EET It!

Earlier this school year I attended a conference in Baton Rouge for our state school-based speech/language pathologists. At this conference I had the priviledge of listening to Sara Smith present on her product, The Expanding Expression Tool (EET). I was impressed with what she had to say that I decided to write a grant to purchase the kit along with other accessory items. I have been using the EET for the past few weeks and I have to say, I am blown away! Since the conference, I have been in contact with Sara and asked if she would guest post on our blog so that we could assist in spreading the word about this awesome tool - and of course, she agreed!! :)

Looking for a way to help your students achieve improved oral language and writing? The Expanding Expression Tool™ (EET) can help. The EET is a hands on approach that is being used in both general and special education classrooms (preschool through college) to build both oral and written language.

What makes Expanding Expression unique is that we use a simple multisensory approach that guarantees quick results!! This tool can be used for general DESCRIPTIONS AND VOCABULARY, INFORMATIONAL WRITING, AUTOBIOGRAPHIES/BIOGRAPHIES, SUMMARIZING and more.

The EET Kit helps to build the following language skills:

·         Oral expression

·         Written expression

·         Vocabulary comprehension

·         Defining and describing

·         Making associations

·         Stating functions of objects

·         Categorization

·         Similarities and differences

*Students quickly learn each symbol and consistently describe and define objects and items providing 6-7 details in an organized manner.

The

Expanding Expression Tool Kit is designed to be used by teachers, literacy coaches, reading specialists, parents, speech-language pathologists and other specialists to support academics. Language arts is essential for academic success. It is at the heart of each curriculum area. Without oral language, students may have difficulty organizing information while speaking, writing, or pulling valuable information from their reading material.

They may have trouble defining or describing vocabulary or objects. The Expanding Expression Tool was designed to make things easier for all students. It provides structure for the struggling student and

enhances the skills of those students already strong in the language arts area. The Expanding Expression Tool provides students with a hands-on approach to describing and defining. As a mnemonic device, it provides visual and tactile information which facilitates improved language organization. The kit itself is designed to allow you to follow a hierarchical approach taking student's expression from words to paragraphs to reports. Therefore, it can be used by a variety of ages.

The kit consists of the Expanding Expression Tool, a manual, stickers for written expression, object cards for describing activities and a poster. The Expanding Expression Tool is color symbol coded. Students learn the code and from this code are able to provide detailed descriptions including the following elements: the category the item belongs to, the function of the object, the appearance, what the item is made of, the parts of the item, and its location.

* Entire schools have adopted the program to facilitate improved expression and comprehension.

*It allows students to quickly progress from word to phrase to paragraph to multi-paragraph levels.

THE LATEST NEWS: White pine academy in Leslie, MI reported that their 4^th grade writing scores went up 32% from using the EET (press release), Sheryl Stone (educator in Rockford Public Schools) introduced the EET to teachers in orphan schools in Zambia Africa, The EET is being used in over 10,000 classrooms across the United States, Canada, and Australia.

For more information and to order visit us at www.expandingexpression.com

For elementary school

and cognitively impaired students, a new learning tool is taking the intimidation out of the blank page when it comes time to write. The Expanding Expression Tool™, or EET . . . helps students describe objects and organize their writing say local teachers.

“This is the best writing

I’ve ever gotten out of any group,” said a teacher who has taught second grade for seven years. After comparing pre-EET and post-EET writing samples, she credited the tool for pushing her students from one-word answers and drawings to seven sentence descriptive paragraphs.

“What I love,

because of the way it’s going around, are teachers running into other teachers and nding out they’re using it,” said speech pathologist Gail Morris, from Jackson County ISD. “It’s a gold mine for provoking writing and self-questioning.” Morris said some of

her students have improved dramatically and returned to regular classrooms.

(Above excerpts from: Jackson County Citizen Patriot, by Tony Gonzalez)


If you have not tried the EET yet, I highly encourage you to do so; you won't be disappointed!!

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??

Live from Hurricane Isaac....

Hurricane Katrina
2005

I love using monthly themes throughout the year ... A weather unit in September seems natural, especially in South Louisiana, when tropical storms and hurricanes are the norm.

So here we are, at the end of August with a hurricane upon us. Since school was cancelled for today and tomorrow, I figured I'd spruce up my hurricane powerpoint and share it with you! You can grab it here or on our Free Download page.



During the month of September, I not only cover hurricanes but weather in general. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is a great story to start off the month! The kids love the story (and so do I). Here is a creative worksheet Anna created that asks the kids, "Would you rather it rain ____ or meatballs?" and then elaborate on it with words and/or a picture. Here is a link to an entire lesson plan on Cloudy.

I also have a set of Wild Weather Vocabulary Readers which include six copies of six different books: Tornadoes!, Floods!, Blizzards!, Lightening!, Hurricanes!, and Weather!. I usually focus on one book per week. Each book has wonderful photos and reading comprehension questions!

Well I hope everyone stays safe and I'll see ya back here soon :)

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs

Most kids know the traditional story of the three little pigs. Many do NOT know the true story though! I love using these two stories to work on identifying story elements such as characters, theme, settings, etc. I first start with the traditional story of the three little pigs. I use this time to assess what the students already know about this story and their ability to sequence the events. We take a couple sessions to go through the story, learn the sequence, talk about feelings of the characters, predictions and outcomes.

After the students have a feel for the traditional story, I move on to the book written by Jon Scieszka "The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs." This is probably one of my favorite books and activities to do with the kids. The story is from the perspective of Mr. A. Wolf. The story is not only funny, but gives another side to the characters. The students learn that there always two sides to the same story!!

Here are just some of the things we discuss while reading and analyzing this story:

• Compare and Contrast of characters, setting and outcome (I use venn diagrams as a visual of course)
• Discussion of character actions (do the students buy what A. Wolf is selling or do they believe the 3 Little Pigs?)
• Predictions throughout the reading of the story
• Discussion of alternate endings (I like for the students to try to come up with their own endings)

Finally, I end the activity with the students choosing a side. If they choose to believe A. Wolf then they are to come up with a poster to free A. Wolf from jail. However, if they choose to believe the 3 Little Pigs then they are to create a Wanted poster for A. Wolf (this is often then one they choose). After the students complete their posters we of course hang them around the room. The students always have a great time with this story and often learn a lot of new vocabulary and language skills along the way!!