Reading Dinosaurs!

After Camping Week in our literacy group, over the summer we moved on to Dinosaur Week! We've had a LOT of reading Dinos that week. Here is a peek. ((amazon affiliate links are included for your convenience))

We started with this app called Picture Me As A Dinosaur. 

The app  is intended for children ages 2-5, but my 5-8 year olds thought it was hilarious! 

I was able to add up to 8 pictures (a picture of each child in the group) and then the app read the book to us. The kids were cracking up. I wish I could show THEM as dinosaurs but you'll have to settle with just me! 

We also did these free alphabet matching puzzles on the ipad. 

We brainstormed on some dinosaur feet! We brainstormed /b/ and /t/ words. 

Meghan made a dinosaur book featuring color sentences! 

Our amazing office manager Suzy made these Dino Fossil Brownies! I loved them! We broke the brownies in half to find the fossils inside. 

We did Dot-to-Dot ABC puzzles. You can find those on the  Make Learning Fun page. 

We matched upper/lower case letters with a little help from Mr. Sean. Download that item for free here. 

We used rhyming cards! 

Meghan made these adorable dinosaur crafts! 

And these were my two favorite books! 

I didn't get picture of everything we did, but here are a few more freebie downloads we used.

Dinosaur Sight Word Game

and

A sound matching game

What books or resource do you use for dinosaur week?

SLPs and Literacy

If you've been checking in at all lately you might already know I'm working part time at a clinic again this summer. We've been having all kinds of fun working on early literacy skills with clients with a range of disorders including Down syndrome, language impairment, and Autism. We've been camping, playing and of course READING in our literacy speech camp. Elementary children who are poor readers often have a history of language delay or difficulty acquiring phonological awareness skills. We're spending all summer beefing up those early literacy skills in an effort to increase success with reading when school starts again in the fall.

Now, a summer speech program focused on literacy is an EASY way to include literacy into our scope of practice. Unfortunately with caseloads well over the ASHA recommended 50, incorporating literacy into our time in a school based setting can be really difficult. Today I wanted to share some ways that I address my school based speech and language intervention using a literacy frame of mind.

Literacy has always been a big part of my personal SLP experience. At Ohio State, I completed my degree with an emphasis in literacy and instructional leadership. While I was there I spent a full year in a school district working in a RtI reading program and training parent volunteers to complete RtI literacy instruction. During that time, I won the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences and Disorders award for Future Leaders in School Based Speech Language Pathology for my active role in literacy.  Based on my experiences, Literacy and Speech Language Pathology go hand in hand. I realize many if not MOST of the practicing SLPs haven't had the same direct experiences teaching reading. So how DO we fit in to the literacy puzzle?

Let's start with what the ASHA Roles and Responsibilities Statement says about the rationale:

The rationale for SLPs to play a critical and direct role in the development of literacy for children and adolescents is based on established connections between spoken and written language, including that (a) spoken language provides the foundation for the development of reading and writing; (b) spoken and written language have a reciprocal relationship, such that each builds on the other to result in general language and literacy competence, starting early and continuing through childhood into adulthood; (c) children with spoken language problems frequently have difficulty learning to read and write, and children with reading and writing problems frequently have difficulty with spoken language; and that (d) instruction in spoken language can result in growth in written language, and instruction in written language can result in growth in spoken language. (ASHA 2001)

Why should SLPs be involved in literacy development? It's obvious that speaking, reading and writing functions are all connected. A physical therapist wouldn't work on muscles it the wrist without considering the implications for the fingers. Why would be work on spoken language without regard to the implications for reading/writing.

The evidence from ASHA:

As many as half of all poor readers have an early history of spoken-language disorders. Catts et al. (1999) reported that 73 percent of second grade poor readers had had either phonemic awareness or spoken language problems (or both) in kindergarten. (ASHA 2001)

So if 50% of poor readers have an early history of spoken-language disorders there is no doubt SLPs to get involved with literacy prevention and identification.

OK, so that all sounds good but how the heck aM I supposed to support literacy skills when I have so many children on my caseload?

Believe me, I am in the same overcrowded boat with you. This is one of those Work Smarter, Not Harder moments. Here's how I'm including literacy in my  day-to-day.

School Based Implications:

• Goals should be written that support direct reading instruction. Foundational language skills such as answering WH questions, identifying main ideas, making inferences are all skills that relate directly to reading. We often work on these goals but don't explain to teachers, intervention specialists and parents the direct connection to literacy. 
• Write aligned goals with the intervention specialist that develop a skill in one domain (ie: spoken language) that is then transferred to another domain (ie: writing). For example, the SLP might write a goal to use correct pronouns in spoken sentences, while the intervention specialists creates a similar goal for pronouns in written form. The SLP might be working on making inferences in real life examples or social situations, while the intervention specialists has a goal to make an inference based on the story for comprehension. 
• When goals are aligned for speaking/reading/writing, use the same language for instruction. In the example above about inferencing, each different instructor could use the same definition and symbol to represent making an inference. Make a visual and share it with your team. 
• Be involved in full initial evaluations and Response to Intervention Meetings. Speak up when you suspect a language disability might be impacting literacy skills. Advocate for full evaluations when necessary. 
• Identify at-risk students. When you speak to teachers, especially in the primary grades (k/1) let them know the statistics about speech/language disorders often leading to difficulty with reading. Set up a plan to monitor a 'speech only' student closely from the beginning of the year. If you're completing a speech only initial assessment, include some basic phonological awareness skills to determine if an academic assessment is also warranted. 
• Bring a different perspective to the discussion table. Teachers, psychologist and SLPs will bring different knowledge about reading to the table. Use your knowledge of syntax, morphology and semantics to to identify intervention strategies.
• Educate parents. I often have those really happy transition to Kindergarten evaluation meetings where the child has met all the goals and will attend Kindergarten without an IEP. While you're celebrating success and exiting the child from services, don't forget to mention to parents that they will need to keep a close watch on literacy skills in the primary grades. Give them explicit skills to look for and remind them to monitor development closely. 
• Embed literacy into all areas of treatment. Find out your student's reading level and borrow books from the book room to use in treatment. Grab the second grade sight word list and choose articulation words accordingly. Work on pragmatics using a reader's theater play. All of these examples don't require extra instruction, but instead embed literacy into activities already being completed. 

Students with speech and language impairments are at high risk for literacy difficulties. How do you find practical ways to prevent, identify or treat literacy?

Citation:

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2001). Roles and responsibilities of speech-language pathologists with respect to reading and writing in children and adolescents [Guidelines]. Available from www.asha.org/policy.

Spracher, M. M. (2000, April 25). Learning About Literacy: SLPs Play Key Role in Reading, Writing.The ASHA Leader.

Alphabet Bean Bags!

Just popping in to share the another quick idea that we did this summer during language and literacy camp. I grabbed my alphabet bean bags and my Cars 2 tossing game to get all our guys up and moving! 

I scored the letter bean bags at the teacher garage sale, but they are originally from Lakeshore. I got the Cars 2 Bean Bag toss game at Goodwill, but you can find a similar item through my amazon affiliate link here: Disney Pixar Cars Toss Around Bean Bag Game By Playhut

Let's Camp {Part 2}

We've been busy camping these last two weeks! In a previous post I had shared my Camping Phonological Awareness activities with you! Today I wanted to share what else we got into! I've included some amazon affiliate links for your convenience.

A few weeks ago at Goodwill I found this awesome kids campfire log. You can find it on amazon at the link below. We had a blast playing with it! It even lights up and the flame moves!

We made several campfire crafts!

 First we made these handprint fires, as seen on Tippy Toe. Instead of using construction paper we gathered real sticks!

We also made some great campfire hats, found from Education.com. Our kiddos loved wearing them! I wish I could show you our class picture with them, but a goofy selfie of me will have to do! Just make a 'log' headband, add flames and marshmallows on sticks!

'cheetah'

'bunny'

Our last craft was some Leaf Art! Did you guess that animals they made?


We read a lot of different camping books this week. I'm going to share my 3 favorites.

 A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee is such an adorable book. It's full of rhyme and had my kids so engaged! Lots of opportunity for inferencing with this one!

Scare a Bear is a sweet little rhyming book about a bear who joins a campsite! How will you scare that bear away?!

Into the Outdoors is a wonderful book for working on preposition words. Each page highlights a preposition word as the story is described.

Here is a peek at some of our other library books!

Our literacy stations used a lot of activities from my phonological awareness packet. My favorite have been these self checking syllable segmenting cards.

I snagged this butterfly house that looked like a mini-tent to pull our cards from! 

Check out this video of one of my kiddos working on the skill!

These students are sorting sounds by their initial sound (/s/ and /f/) from my camping phonological awareness unit. 

These kiddos are using a freebie from Primary Possibilities for identifying beginning sounds! 

You might also want to grab this 'How to Make S'mores' Emergent reader.

Then of course make some gooey s'mores!

 To finish out the week we went on a nature walk outside looking for items that start with each letter of the alphabet! 

Oh my goodness! Camping was BUSY and fun! What are you doing in your summer classrooms?

Early Literacy Recommended Apps

With my literacy group this summer, I spent a little time sorting all my phonological awareness and early literacy apps into one folder. I thought I'd share what exactly is in that folder for you! All of these apps were purchased by yours truly (unless otherwise indicated). I listed their current itunes prices, but those are subject to change, so check before you download!

Zoo Train is really a fun app. There are train puzzles and this great simple letter matching activity. (.99)

Sound Sorting is a Lakeshore Learning app that works on alliteration. The format is super cute and my kids LOVE it! (.99)

Endless Alphabet is just the most fun app! Little kids and bigger kids alike seem to love the animation. I love working on letters and letter sounds! ($4.99)

Tic Tac Toe Phonics is a great app for kids with a little more exposure to spelling. It asks questions like, 'Which word has the same a sound as cake?' gate, hand, fan. (free)

Starting Sounds is a great app from I Can Do apps. It have various levels of difficulty for identifying the beginning sounds in words. (2.99)

Rhyming is another I Can Do apps creation. It has 5 levels of rhyme identification activities. (2.99)

Syllable Splash (I was provided of copy of this app for my review in May) This app focuses on segmenting words and identify the number of syllables.  (9.99)

Pocket Charts Rhyming Word Match is the digital version of a pocket chart. This super cute app is simple to use and works on matching rhyming words. (.99)

Pocket Charts Uppercase and Lowercase Match is another pocket chart app. Students match the upper and lowercase letters. (.99)

Pocket Charts Beginning Letter Sounds is the last pocket chart app I downloaded! The simple format is still engaging for my preschooler and kindergarten students. (.99)

Profile of Phonological Awareness (Pro-PA) is an assessment app. (14.99) The app doesn't give standardized scores but it's perfect to do baseline assessments with! 

Super Why Adventures ABC is a favorite of my students! It works on sounds, letters and more! Seriously LOVE this one! (3.99)

Word Wagon by Duck Duck Moose let you pick objects off the conveyor belt. Drag the letter to spell the word and then listen as the word is sounded out. (2.99)

Interactive Alphabet is great for the little bits. Like Endless alphabet is engaging for little guys. You click on the letter and an animation appears along with the letter sound. ($2.99)

Do you have any favorites that I missed?! Comment below so I can add them to my collection!