Friday, August 27, 2010
Kindergarten screenings.....
......can be fun for awhile. Then you realize you have the entire screener memorized. 2 days down, 5 to go.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
SCIP
I am so blessed to have lots of great materials available to me. It's awesome because I have materials to meet nearly all of my students needs. However, I also have lots of stuff that isn't necessarily so great. Not to mention that I have so much that I don't know what I have! I am slowly but surely going through my materials and learning about them.
Every once in awhile I come across and true gem and my most recent gem is called Sound Contrasts in Phonology (SCIP). This is a very cool software program that allows you to enter information about individual students and then choose a contrastive approach (minimal pairs, multiple oppositions, maximal oppositions, treatment of the empty sets) to treat speech sound disorders. After choosing an approach, you then provide information about the error and target sound, press a button, and voila! You immediately get a huge list of word pairs and corresponding pictures to use to target these errors, which makes implementing these approaches sooooo much more realistic! You can then conduct therapy directly from the computer (which then will keep the data and chart it for you), or print out the word pairs and data sheets on paper. The manual also outlines 4 steps of the therapy process, from familiarizing students with the vocabulary of the target words, to practicing the targets, to moving on to generalization activities.
I am very excited about using this product with many of my students. For my caseload in particular, most of my "artic-only kids" actually demonstrate phonological processes (I think I have 1 lateralized /s/ kid, and the rest have some major processes going on), so I think SCIP will be quite useful. To begin, I have chosen 2 kids to try this out on. I actually chose 1 of my /w/ for /r/ kids just to see how it goes. He is a 5th grader and I'm hoping this new perspective will be helpful for him to make a breakthrough and get out of speech before going to Middle School! I also chose a Kindergartener who has a lot more complicated phonological needs. Although all of these approaches have decent evidentiary support, there is no evidence for which of the 4 approaches is best. So, for all of these students I have chosen to use minimal pairs, which I would say is the obvious choice for the /r/ kids. I thought about choosing another approach for my Kindergartener, and may eventually, but since I am just starting off I wanted to stick with something familiar.
I can't wait to get started with these students! It is great to have the tools to be able to more easily implement the type of therapy I have always wanted to do without having to spend hours searching for and organizing target words! Here's hoping that SCIP will turn out to be all I hope it will!
Every once in awhile I come across and true gem and my most recent gem is called Sound Contrasts in Phonology (SCIP). This is a very cool software program that allows you to enter information about individual students and then choose a contrastive approach (minimal pairs, multiple oppositions, maximal oppositions, treatment of the empty sets) to treat speech sound disorders. After choosing an approach, you then provide information about the error and target sound, press a button, and voila! You immediately get a huge list of word pairs and corresponding pictures to use to target these errors, which makes implementing these approaches sooooo much more realistic! You can then conduct therapy directly from the computer (which then will keep the data and chart it for you), or print out the word pairs and data sheets on paper. The manual also outlines 4 steps of the therapy process, from familiarizing students with the vocabulary of the target words, to practicing the targets, to moving on to generalization activities.
I am very excited about using this product with many of my students. For my caseload in particular, most of my "artic-only kids" actually demonstrate phonological processes (I think I have 1 lateralized /s/ kid, and the rest have some major processes going on), so I think SCIP will be quite useful. To begin, I have chosen 2 kids to try this out on. I actually chose 1 of my /w/ for /r/ kids just to see how it goes. He is a 5th grader and I'm hoping this new perspective will be helpful for him to make a breakthrough and get out of speech before going to Middle School! I also chose a Kindergartener who has a lot more complicated phonological needs. Although all of these approaches have decent evidentiary support, there is no evidence for which of the 4 approaches is best. So, for all of these students I have chosen to use minimal pairs, which I would say is the obvious choice for the /r/ kids. I thought about choosing another approach for my Kindergartener, and may eventually, but since I am just starting off I wanted to stick with something familiar.
I can't wait to get started with these students! It is great to have the tools to be able to more easily implement the type of therapy I have always wanted to do without having to spend hours searching for and organizing target words! Here's hoping that SCIP will turn out to be all I hope it will!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
T-5 Please!
The long awaited teacher's certification has finally come in! Along with the much anticipated updated pay-scale, YESSSS!!!!!
And now, I think I am finally updated from the last 2 weeks!
And now, I think I am finally updated from the last 2 weeks!
Lesson Plans
So in an effort to stay sane, I have started lesson planning. Maybe this is normal for all SLPs, but I know that in my school internship I never once wrote a lesson plan. My supervisor didn't, so I didn't either. I simply decided the day before or the day of what activity we would be doing, which was a nice change from the super-detailed plans I wrote during grad school at our clinic. However, once the reality of having no supervisor for my first big-girl job set in, I realized that not writing out plans was leading to haphazard lessons and extra stress for me. I wanted a little more direction. My lesson plans have remained very simple so far, I use this one from Speaking of Speech: http://www.speakingofspeech.com/uploads/Lesson_Plan_Blank.doc. Lesson Planning has been great, and has really helped me get all my materials together the day before so that I am ready to go the next day! I can't be the only SLP who writes lesson plans or these templates wouldn't even be out there. But, I would be curious to know who all writes speech lesson plans?
You're Beautiful
Probably one of the best parts about working in an Elementary School is being told you're pretty/beautiful almost every day:)
Super Duper is really Super Duper!
After weeks of pouring over the Super Duper website, I have finally spent my Super Duper gift certificate that my Aunt and Uncle gave me for graduation (+ some......). Today, when I got home from school, that wonderful red box was sitting in my driveway. Here is what I got:
Figurative Language CD-ROM
Topic Talk (A must-have for me, all of my kids loved this in the clinic, and we never actually played the game part! Great for conversation level speech kids and pragmatic goals.)
Social Inferences Fun Deck
Social Scenes for Home, School, and Community
What Would You Do At School If? Fun Deck
What Would You Do At Home If? Fun Deck
I ended up with a lot of social language materials because as I was looking I felt like this is what I was lacking, and I could think of many ways to use many of these materials with lots of different kids!
Figurative Language CD-ROM
Topic Talk (A must-have for me, all of my kids loved this in the clinic, and we never actually played the game part! Great for conversation level speech kids and pragmatic goals.)
Social Inferences Fun Deck
Social Scenes for Home, School, and Community
What Would You Do At School If? Fun Deck
What Would You Do At Home If? Fun Deck
I ended up with a lot of social language materials because as I was looking I felt like this is what I was lacking, and I could think of many ways to use many of these materials with lots of different kids!
Can we play UNO?
We all know that the speech room is the place to go if you need a good game. During our "Getting to Know You" activity, nearly all of my kids said that playing games and getting candy was their favorite part of speech last year.
They are in for a rude awakening.
Now, I'll admit, I love to make therapy fun by incorporating games and other activities. There is certainly a place for this; working on speech while playing games can increase generalization. It can help with motivation as well, particularly for the kid who is being seen in private therapy for 2 hrs a week individually. These sessions can get long, and you often need something fun to break up the monotony!
In the schools, I simply have a different opinion-for now. When I am seeing 2-3 students for 20-30 minutes at a time, I often feel like I am in a race against the clock to get lots of trials/practice in. Throw a game of UNO in there and your trials per kid get cut by about A LOT. There are just too many components to deal with when you add a game in ("He looked at my cards!!!). Not to mention the guilt I feel for taking the students out of class and bringing them back after playing a game.
The biggest thing is that in this standards-based environment, I really don't know if these kind of activities have a place. I hope that I continue to develop how to handle my time in therapy in order to best serve my students academically. For now, I have been having students write sentences and short narratives with their artic cards between turns. I have also had my language students write what I would normally have them say every couple of turns to incorporate written language. Despite my efforts, I feel like these things do not go very far beyond the surface, so I wonder if it is even worth the time it takes?
Now, after saying all that, I am still up for a good game every once in awhile (especially for those artic only kids, I mean artic therapy is not usually very fun!). However, I think I will reserve games for Thursdays and Fridays and really challenge myself to be creative and create sessions full of lots of trials and practice and group discussion. But, we'll see what I'm saying in another month or two.
They are in for a rude awakening.
Now, I'll admit, I love to make therapy fun by incorporating games and other activities. There is certainly a place for this; working on speech while playing games can increase generalization. It can help with motivation as well, particularly for the kid who is being seen in private therapy for 2 hrs a week individually. These sessions can get long, and you often need something fun to break up the monotony!
In the schools, I simply have a different opinion-for now. When I am seeing 2-3 students for 20-30 minutes at a time, I often feel like I am in a race against the clock to get lots of trials/practice in. Throw a game of UNO in there and your trials per kid get cut by about A LOT. There are just too many components to deal with when you add a game in ("He looked at my cards!!!). Not to mention the guilt I feel for taking the students out of class and bringing them back after playing a game.
The biggest thing is that in this standards-based environment, I really don't know if these kind of activities have a place. I hope that I continue to develop how to handle my time in therapy in order to best serve my students academically. For now, I have been having students write sentences and short narratives with their artic cards between turns. I have also had my language students write what I would normally have them say every couple of turns to incorporate written language. Despite my efforts, I feel like these things do not go very far beyond the surface, so I wonder if it is even worth the time it takes?
Now, after saying all that, I am still up for a good game every once in awhile (especially for those artic only kids, I mean artic therapy is not usually very fun!). However, I think I will reserve games for Thursdays and Fridays and really challenge myself to be creative and create sessions full of lots of trials and practice and group discussion. But, we'll see what I'm saying in another month or two.
The nightmare called scheduling
So, I would venture to guess that I have done somewhere around 50 drafts of my schedule. I would like to say I'm exageratting, but that is simply not the case.
Drafts #1-3. I started the whole thing with all sorts of lovely color-coded Post-It notes (purple=speech and language goals, red=speech only, and yellow=language only). I worked really hard grouping these guys together by grade and by type of therapy that I would be doing. After that everything should be easy, right?
Drafts #4-10. Well then I started realizing, that I had the kids so split up that I could potentially be grabbing kids out of 1 teacher's classroom 3 times a day! That's no good so I reorganized.
Drafts #11-30. Then, I finally got the SPED schedules (we SLPs are at the very, very bottom of the totem pole as far as scheduling goes....) and started realizing that I kids that could literally only come during 1 time during the day because they receive so many other services. There are just some non-negotiables. It is at this point, that I unfortunately threw the regular-education teacher's schedules in the trash-can (I had hoped to butter them up by avoiding their reading and math schedules, but alas I am not a magician!).
Drafts #30-37. After that, I realized that the 2nd grade had decided to change their recess time, and no one told me! There are just certain times that I cannot/will not take kids out of class for speech and they include: lunch (seems to go without saying, but you would be surprised), specials, recess, and of course their additional SPED segments.
Drafts #38-39. And then finally, there's the one. There's always the one (according to some of my SLP mentors). The teacher that demands "No, you cannot have my students during reading, math, social studies, science, or language arts" ummmm ok. To a point, I understand these feelings from teachers, they are held responsible for the education that their students receive. But, I have a job to do, and services to provide (services I think are pretty darn important for academic success). So how did I get around that one? Well, I smile and say "I will see what I can do," realize there is in fact nothing I can do, and pick up the kids during their Science and Writing anyway. I get around this by making very little eye contact when I come in the room, and jetting out of there. When I return the kids, I do not even get close to the room in order to avoid confrontation. Hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. I'm pretty sure she hates my guts and I have decided to respond by establishing a personal goal: Clinician will elicit 1 cracked smile from said teacher by the end of the school year.
Drafts #40-50. So you think that should be it right? Wrong! I finally decide that really the only way to determine if my schedule is going to work out is just to try it out. So, I start seeing kids, and inevitably run into situations where "Joey is in resource right now." Groan.....at this rate I might be done by December!
Drafts #1-3. I started the whole thing with all sorts of lovely color-coded Post-It notes (purple=speech and language goals, red=speech only, and yellow=language only). I worked really hard grouping these guys together by grade and by type of therapy that I would be doing. After that everything should be easy, right?
Drafts #4-10. Well then I started realizing, that I had the kids so split up that I could potentially be grabbing kids out of 1 teacher's classroom 3 times a day! That's no good so I reorganized.
Drafts #11-30. Then, I finally got the SPED schedules (we SLPs are at the very, very bottom of the totem pole as far as scheduling goes....) and started realizing that I kids that could literally only come during 1 time during the day because they receive so many other services. There are just some non-negotiables. It is at this point, that I unfortunately threw the regular-education teacher's schedules in the trash-can (I had hoped to butter them up by avoiding their reading and math schedules, but alas I am not a magician!).
Drafts #30-37. After that, I realized that the 2nd grade had decided to change their recess time, and no one told me! There are just certain times that I cannot/will not take kids out of class for speech and they include: lunch (seems to go without saying, but you would be surprised), specials, recess, and of course their additional SPED segments.
Drafts #38-39. And then finally, there's the one. There's always the one (according to some of my SLP mentors). The teacher that demands "No, you cannot have my students during reading, math, social studies, science, or language arts" ummmm ok. To a point, I understand these feelings from teachers, they are held responsible for the education that their students receive. But, I have a job to do, and services to provide (services I think are pretty darn important for academic success). So how did I get around that one? Well, I smile and say "I will see what I can do," realize there is in fact nothing I can do, and pick up the kids during their Science and Writing anyway. I get around this by making very little eye contact when I come in the room, and jetting out of there. When I return the kids, I do not even get close to the room in order to avoid confrontation. Hey, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. I'm pretty sure she hates my guts and I have decided to respond by establishing a personal goal: Clinician will elicit 1 cracked smile from said teacher by the end of the school year.
Drafts #40-50. So you think that should be it right? Wrong! I finally decide that really the only way to determine if my schedule is going to work out is just to try it out. So, I start seeing kids, and inevitably run into situations where "Joey is in resource right now." Groan.....at this rate I might be done by December!
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Just Call Me Master
A whole lot has been happening lately! Last week, my sister and I spent 2 days in my classroom putting everything together. I spent the whole time organizing therapy materials (I have a ton of great stuff!) and diagnostic tests (I have a ton of....really old stuff, 3 SSI-3s but no CELF? At least I have a trusty GFTA!), while Steph added the cute touches to my room. I have no table or bookshelves yet, but at least it's looking much more like a classroom now!
After getting my classroom together, I then spent 2 days at new teacher orientation, which was just as one would expect. Many hours listening to info about pay and benefits, the vision of the county, etc.
Midweek, my fiance and I spent a day looking for houses. We found one that has been completely remodeled and is located in a really nice neighborhood. It's amazing what you can get price-wise when you're not looking in a college community. As excited as I am, I was not planning on moving this soon, so now I will be moving and starting school all at one time and it seems really hectic! I know that it will all be worth it. I am so thankful that I will not be spending so much time and money commuting from Athens, but sad to be leaving my sis, and Athens.
Then, the highlight of this week was finally getting to graduate on Saturday! I have been done with school since May, but we all had to wait until the Summer to graduate. It was great to get to see my classmates at our departmental reception and then graduation-almost everyone was there! It's so nice to know that I am "official", finally!
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