SLP 101: Learning Targets {with Freebie}

I'm back with another session in the SLP 101 series! Today's post is all about learning targets. More than likely your school building has adopted learning targets as a building so these are nothing new to you! 

Learning targets make a ton of sense. Your students should definitely know what they are working on when they come to you. If you're building is already doing 'I can' statements it's an easy carryover to the speech room. 

This year I made a simple sheet that lists an 'I can' statement for most of the areas we are working on. 

This is the bulletin board in my office. 

Then each student made their own sheet with their specific goals. 

This my board before the year started. 

This is where we posted all of our goals! 

I posted these documents as a freebie on my TeachersPayTeachers site! Just make sure you select 'follow me' while you're there! 

Do you use I can statements? How else do you have your student's know their speech and language goals?

SLP 101: Working Folders

During my first few segments in the 'SLP 101' series, I've mentioned 'Working Folders'. I thought I'd explain what that means to me! I actually have 3 different systems this year because I'm in 3 buildings with different needs.

I have regular student files that stayed filed in the filing cabinet. I also need another folder for my groups so that I can easily keep organized. For my elementary students I use a file folder for each group. I made up an example so I could show you! I put my attendance sheet stapled to the left hand side.  You can find my data sheet for each student included in this packet.

In the file I keep these Student Information Sheets from my friend Amy at Major Speech Minor Girl. 

I also keep the file review sheets I completed at the beginning of the year. Throughout the year as I get to know my students better, I will add packets of homework to easily pull from. 

At the middle school, I have a bit of a different system. I use binders because I travel out of my room! 

In the front I keep my daily schedule and my caseload sorted by IEP Due Date and ETR Due Date. 

That's the teacher list on the left side (still trying to learn names!) and each student has a divider with a pocket. The binders are divided by what time of day I see the students (am/pm). 

Lastly at my last school, I don't have a lot of my own 'space'. I'm using this accordion file from Target. 

Each student has a file space within it! 

PS - It happens to match my cup, which makes me happy! 

So, those are my different systems this year! It's always changing! Do you use anything similar?!

SLP 101: Welcome Letters,Attendance, Billing

It's Tuesday and the last of you are likely heading back to work today! Don't worry, some of us have been working for an entire month now! I'm continuing the SLP 101 series this week. We started with Interviewing and Salaries.  My last post started getting you settled in getting started in the schools. In that post I told you how I get started. 

•   Find your caseload 

• Gather the student files for your caseload

• Create a caseload list: I make 3 lists: alphabetical, by IEP date, by re-evaluation date.

• Do file reviews: see included sheet below

• Access to IEP Files

• Set up meetings for any immediate needs (this might include transfers into the district - they often need to be done immediately before you can begin services).

Let's keep moving on that list! Here is what we have left:

• Create a Welcome Letter and gather any other information to send home and make folders. 
• Develop an attendance system
• Develop a medicaid billing system
• Check on FM systems
• Check on 504 students
• Create Data Sheets
• Create Schedule
• Develop lesson plans for the first week. 

Folders: I use a speech folder for every student at the beginning of the year. Some students will return them weekly and some folders will never make it back into my office. I don't stress about it, but do encourage kids to bring their folders. I start the year I included two forms in that folder. 

Writing a Welcome Letter is an easy way to introduce yourself. Especially important if you're new to the district this year. 

Since I'm new I included some basic information about myself. Parents often really want to know their child's speech time, but especially when new to a district, your first pairings in groups might not work out. So I include information about gathering baseline data to determine the best fit for groups. Once I have a more finalized schedule I write their times on the folder. 

I also use a Communication Log

This is a super easy way to communicate with parents. You can download it for free in my TpT Store. 

Attendance/Billing: I keep attendance in two ways. Both quick and easy in order to facilitate billing and monitoring  serviced minutes.   In my district I am required to bill Medicaid for every service I provide. In Ohio we are not allowed to know which students receive any medicaid money, so we bill for every student. To keep attendance for billing, I print my weekly schedule and highlight names to indicate a student attended that session. I make notes if they miss or I miss. Once I enter the billing information into the computer, I slash through that group with pen. You can see I billed some of last weeks groups already. Check with your district for their billing requirements. It's easier to bill as you go, and not get way behind! 

I also monitor attendance with this quick yearly calendar. This helps me monitor IEP minutes. I have the student's name at the top. I circle the date to indicate attendance for the full time. I write other notes to indicate absences. So in this example the student 'Jenna' attended 3 session and was absent once. At a glance when I open the student's working file I can check the minutes of service for that month. 

You can grab the Speech and Language Attendance Calendar for free on my TpT Store. It includes the template name at the bottom if you want to customize it different that I did. 

504 students/FM systems: Every district is different, so check with the other SLPs to see if you are responsible for any 504 students or students with FM systems. Sometimes the SLP is the person to get the FM system set up, a critical things to take care of before the first day of school for students! 

Data Sheets: A while back I shared my data sheets with you! 

Just follow the link to grab the Free Template for yourself! 

Ok! That was another jam packed post! We're almost through the 'to-do' list! Next up, I'll share my scheduling system. 

SLP 101: Getting Started in the Schools

I'm back with the third installment of SLP 101. We've already discussed Interviews and Salaries. If you're in a school based position it can sometimes be overwhelming once you get back into your office after those first professional development days.

Where do I start? What should I do first? What should I be doing that I'm not!

Since I'm in a new district this year some of those things that are usually automatic have taken a lot longer than usual! This is my personal to-do list. I put them in order for how I tackled them!

• Inventory your materials
• Find your caseload
• Gather the student files for your caseload
• Create a caseload list: I make 3 lists: alphabetical, by IEP date, by re-evaluation date.
• Do file reviews: see included sheet below
• Access to IEP Files
• Set up meetings for any immediate needs (this might include transfers into the district - they often need to be done immediately before you can begin services).
• Create a Welcome Letter and gather any other information to send home and make folders. 
• Develop an attendance system
• Develop a medicaid billing system
• Check on FM systems
• Check on 504 students
• Create Data Sheets
• Create Schedule
• Develop lesson plans for the first week. 

Let's dig into a few of these to get started!

Inventory your materials: This is one thing you should really do when you move into a new space. You likely won't think about it until the end of the school year. At that time the administrator will probably ask you to turn in your inventory. If there is every a busted pipe or fire, the school needs to know what was in your office. I make an inventory in an excel sheet. That lets me email it to myself for safe keeping (an inventory stored in your room isn't much help in case of emergency!)This is also a great way to sit and take the time to really see what your building already has!

Caseload: Every school has a different system for keeping the caseloads listed. Generally speaking the special education clerks are the go-to people for this! I gather a caseload list and compare that to the actual files I have in my cabinet. Then take that list down the intervention specialists and have them identify which students they are the caseload manager for. I always ask them if they know of any move-in students that get special education services (sometimes those get left off the lists.)

Gather Files: Check for files for each student. Do you have to email other district SLPs to find current IEPs? Make sure you have a file for each student.

Create Caseload Lists: I use excel to create caseload lists. I use a different excel document for each of my buildings.  I enter my students' name, DOB, eligibility category, case manager, IEP due date, re-eval due date, grade, teacher, minutes per week and location of service. Once these are entered I copy/paste them into 3 different sheets. I sort them alphabetically, by IEP date and by re-evaluation due date.

Here is an example. I had to use myself as an example student but you can see the different sheets labeled at the bottom. Using excel makes it really easy to sort the sheets when we add kids to the caseload. If you don't know how to sort quickly in Excel, here is a quick explanation.

Next I sit and complete a File Review.

I use this sheet (available for free in my TpT store) to complete a file review. It helps me start to get to know the students. I find if I make myself write things out I remember them better. This becomes the first sheet that goes into my 'working folders' for each student. Grab the worksheet for free using this link. 

Access to IEP Forms: My district requires SLPs to have student sign off on Access to IEP forms. This sheet has teachers verify that teachers are aware that the specific student is on an IEP. I suggest you develop some type of system that has teachers verify that you have given them a copy of each student's IEP.

Transfer Meetings: In most districts transfer students need to have a meeting right away to begin receiving services for special education. Check to see if you have any students who moved-in over the summer and get those meetings schedule ASAP.


Are you hanging in? We made it through the first 7 bullets on my 'back to school' to-do list! My next post will delve into more of that list! Check back for the rest of the SLP 101 series! 

Parent Communication Ideas

First Up! The winner of the Easi-Speak Microphone Recorder from Learning Resources was Colleen Occhino! Congrats! 

Parent communication is such an important part of therapy. When you work in a clinic and get the opportunity to be see parents each week, communicating strategies and therapy ideas is relatively easy. There is a significant challenge to attain the same amount of communication as a therapist in the schools. With 66 students currently on my caseload, this is one area I always find a challenge. I thought I would share a few things I do to communicate with parents.  

For preschool each week I prepare a sheet like this. I can't take credit for the outline. My fellow SLP, Kara, was using a sheet like this last year when I started in the preschool. I love how she has it laid out and I've been using it consistently!  This is my sheet for this week. I'm reading Sheep In a Jeep at circle and completing related activities with students. The sheet lists the book and brief description.  It lists the IEP/Curriculum objectives targeted. It lays out some other social pragmatic ideas targeted and then lists an easy carryover idea to be used with an attached homework sheet. The bottom part of his page is cut off but it is a big box that I use to write therapy notes and comments. It's so nice for parents of our preschoolers to have an idea of what we did that day! Many of them can't go home and tell their parents what happened at speech,  so taking the time to write this note is so helpful to them! 

If there are weeks when I don't do a group circle or I am in a structured class where the kids aren't participating in as many group lessons, I use this worksheet. I'm not sure which colleague I stole this from, but I adapted it from one of them! This worksheet continues on to include pragmatics as well. Grab your copy HERE! 

For school aged children, I don't send treatment notes home. I put this communication log into their folders. It allows the parent and I to write notes back and forth as needed. Some parents write every week. Most only write back when I write something! Which is fine with me! Grab your copy HERE! 

For school aged kids I usually send home a half sheet of paper with language ideas once a month. Depending on how busy life gets, it doesn't always get done! The one pictured above had some ideas to complete in the car. The October ideas included ways to sort candy and talk about Halloween costumes. I know how busy life is for parents, so I try to make it ideas to fit into their regular life. 

Those are a few things I am doing to communicate with parents! What are you doing in your speech room?