In Spontaneous Speech

The Time Has Come

27 Jun

June 27, 2024 Cindy 0

All good things must come to an end and so it is with this site. I am writing this last post to let you know that the blog will be discontinued in the coming months when my subscription runs out. There are many reasons why I decided it was time to do this. It is difficult to come up with new material since I no longer work with students. It seems that video platforms have taken over and blogs are no longer that popular. The hosting fees for the site keep going up. I get more spam hits then legitimate users. So, If you want any of the free downloads, you need to down load them for personal storage. My Teachers Pay Teachers store will still be available.

My Teachers Pay Teachers Store

So if any of my viewers are still out there, thankyou for the times you interacted with this site. I enjoyed visiting with you. I hope you found the materials useful.

Starting a New School Year with Your Speech Students

29 Jul

July 29, 2023 Cindy 0

A school year often starts by getting acquainted with new students. You may know nothing about them except for a check mark indicating special education services on the registration records. Often the record hasn’t been updated for a year and isn’t very accurate. If you hit the jackpot, you might actually get a record containing a current evaluation and the last progress report.

I love when parents have kept all the paperwork and can give you updated paperwork from the previous school. In some cases, technology has improved the ability to get current records by linking records across schools. Sometimes it takes weeks before everything comes together. Meanwhile, you need to figure out what your students need so you can form your schedule and help teachers meet the needs in their classrooms.

To start out the new year, I usually take out one of my conversation ice breakers. It gets students talking and gives you an idea of where to start with them in the coming year. One of my favorites is a suction cup ball you often find at Target, The Dollar Store, Walmart, or any party favors section of a store. You could also use a dice or spinner with numbers.

I really like the suction ball. Everyone likes to throw a ball at a target and it is quite engaging even for reluctant students.

You then have them help you write questions and number them. Here are some examples: 1. Did you take a road trip during the summer? 2. Did you learn anything fun? 3. Did you get anything new? 4. Did you eat any fun foods? 5. Did you see any movies? 6. Did you read any books?

I draw a target on a white board with an erasable marker making a few rings and target areas. I label the rings with numbers 1-6.

Students take turns throwing the ball at the target and answering the questions according to the area hit. Fellow students are then asked to think up a follow up question according to the answer and topic.

I like this activity because students of any age and ability can do it. I have plenty of opportunities to observe their speech and language skills. I can observe students in a mixed group and see how they interact. I can use this activity to see how a student answers questions, stays on topic, and contributes to a topic that has already been started. It goes fairly quickly because turns do not take long.

I hope you have a good beginning to your new school year.

Refresher for Stuttering Therapy Skills

20 Jun

June 20, 2023 Cindy 0

It is finally summer break. Those last few weeks are always such a whirlwind trying to get everything completed. It is hard to think of plans for some of out students who receive summer services. This was a popular post a number of years ago so I decided to bring it back up to the top to see if it would help with someones plans.

It seems that every school district I have worked for over the years has difficulty providing relevant training for the SLP staff. The best year was when the district SLPs took control over the situation. One of my fellow SLPs had sent for the Six DVD Series from The Stuttering Foundation entitled Stuttering Therapy: Practical Ideas for the School Clinician. We obtained permission to use it for our training during spring inservice times.

I highly recommend this series if you need a refresher for Stuttering Therapy. It addressed therapy with preschoolers all the way to adulthood. It lived up to its title and provided a lot of practical therapy activities. They still have thiss series as of this posting. They presented video clips of real therapy sessions which was very helpful. Most of the speakers identified themselves as stutterers which made it even more credible to me.

One of my students was a third grader who appeared to take his therapy sessions quite seriously. I wanted to get him to lighten up a bit. One of the suggestions for identification and voluntary stuttering was to use spray bottles and spray each other when stuttered words were heard. The words could be a real stutter or a voluntary stutter it didn’t matter. I thought this sounded like the perfect activity for the last therapy session.

I just happened to have mini water sprayers given as party favors about 10 years ago. Did I mention I never throw anything out because you just don’t know when it will become useful. Well they turned out to be the perfect thing. The above picture makes them look bigger than they are. They held about 3 tablespoons of water so we couldn’t get too soaked. You may be able to find something similar where you purchase party favors for children’s parties.

My student couldn’t believe he could spray me. After a few good squirts from my bottle he didn’t hold back. To see his eyes light up and have fun with stuttering made my day. I am sure he will remember it when we start again next school year.

Spring is for the Birds

5 May

May 5, 2023 Cindy 0

Spring is for the birds. This was a “following directions activity” as well as introducing idioms for the older students. I posted this quite a few years back. Originally, I put the birds up on a bulletin board I had in the hallway. Students from all grades would pass by and comment on it. I decided to update it since the directions were a digital book and the link no longer worked.

I converted the directions to a pdf. This allows you to present the directions to your students in different ways. You can get the pdf here.

My older students had a homework component. I made flyers with idioms printed on them and they either wrote or told me the meaning after researching it. Here is the flyer. Bird phrases.

This was the look of the bulletin board at the end. The birds are suppose to be sitting on wires.

Social Skill Activity Using Tangram Puzzles

17 Feb

February 17, 2023 Cindy 0

A Tangram Puzzle is an old Chinese tile game that consists of seven geometric shapes called tans. The tans usually consist of a square, 5 triangles and a parallelogram. The shapes can be used to form various shapes and designs. I used the original square but also developed a Shamrock puzzle for a lesson that was presented in March.

These puzzles work great as a cooperative activity for social skills groups. It is a good activity to work on problem solving, seeing another person’s perspective, using directive language and cooperating within a group. I recommend using the square first because the shamrock tends to be more difficult for the studernts to figure out. Hopefully you have a chance to work on social skills, observe your students in action, encourage their social development and get a break from lesson planning.

To begin the activity you need a square puzzle printed out on cardstock for each student in the group. Look at the bottom of the post for the pattern. Have them cut the square apart into individual shapes.

At its simplest level each student mixes their pieces up into a pile and then puts them back together into a square shape. The difficulty and need for interaction can be increased by having students mix their pieces of the puzzle with other students. They choose puzzle pieces from the mix and then try to put their square back together again. This forces students to look at the pieces they have and what other students have. It will require them to negotiate and trade for the pieces they need to make the original square.

There are two free downloads for this activity. One is the square pattern and the other is a shamrock pattern . I hope your students learn from and enjoy this activity.

Square Tangram pattern

Shamrock Tangram pattern