Anatomy of the Speech Room

I can't tell you how many of you have emailed me asking me about organization and storage! It's certainly a hot topic!! Today I'm going to let to you peek into my speech room with a look at just how I organize everything. I'm really not a super organized person. I can usually find what I need - but it's not always in the most efficient manner!


Let's just get to it!

This is my room! Tada! One thing I wanted to highlight from this picture is the red pocket chart thats hanging up on the cabinet. This year I made it my goal to make my own version of the awesome Speech Sound Wall Pocket that Annie made.  I used a pocket chart and a over-the door hanger with them.

I printed pictures from Mommy Speech Therapy that you can download for free! It's wonderful because there are words in isolation, phrases and stories. Most sounds are in the initial, medial and final position of words.

I printed all the sounds, laminated them and then bound them with a book ring. For common sounds, like the /r/, I made many copies of the artic packets. For less common sounds, I just made a few. So when kids come into the room, I can ask them to grab the packet for their sound.

My working files are housed in this crate that sits next to me. Each child has a file with the data sheet. They also contain homework packets for each objective. That way I have plenty of homework activities on hand whenever I need it.

My file cabinet is organized like this! These folder house an 'original' packet that contains many homework pages for each goal. They are supposed to have extra copies of packets, but that rarely happens.

Try not to be alarmed. This is my cabinet. I feel a little exposed - showing my dirty cabinet - but I know you feel the pain of overcrowding so I'm going for it and showing it to you! The top shelf if language-ish things. The second shelf is artic/phonology stuff. The third and fourth shelf are full of other preschool toys and activities.

Within my shelves are small buckets/totes of organization. I have a big tub full of general activities. Some of my more commonly treated objectives are in these smaller tubs for easy access. The awesome paper activities you download on my site are just put in plastic bags. That keeps them easy to see and small to store.

I keep practically every container I can get my hands on. Chinese take out plastic containers are amazing. This one I used to keep my Artic Fries in is an old Swifter wipe box!

I have a mix of dish tubs and rubbermaid containers as well!

I store my preschool units in these crates. For each week I plan a Circle Time lesson and accompanying individual therapy ideas.

I keep all the materials for that week in a plastic bag. My amazing CF supervisor Kara organized her preschool lessons like this last year. It has made everything so easy this year! I just grab the bag I need, update and add any new activities for the lesson and I'm ready to go! This one is my Goldilocks & the 3 Bears bag for next week.

And here's a peek at my desk. In real life. I didn't even clean it up for you!

Ok, so there it is. Just a peek at how I organize things. What are you using? How about we all pull out our iphones and upload a picture onto the Speech Room News facebook page. I'd love to see what you're using. I'm sure there are more efficient ways!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear for Speech & Language

I thought I would share some Brown Bear, Brown Bear activities today. I use this unit with the preschool students, but it would be easy to adapt to the early elementary level as well.

My Brown Bear version is the board book version that includes the sliding cards. I think it's the best because the clinician can block the student from sliding the card, until they say the phrase! It's a awesome reinforcer, because they love to see what animal is next! At circle time, when I read the book I focus on attributes and categories for the animals. We sort animals into things that have wings, number of legs, size, shape, etc.

The main activity that I use in therapy is a Brown Bear retelling necklace. Just grab some beads and string and the printable story characters. It's great for following directions and color words while you are making each animals piece. I gave the students directions as I added they created the necklace (ex: add the bear and one yellow bead.) For students with just emerging verbalizations, we used this activity while we imitated each animal sound.

My kids loved making these! After we made the necklace, we could easily retell the story using the necklace!

This was a simple picture to picture matching sheet. You can use it to work on receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, requesting, sign, following directions, etc!

I also used these size sequencing bears. They work great for both spatial concepts and positional concepts. Lots of my friends need to work on following directions, and the bears are great for that! Another activity I have used is the half matching pictures. It's a great skill for those younger kids!

This a story retelling strip I use when we aren't making a story telling necklace! I printed sentence strips to support those kids who need it!

This is an eye spy activity! You add rice and the pictures of each animal into the water bottle. Then students can work on finding each animal and marking it off on their sheet. This really gets them talking!

Another item we used is the Brown Bear sign language reader! We did it and then sent a copy home to the family! You can grab the Sign Language Book HERE. (By the way - one of the colors is wrong, but still a great resource! I just write a note on it!).

I also used the Ipad this week! I saved the pictures to my ipad and then added them into the Image Spinner App. In a group a students we took turns spinning and trying to get all the animals! We marked them off on the I Spy sheet above.


You can download most of the activities listed above at a wonderful website called MakeLearningFun. This is the link for the Brown Bear Printables.

Leave a comment and share this with a friend if you enjoy it!

/R/ you an Alphabet Wizard?

First off! The winners of the Opposite Day App, by Pocket SLP, are Anne Mott and Miss Cheryl!! Congrats ladies. Please email SpeechRoomNews.blogspot.com to get your code!

I just wanted to share a quick articulation treatment idea with you today! I have some students working on /r/ carryover and this is one quick activity we do at the beginning of our sessions.

You just need a set of magnetic alphabet letters.

I set up the letters on the white board and they first have to write an /r/ word that starts with the corresponding letter.

We practice saying each word and then add it into a sentence, and then practice it in conversational speech. It's a quick and easy way to get the kids up out of their seats and thinking about those sounds!

Opposite Day App Review & GIVEAWAY!

It's a giveaway day!!!! Hooray!!

Remember a few days ago when I spoke to you about the importance of picking effective and efficient apps in therapy? Well I'm going to share one with you today!  My friends at Pocket SLP are making some great apps for SLP's. Today they gave me a code for Opposite Day to review for you. Bonus? Two copies to give away! See the bottom of the post for how to enter!! 

My students and I played it this week and it was a hit! Of course we had to play under my name so that I could take some screen shots for you! You can add multiple kids to keep data on really easily. 

You can choose which types of vocabulary you want to target during the session (in Spanish too!). 

This is practice mode! You tap one card and it flips. Then you can have the student name the opposite and before they check the other.

In quiz mode you, still have two cards, but you can collect data. See the red/green at the top of the page?

Aren't the graphics fun? I love them. 

The highlights?

 Entertaining for the kids and super easy data collection! 

A few more ways you can use this app! I had my students turn them into sentences (Yesterday I ran, Today I run, Tomorrow I will run) to work on verbs. We also made sentences to work on pronouns and word order. Some friends practiced descriptive sentences to work on carry over of their articulation sounds too! 

No onto what you have been waiting for!! The giveaway. Here is how to enter:

You need to complete BOTH of these items and then only leave ONE COMMENT. Multiple comments will be deleted. I have 2 codes to giveaway! I will generate the winners with random.org in one week on Tuesday 2/21/12. 

1. Like Speech Room News on Facebook (find it on the bar on the right side).

2. Like PocketSLP on Facebook

Then leave a comment below telling us one objective/goal you would like to see materials created for! Don't forget to add your name and email too! 

Super Hero Speech

Hey Friends! Are you hanging in there this February? This is the month that seems to drag on and on. Maybe some freebies will help you put a pep in your step? I'm bringing you a few super hero activities today!

I'm starting with the Amazing Spiderman. My preschoolers are nuts about 'ol spidey. I am using some Spiderman Easter Eggs that I grabbed last year after the season for cheap. For some reason opening eggs gets them all excited. And they're more talkative when they're excited!

I added spider webs into the eggs. In the download you can grab the positional concepts webs. I had the students open the spider egg, and then demonstrate the concept with the egg. (ie: Put Spiderman 'over' the table.) I used the number webs for articulation. The students had to say as that many productions of their target words. To make it a game, I added the black spider card. If they draw that card they win the game. I added a blank webs page as well, so you can use this for anything you need to target! 

While we're talking about the Spiderman, I also wanted to give you a copy of this compare/contrast activity.  They're quick print cards that have 2 objects listed. I had my students name a few similarities and differences for each of the items listed. 

The other Hero we've been using is Batman. I made this Following Directions activity to use with preschool - second grade kiddos. It includes one and two step directions and focuses on the concepts BEFORE/AFTER. 

I like to start by letting the kids read the cards, and increase the difficulty by having them follow the directions given just auditory presentation.

As always, you can grab all these downloads for free. Just get them HERE!

If you download a copy, just comment and say Hey below! 

When should I use my Ipad in therapy? Easy Group Apps.

One of the important skills of being an SLP, is the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching strategies and instruction. Whenever I get a new 'toy' I tend to use it a lot! Last year I got a copy of the Expanding Expression Tool. I found myself using it for all my groups for a while. Slowly I found which groups it was best for. I think it's a wonderful piece of my SLP 'toolbag' but it took me a while to decide how to make my use of it the most effective. The same thing can easily happen with all the new technology available today!

This year my Ipad is slowly sneaking into more and more sessions. Here are few thoughts I work through before I pull out the ipad.

If I'm using it for treatment:
Does it treat the objectives? Yes, all the apps I would use would be educational and boost language skills... but am I targeting exactly what is on the IEP?
How much support/scaffolding can I add/remove as needed for the student.
How many data collection opportunities will I get? If I can get 60 articulation- phrase opportunities in 25 minutes using traditional flashcards.. can I get that many using an articulation app? Can I get more?
How will I collect data?
How will I target multiple students in the group. Can I adapt the articulation app, to work on language goals or vice versa?
Will the app motivate students without distracting them?
Am I traveling today... will it save me the hassle of carrying a variety of materials?
Am I giving variety in my treatment? Am I provided many different types of treatment to find what's most effective for each child on each objective?

If I'm using a generic reinforcer:
How long will it take to play the game?
How motivating is it?
Can more than one student play at the same time?
What is the attention span of my student. Can they work for 5 minutes or 15 minutes before they 'earn' their game/activity.
How can I make it seem like a prize, when I'm still getting data?

So using the Ipad in therapy is easy right? Easy... when it's a nice relaxed half hour session, one on one, with plenty of time to target 5 different goals!! In real life... I have groups of 2-5 students that I see for 25 minutes. I never want to use the Ipad unless it's adding to our learning. Having it be a distraction is something I'm cognizant of every day. I use the thoughts above to decide when the Ipad is a true benefit.

Here are a few Ipad apps I use in larger groups of students with diverse goals:

Marble Mixer: My favorite reinforcer. The app lets 4 players shoot their marble for 1 minute at a time. I generally let the kids do articulation/language drills for 15 minutes to 'earn' their marble game. They love it!

Match2Say: Match 2 Say is an articulation app from Smarty Ears that is a memory matching game. My students do articulation drill before they 'earn' this game. It's a great opportunity to continue to gather data while they think they are just playing a game! I also play this with my preschoolers as their actual opportunity to practice, when they can't sit still for drills like my older students can! I set the matching game and we pass it around the table for each students turn. Love this app!

Four in a Row: This is just like Connect 4! 2 students can play or one student can play against the computer! This is a great one to use throughout a session of 2 students (ie: answer 3 questions before your turn). I sometimes do teams in my groups of 4.

How do you make your decisions about the use of the ipad in speech and language therapy? Any ideas for apps that work with big groups of people?

Tiga Talk App Review

I saw a new app last week and just had to try it out! Meet Tiga Talk! Tiga Talk, is a one-of-a-kind app that has been developed with licensed speech and language pathologists to help children who are in the beginning stages of speaking learn how to make  23 core phonetic sounds through playful voice-controlled games that can improve speech clarity and articulation. Tiga Talk provided me with a copy of the app to review for all of you! 

Tiga Talk encourages kids to practice their sounds in order to win games. Today I used it with a student working on the /k/ sound. She had to say her /k/ sound over and over again to move her car over the track. She was hooked! We took turns - she picked a sound to practice (anything but /k/!) and then I got to pick our game (always /k/!!!). She had so much fun and was asking to play again later in the preschool day! We played several different games, and her favorite was the /p/ sound where she got to pop balloons every time she said /p/. 

The software did a pretty nice job of recognizing sounds. In the 10 different game attempts I played today, only once did it not seem to recognize that the child was saying the sound. I had her speak up - and my instructions/voice seemed to jump start it back into action! I calibrated the mic the next time and we were back up and running!

This one of my students using it this week! She was thoroughly engaged with it!


If you're expecting this app to be the SLP for you - it won't. It can recognize that the student is making a sound, but not distinguish if they're using it correctly or not. It acts as the motivator for getting your student to say /k/ 50 times in 5 minutes, while you help your student shape their production. 

This movie is from the developer. Watch it and the others on the website to get a  feel for what using the app is like! 


It would be a great app for your preschool population. This week in preschool I have used it several ways. First.. for it's intended purpose.. sound production practice. I also used it with an child with apraxia. First we picked a sound to practice. After a few games of /p/ I changed his target from /p/ to the word POP.You can customize it to many target sounds or words! The other student I immediately knew I would use the app with is a student with very quiet speech volume. Every time they make a noise, a voice meter on the screen lights up. We practiced saying words while using our 'loud voice' to get it into the green portion of the meter.


You can check it out here in the itunes store. Right now, it's priced at $4.99.