Blog Archive

Friday, June 23, 2017

Speech Therapy Organization Ideas: Plastic Zipper Envelopes

Are you looking for a way to keep your thematic books and book companion materials organized and stored neatly? For years I kept my thematic materials stored in file folders. It worked for a while, until my material resources started to multiply. I found myself loosing items such as sentence strips, task cards, vocabulary visuals, manipulatives, and craft samples. That's when I decided to try out plastic zipper envelopes for a few book companions. This has been an organizational transformation for my materials. I wanted to share with you what I have found to be an organizational gem.



In this post, I will show you three different ways I use plastic zipper envelopes to organize my thematic books and book companions.

Friday, June 16, 2017

What You Need to Know About Boosting Tier 2 Vocabulary



Vocabulary is a key component to learning. Not only is it an important part of communication, but it is one of the essential layers for establishing literacy. The National Reading Panel, 2001 identified Vocabulary as one of the 5 key components for learning to read (Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Vocabulary, Fluency, Text Comprehension). In addition, vocabulary is learned indirectly through conversation, life experiences, media, and listening to stories, as well as through direct instruction such as: word studies, frequent exposure and use, and a systematic approach. Vocabulary is essential for academic success, and both RtI (Response to Intervention) and speech-language therapy can be an important factor in remediation for vocabulary deficits. 
In this post I will outline what you need to know about Tier 2 Vocabulary, offer 8 fun intervention activities, and provide you with my Tier 2 Vocabulary FREEBIE!

Friday, June 9, 2017

Speech Room Organization with Bins


Do you have piles of therapy materials set aside for the week? Are your piles and stacks of materials getting mixed up and disorganized? I have found an organizational strategy that works to keep the stacks and piles organized. In a previous post, I talked about organizing your speech therapy room using Command Hooks. You can read about how to utilize that vertical space in your therapy room HERE


In this post, I am going to show you how I organize my grade-level group materials in different bins.

Friday, June 2, 2017

3 New Vocabulary Games using Apples to Apples


vocabulary gamesApples to Apples is a FUN word game of matching adjective cards (green cards) to noun cards (red cards). The winner is the player with the most matches.  Speech-language pathologists are known for being creative with materials and adapting what we have to meet our students' needs. Apples to Apples can be adapted to address target goals in articulation, language, fluency and social skills. 
For months, this game sat in my closet untouched. My students were not successful playing this game as it was originally designed and I knew it needed to be adapted. I especially wanted to add visual support to target semantic features and language flexibility in a way my students would be successful. 

In this post, I am going to teach you how to play 3 of my favorite fast and fun games using Apples to Apples to target academic and functional vocabulary skills.