing apps!! You can download Conversation Builder/Question Builder along with other cool apps by visiting our App Page :)

Healthy Vocal Habits

"BOBBY! COME HERE!!!!!!"

These days we all find ourselves raising our voices from time to time at the children we brought into the world and even sometimes at the children we work with day to day. Over time, all the screaming, along with other environmental factors, can make a heavy impact on our voices!  This summer I had the very special opportunity to learn all about voice from THE specialist of our state at a local voice clinic. I learned some really fascinating things about head and neck cancer, vocal nodules/"singer's nodules," and tracheo-oesophageal punctures (TEP), dysphonia, and many other voice disorders.  

I picked up some very valuable tips from my supervisor about how to maintain healthy vocal hygiene and I'd like to share some of those with you.  

Tips for healthy vocal hygiene for your children!

Does this look familiar?

• Instead of shouting across a room, get closer to the person you are trying to talk to 

• Designate time out of the day for quiet time where there is no talking at all (every hour, for ten minutes, or three times a day for 30 minutes, for example)

• Draw, paint, color, type, or scribble thoughts or ideas down to talk to mom or dad about 

• Don't whisper! Whispering makes the voice worse. Instead, use softer voice that still makes sound, but with little effort.

• Read a book to yourself instead of out loud during quiet time

• Drink lots and lots of water!

Enjoy! And use healthy voice habits!

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