The Weekly Review: Week 55

SLP Idea of the Week

Pat at Speaking of Speech had a brilliantly simple idea for motivating articulation drill. She lays her articulation cards out in a grid face up and hides a sticker under one of the cards. The children have to name the card before checking underneath to see if it is the one hiding the sticker. If you want to increase difficulty add a carrier phrase like, "Is it hiding under the _____?" Or ask them to make up a sentence about it. If you're really creative, you can match your carrier phrase to the speech target you're working on. For example, for final /k/ you could have the child use "look under the" as your carrier phrase. Whoever finds the sticker gets to keep it and then you simply hide another sticker and carry on.

Ava this Week

It has been over a month since Ava's birthday. She'll still occasionally remark, rather wistfully, "I'm going to have another birthday!" I have to gently remind her that birthdays are very special occasions and that it will be a long time before she has another one.

Weekly Michael

I was busy cleaning. I know. I don't say that often, but I'm still enjoying the new vacuum cleaner. When I flipped the switch and there was some wonderful silence for a moment Michael asked me if I wanted to play his game. I'll admit it. I hadn't been paying any attention to what he'd been up to while I was cleaning. He had drawn arrows on pieces of construction paper and taped them up in various sections of the house. You started at the beginning and looked in the direction the arrow was pointing to find the next arrow. He had set them up perfectly. The last arrow pointed to a drawer. In the drawer was a rolled up piece of paper held closed with a rubber band. He had drawn a puzzle on that piece of paper and when you reached the end of the hunt you had to solve the puzzle. I loved it. It was so creative and well executed. We had never done anything like it so I was curious where he got the idea. He told me he had seen Kipper do it on a television show.

Ava's and Michael's Weekly Home Therapy Notes

Ava's private therapist decided it was finally time to reintroduce /k/. I'm overjoyed (no, no, no). On the other hand, she's having some success this time so I suppose I shouldn't complain too much.

Michael's trying so hard. It is adorable and breaks my heart a little at the same time. He's really paying attention and trying to correct his /s/ and /f/ sounds. When we're practicing reading, he slows down with every S or F and concentrates on his pronunciation. I know he'll be glad later that his speech errors have been addressed, but I hate seeing him so self-conscious now.

Weekly Mini-Projects

I got both of these ideas from pinterest pins, but I saw them such a long time ago, that I no longer remember the sources. I apologize to the wonderful people who came up with the original ideas and thank you for the ideas.

We did a spice painting. I used a cup to trace six circles on a piece of white cardstock for each child. I then gave them some glue and a paintbrush and grabbed six spice bottles off the rack. One at a time they filled each circle with glue. We then opened a spice bottle and smelled (and sometimes tasted) the spice and sprinkled it on the glue. We got to explore the sight, taste, smell, and texture of a variety of spices and the end display was kind of pretty.

I needed spare keys for the second project and got a bunch of discards from the very helpful man at the key desk at the home improvement store. I chose 11 different keys and taped them onto a piece of paper and then photocopied it. Then I pulled the keys back off the original and the copy plus the keys resulted in a very nice key puzzle that the children really enjoyed.

Usborne Very First Reading Boxed Set of Early Readers: A Review

I absolutely love this early reader set published by Usborne. I am in no way affiliated with Usborne, I just got the set for Michael and like it so much I wanted to share it with you.

This is a boxed set of early readers. There are 15 hardback books and one paperbook parent manual. The books are designed to be read (multiple times per book) in sequence and gradually increase in difficulty. The topics are appealing to young children and the illustrations are engaging. The first seven books are set up so that the parent reads the left hand page of each two-page spread and the child reads the right hand page.

Each book begins with simple instructions for the parent followed by the story. After the story there are three reading exercises. There is also a website that has a free downloadable activity for each book in the set.

So far we've done the first three books in the set with Michael. I enjoy it and he enjoys it. He even loves doing the "puzzles" at the end of each book. We read one book each night at bedtime. I have two out at a time and let him choose which one he wants to read. After he's read the book 4-5 times and it is easy, I return the book to the box and get out the next one in the series.

Here are some sample pages from a couple of the books. Pirate Pat is the first book in the series and uses the parent/child format. Moon Zoom is the eighth book in the series and is an example of what the books look like once they are supposed to be read entirely by the child. I've also included some sample pages from the parent manual.

Homemade Speech Articulation - Word Family Game

Speech Articulation - Word Family Game

Materials

1. Blank copy of game board found at bottom of post.
2. 3-5 dice.
3. Blank stickers.
4. Something to use as game markers for each player. We used squinkies.

Preparation

1. Write initial consonant targets of your choice in blank spots on game board. We used /s/, /f/, and /l/.
2. Leave one die as is. Take the other dice and put blank stickers over each side. Or use tape and construction paper squares. Write in word endings on die. I stole some I had from another game so I was able to skip this step.

How to Play (Method A)

1. Students take turns rolling the number die and moving that many spaces on the game board. This selects their initial consonant.
2. Then students roll the word family dice. Help students combine their initial consonant with each word ending to make a word or pseudoword.
3. They get one point for each real word that is formed.
4. The student with the most points when someone ends the game by reaching the end of the board wins.

How to Play (Method B)

This method works just like the first, except that you skip keeping points and the winner is simply determined by who reaches the end of the game board first.

Variations

You could also skip the word ending component all together and use the game board to work on sounds in isolation. Or just write in target words for children who can read.