Valentine's Word Associations

Today, I worked on Valentine's word associations with some of my speech-language students during an arts & craft activity. They chose either red or pink construction paper and traced a large heart. I explained to them that word associations are words that go together or are related. I told them to share words they know that are related to Valentine's day.

Here is an example of the heart my kindergarten student who has a significant fluency disorder made:

I then used the First Words Valentine IPAD application by Learning Touch to review the word associations. This application has cute graphics depicting each key word and then provides an opportunity for the students to drag each letter to spell the word. My kindergarten student was eager to place the letters in the correct spot as the background had a faded letter that told him how to spell the words and voiced the letter as he did so. He seemed to enjoy the game as it reinforced some of the words he stated when making his heart. Since he is a student with a fluency disorder, I directed him to practice saying his words in slow and easy sentences using his fluency strategies. He did a great job using his fluency strategies in structured sentences.

Here is another picture from a 3rd grade language therapy session today. The top left was an example I made. The remainder here are the beginning of my students' word associations work. This group will write their associations on the back and practice using the words in oral sentences. I plan to read a short story to them later this week related to Valentine's Day and have them identify word associations and also practice verbally summarizing and sequencing the story events.

Baseball Themed Baseline & Progress Check Data Forms

I am excited to share that I have completed receptive and expressive language packets that include baseball themed data collection forms to address synonyms & antonyms, associations, multiple meanings, and irregular plural nouns/irregular past tense verbs. I decided to create these materials because I have several activities to use when providing speech-language services for my students.  Although my students love when I use different games and activities to target their vocabulary and grammar activities, the words elicited are not always the same each session and I needed a way to effectively measure their language progress over time. 

My solution for this dilemma was to make a quick way to keep track of my students' knowledge and use of specific vocabulary and grammar targets versus solely using data from a variety of question probes each session.   I love my new data tracking forms and have already starting using them to record my students' accuracy with each skill (baseline data) and will recheck their percentage of accuracy after additional language therapy sessions.

In my school district, we use an online documentation system to create Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). SLPs and other special education teachers are required to enter a percentage for baseline data at each annual review and then update progress online each 9 weeks for each goal/objective using a percentage of accuracy.

These forms will be great to record data for my elementary school aged children and I am sure other SLPs can utilize them as well!! You can administer the probes across 4 data collection days with this informal assessment tool. This will make your data collection much easier and reliable.


Here is a picture of the materials that I used with my students recently: 

I first used the synonyms data tracking form during a "baseball game" with one of my students who has mild autism and receptive/expressive language disorder. He was eager to play the game by naming synonyms as we have been practicing this skill for a while in therapy. He liked getting to put the mini baseballs on the field when he answered questions and made his way around the bases. After the student finished answering his questions, I wrote his score on a large baseball with a note about what language skill he practiced during therapy. He thought it was awesome that he got to take home a baseball ! You would have thought  that it was a real baseball and NOT just a paper version. He left my speech room with a big smile!! Small joys! :) 

These resources are available at my Teachers Pay Teachers Store at:http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Synonyms-Antonyms-Baseline-Data-Progress-Check-Forms
Here is what you will receive in the Synonyms & Antonyms Packet:

1) Cover page
2) Instructions page
3) Boy and girl baseball players; custom made illlustrations for BSL Speech Language
4) Baseball field custom made graphics for BSL Speech Language
5) 2 pages of different size custom made baseball graphics for BSL Speech Language
6) 2 Synonyms lists
7) 2 Antonyms lists  

Kindly leave your feedback in my TPT Store.

Thanks for reading the blog today, 

Tamara Anderson