Group Ideas for your Older Caseload

Recently I've had many more older kids added to my caseload. Some of them are so far behind in their reading, writing and comprehension that its sad. They actually had a hard time spelling "and"... I've got my work cut out for me... 


I need these kids to be functional so I need to work on inferences and building sentences, while targeting articulation and reading so I went on the hunt. I don't have all that much experience with older kids so I need to learn a few things. 

These are a few things I came up with.
Speech Peeps uses Non-Fiction texts to help students use reading while targeting those pesky artic. goals. I really like this because it is a good place for some of my better readers and then I can ask questions for comprehension. :)

This No Prep  Build A Sentence by The Dabbling Speechie is really useful to get the kids thinking about pictures and using some very specific descriptive words.  I just love that it works on writing the sentence and adjectives.  This is definitely something that I would recommend to anyone who has upper elementary kids on their caseload. 

Camping for Language

 

I am so glad to be off the summer, getting ready for the fall already... I know some of you are off but some aren't so lucky! You have to come up with some fun stuff to keep the kids entertained while its warm outside. Well I've got something for you... 

and my apologies for a summer full of work :(

 

I made this cute pack (a very long time ago-be kind, my skills have come a long way... :)

that goes great with summer and camping. It contains more than 50 pages that  targets a lot of common goals like:

• vocabulary
•  associations
• beginning sounds
• beginning writing
• and a really cute

category sorting activity that would work great for groups.

It is only $3 but it is on sale for $2 all summer long!!
Check it out!

 

Teaching Before and After

How I teach Before and After

There are a lot of ways to teach before and after. My caseload is young and generally severe so I always start with using before and after as temporal concepts and then move on to using it in routines.

1.The first thing I do when I teach before and after is get a hand full of manipulatives- like these bears.

I give the student one bear facing them. I then explain that before means in front and after means behind. I give them directions like put the blue bear before the red bear, put the orange bear after the yellow. If they make mistakes I will target just 1 concept at a time and explain (again) that before or after also means in front or behind.


2. The next thing I do is line up about five bears and I get the kids to tell me where each one is. I ask, "where is the red one?" They can say after the blue one or before the green one.  If they have difficulty with this expressively I ask "which one is after/before the (color)? and see if they are understanding.

 3. After they have this I move onto my routines. For that I use my Before and After Sequencing Package. :)

 

Use this package to teach first, next, last, before and after in a step by step approach. I've used simple routines like in the morning and after school, to help reinforce the concepts. It has mats for center ideas and worksheets for individual use and mastery.  I've also included task cards!

Summer Handouts

 

Here is a parent handout freebie that is no prep!

You can send it home with kids on your caseload to show parents how they can use summer activities to increase the language skills of their children.

 You can send it home with your year end reports for your preschool caseload.

It is written in parent friendly language and gives specific ideas on how to use camping, and bubbles to get encourage language skills.

It is 7 pages,  black and white and free! Doesn't get much better than that!

Have a great summer!

Severe Language Delay

I have noticed that are very few resources that target severe language delays so I made my own thing!

Here is everything you need for 1 month of teaching children with severe language delays!
Every week includes a story, concept posters, concept fold pages, coloring pages, printing practice pages, and a language center. 

Week 1-  one, in, dirty, clean, and associations.
Week 2- all, off, soft, hard and what Doesn't Belong.

Week 3- none, on, big and little and categories.

Week 4-  teaching Negation (not), out, wet/dry and opposites mats and clip cards


And now its available as a bundle in my shop for $8!!

Tier 2- Classroom Activities

 

  Part 1 in Tier 2 Activities for the Classroom or Universal Strategies

Recently, I've been trying to make for classroom activities to target some of the common language goals. Now, in a perfect world, speechies would give the teachers the activity and they would carry it out- but I don't live there! I get it, teachers are busy! So when we go to them and say here is some more stuff for you to do and take data on - they want to hit us!! I totally get that! The way I Do Tier 2 Activities is to provide the activity and model it for the class (or small groups while the teacher works with other students) and then I leave the Activity for the teacher to follow up and do it again with her class. The teacher can take data if she has certain kids in mind who are struggling on a specific target or not :)The goal is to get the activity out and have follow up on it.  Baby steps :)

According to RtI
"Tier 2: Targeted Interventions

Students not making adequate progress in the regular classroom in Tier 1 are provided with increasingly intensive instruction matched to their needs on the basis of levels of performance and rates of progress. Intensity varies across group size, frequency and duration of intervention, and level of training of the professionals providing instruction or intervention. These services and interventions are provided in small-group settings in addition to instruction in the general curriculum. In the early grades (kindergarten through 3rd grade), interventions are usually in the areas of reading and math. A longer period of time may be required for this tier, but it should generally not exceed a grading period. Students who continue to show too little progress at this level of intervention are then considered for more intensive interventions as part of Tier 3."

** I live in Canada and we don't have the same rules as Americans may have.


For my first activity I found this Melissa & Doug Complete the Picture. They have different background scenes like a barn, ocean garden, empty plate, etc. I pair students into groups of 2 or 3 and then I have the students talk about the picture and different things that can go with the picture. After they have discussed  it, then they can take turns drawing on the sheet. 

Here are some questions you can ask to get the kids talking.**What would you see in a barn? What animals would live there? What could have our store in the barn? Where do you find a barn? I use these questions as conversation starters and get the kids talking about all of the vocabulary associated with their picture. Remember this isn't question period but more of a conversation going so it's more natural. 

 

I love that this paper pack is open ended so you can really go in any direction you want. There are many different scenes in this pack so you can have everyone use a different background and then tell the class what they found that associated with their background scene.

This is a really easy idea to use with kindergarten or grade 1. Some of the students I serve have severe language delays so this is a good place to start for vocabulary- you may want to use it with a different group :) 


Easy, Peasy!

Observing and Describing

I have so many students that are older and I am feeling that their language goals (like plurals) just aren't cutting it.  I decided I wanted to create something that would help them target some FUNCTIONAL CLASSROOM GOALS!

According to Reading Rockets: "Inference. Observations occur when we can see something happening. In contrast, inferences are what we figure out based on an experience. Helping students understand when information is implied, or not directly stated, will improve their skill in drawing conclusions and making inferences."

This observing & describing product is a great way for students grade 4 and up to practice important skills in reading, observing, comprehending and making inferences. Observing, describing and making inferences are important skills for all readers. This product teaches this skill in 5 steps: choose words that describe the picture, generate your own describing words, generating descriptive words that are relevant to the picture to make the sentence more descriptive, then describe who, what, where, when and eventually why based on pictures, and then making inferences about pictures. Step 1- choose from a series of words to best describe the picture.

 

Step 2- generate their own describing words based on the picture. Step 3- add adjectives and other describing words to make the sentence (already provided) more interesting and descriptive.

 

  Step 4- describe the pictures using what, where and when, then eventually why. Then they can use their words to create a descriptive sentence that describes the picture. Step 5- making inferences about pictures. Explaining what happened or will happen based on information from the picture.

What do you use with your students??

 
If you have any questions email mindy@creatingcommunicators.net.


** To save on ink don't print the first page :)