I am ecstatic to share the wonderful news that my Donors Choose Project has been fully funded! I feel extremely grateful for all of your support. My students will enjoy using a new literacy center within my speech classroom once the MRF school building re-opens its doors. I am looking forward to that fateful day when I can see all of my students in person again! ❤️📚✏️ #donorschoose  #strongertogether

Distance Learning has begun! Please refer to this list in order to utilize some helpful online educational resources at home. I'm looking forward to seeing several of my students for online video conference sessions throughout this next month. We are going to make the best of this time by working through this together with strength, creativity, and a positive spirit!

During this new period of adjustment, we can all be strong and get through this time together! I have already been starting distance learning with my students and we have a successful plan in place. Please refer to this list in order to utilize some helpful online educational resources! 

My students recently solved language riddles and puzzles before participating in fun gold hunts. Since scool has closed, I miss seeing these very enthusiastic learners and creative thinkers! Fortunately, we are able to remain in good communication through the art of successful distance learning! 🍀 🎩 

It is helpful to practice social skills (topic maintenance, taking turns, etc.) through the use of social games and cue cards. Children make the most progress when they are able to practice several types of conversations with peers (asking questions, making comments, answering questions, initiating a topic, maintaining a topic, etc.) when given various levels of cueing. "Super Duper Inc." and "Teachers Pay Teachers" have several helpful social skill resources and games to help students practice these types of pragmatic-language skills.

STEM projects are the latest academic trend and judging by their results it is easy to see the reasons why.  STEM stands for ”Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.”  By incorporating a group project that tie together these key concepts as part of a speech lesson, students are able to work together on a motivating activity. They first enter into a group discussion, while using critical thinking skills to formulate a hypothesis and solve a problem. Our latest STEM project consisted of making turkey traps after reading the humorous story ”How To Catch A Turkey” by Adam Wallace and Andy Ellerton. The goal was to catch a turkey in order for it to be our speech mascot- very similar to the plot of our short story. The children used several materials including cardboard boxes, string, pipe cleaners, aluminum foil, construction paper, markers, masking tape, etc. I am very proud of all of my students who worked well together to express innovative ideas and build such creative designs for their turkey traps. “Talkative Tellie the Turkey” is now the official mascot for our speech classroom! ☺️🦃🍁

Did you know that the more conversations you share and valuable play time you spend with your child, the more language he/she absorbs? Try pairing simple short phrases, sentences, and even questions during fun, motivating activities together. For example- My son Anthony and I recently enjoyed this step-by-step food activity together in his Pre-K classroom. The task was to choose an animal to replicate with listed food items. During the activity I would either express in a sentence the action he was completing (sentence modeling) or I would ask him to find various items for our next task: "You are spreading the peanut butter", "I am puting the bagel on the plate", "Can you give me two strawberries?", "Put the blueberry on the banana slice." During moments when he wanted a little more assistance, I would step in when needed. At the end of each hands-on activity, try to give a brief recap in words of the steps you followed to get to the end result (example: ”First we got a bagel, Next we spread the peanut butter . . . , etc.”  A language overview summarizing all of the steps is always helpful. Anthony did an excellent job during this project and he later enthusiastically shared with his Dada at home all the ingredients he used to make his special owl snack! 🦉👍

Focus on a student’s strengths when teaching the differences among ”Who?”, ”What?”, ”Where?”, ”When?”, and ”Why?” questions. For example if a student is a more visual learner, try to color code the questions and use a variety of visual cue cards. Try to empower the student by having him/her help choose the given pictures and colors for each cue card.  Another helpful strategy includes having the student highlight correct answers within photocopied stories using the same highlighted color for each type of question. If a student is more of an auditory learner, make sure to frequently repeat information and provide several spoken models. Finally, if a student is more of a tactile-kinesthetic learner, try to provide manipulatives that the child can hold to help him/her recall the differences among the lines of questioning. A total communication approach can also be implemented to help the students learn using several of their senses- senses of sight, hearing, and touch! 

Alternative Augmentative communication devices are often used when a child exhibits difficulties expressing his/her wants and needs. Proloquo 2 is a communication iPad application with visual picture symbols that enables a child to make desired requests. Voice output features are also included so that a child can receive multi-modality information in the forms of touching the buttons, hearing spoken labels, and seeing the pictured symbols. I am currectly using this device with one of my students and he has made tremendous progress with his communication skills!

This year my professional goals focus on the affects that speech sound disorders have on phonological awareness and reading skills.  Research has shown that young elementary school  students with speech sound disorders are at an increased risk of developing some form of phonological skill weakness, which often leads to futher reading difficulties. I will be in close collaboration with two of the school’s reading specialists and we will be sharing word lists, speech and reading activities, as well as data from our students’ progress. We will also be utilizing several of David Kilpatrick’s phonogical skill exercises during our student sessions. We are excited to undertake these professional goals and research projects together to determine whether a shared multi-modal team approach to speech and reading will garner increased progress within these skill areas. 

Speech Apraxia is a neurological condition that results in a disconnected signal sent from the brain to the oral-motor mouth muscles during speech production.  In order to help strengthen this pathway, speech therapists often complete a special set of exercises involving various sound pattern combinations (e.q., CV, VC, CVC, CCVC, CVCC, etc.).  Oral muscle weakness is not involved with this particular condition. These “Say and Do” worksheets from the Super Duper Inc. contain an excellent series of sound combinations for a child to practice each day.  In time, the student’s neurological pathways for speech production gradually strengthen.

Let’s Go Fishing!!!

One of the best ways to build a child’s expressive language skills is through repeated practice. Since these kinds of exercises and grammar drills can become monotonous at times, it helps to include motivating games like the one shown above. ”Go Fishing” is a fun game that includes different action pictures in back of every fish. The goal is to obtain two fish with the same exact picture. The child then expresses a complete sentence using the verbs ”is” or ”are” (e.g., ”He is reading book, She is swimming in the pool, etc.). Try incorporating these fun learning games at home as well. This particular language game can be purchased at www.superduperinc.com

How are you feeling? 

Did you know that how a student is feeling has a direct impact on their ability to learn?  I always keep a chart listing different emotions at the front of my classroom.  It is helpful for students to identify a wide range of feelings, that are also represented by picures. I often utilize this chart when discussing character emotions and exploring the different feelings my own students are experiencing on a daily basis. If one of my students is feeling a little nervous, I often provide a 5 minute sensory break to help calm the body. If a few students tell me they feel tired and unmotivated, I break up the typical flow of the session with a fun learning game or movement break. It is very important to always be aware and in tune with how your students are feeling.  By tapping into those feelings and modifying your lesson as you see fit, you are providing another important bridge to learning in a very positive way for your students.

In my professional experience, students often demonstrate more progress when utilizing tactile, hands-on activities. One example includes using the motivating iPad app. “Fun With Verbs and Sentences.” Children have the opportunity to create complete sentences by tapping on the subjects, verbs, prepositional phrases, and/or direct objects of their choice. A video is then displayed that matches the sentence the student created and expressed. This is a whole learning, multisensory approach that helps students feel empowered while expressing language! 

In my professional experience, one of the best ways for children to practice asking specific "Wh" questions is to play a guessing game. During this time the student narrows down the possible answer choices by asking questions about the person, place, or item you have in mind.  Perfect examples of these types of games include "20 questions", "Who Am I?", or "Guess Who?"  During these games children need to ask really specific questions in order to figure out the final answer.  Certain questions can range from "Does your person wear green glasses?", "Are you a type of transportation?", to "Where do you live?"  You can modify the lesson by providing question sentence starters on flashcards or providing a box of answer choices, while gradually fading out these various prompts over time.  By turning this language exercise into a fun game, it not only makes learning more motivating, but also makes it easier for a student to recall these types of question formats later.  It's time to start being a great detective by investigating through the art of questioning!!!

Elementary school students often need engaging activities to help sustain their level of attention. One such activity involves using two copies of the same magnetic picture board (Create-A-Scene or Colorforms). The teacher places a border between her/him and the student and then proceeds to give directions. These directions should be clear and detailed in nature (e.g., colors, sizes, attributes,  specific placements, etc). At the end of the activity, the teacher and student can remove the border and compare the location of all magnetic pictured items. The goal is for both picture boards to mirror each other. It  can also be very fun and empowering for each child to be in the driver’s seat and practice giving directions to the teacher.  Enjoy these border activities with your children. It is an excellent way ro practice following directions and strengthen expressive language skills! 😊

When listening to directions and spoken short stories, it can sometimes be difficult for  a student to recall all of the details. That is why I often implement various visual strategies. One technique is called “Repeat” and “Picture”. By having the student slow down to imagine all of the details, it helps to cement the information within the memory. You can ask the student specfic questions about his/her image to ensure true visualization is taking place (e.g., “Is the dog you are picturing tall or short?).  In my professional experience, most students perform better at processing verbal information when taking the time to use this important visualing strategy.

These visual fluency picture cards serve as very effective tools!  I have used these with several of my students who stutter.  This helpful strategy reminds them about using their smooth speech techniques.  These tools include taking breaths between phrases or natural pauses, speaking at a slow rate, streching out particular sounds, and using light articulatory contacts (light touching of the lip, tongue, and vocal folds when producing a sound). Parents can feel free to schedule a separate meeting with me, so that I can demonstrate these fluency strategies for home practice.