End of Year SALE-bration!

The end of 2014 is rapidly coming to a close. There are just 3 days left including today! I encourage you to make the most of this remaining time by spending it with those you love most dearly. Here's a picture collage of some of my recent family moments.

I am having a 20 % sale on all products in my TPT store 
until December 31st! You definitely need my various progress monitoring, English/Language Arts common core standards, and language intervention resources to make your SLP and educator life much easier in 2015! So head on over to teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Tamara-Anderson and access the digital downloads for complimentary products and on sale time-saving resources. 

Tamara Anderson

Happy Holidays - Thanks for Your Support!

Hey everyone. Thanks so much for reading my blog this year. I have enjoyed writing the articles, creating new speech/language products, and getting to know many new SLP bloggers this year. One of my highlights was definitely meeting several bloggers at the ASHA conference in Orlando, FL back in November. I wish you and your family a wonderful holiday season. Happy Hannukah if you are in midst of celebrating this special season of remembrance! Merry Christmas to those who will celebrate this time! I am especially glad that I am able to spend time with family as we reflect on our true reason for celebrating the season, the birth of Jesus Christ! 

I am so grateful for so many things and would like to give you all a little gift. My winter word associations will be available at no cost to you until Friday, December 19th. My entire store will also remain on sale 20 % off. You do not want to miss out! Stock up now on assessment and intervention materials so you'll be all set to go in 2015! Make your life a breeze in 2015! teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Tamara-Anderson

Happy Holidays! 

Sincerely, 

Tamara Anderson

Happy Holidays and Summarization {Evidence Based Strategy}

Happy Holidays from Building Successful Lives (BSL) Speech & Language! I am writing from the comforts of home today as I am now on day 3 of recovering from the flu. As the year is quickly coming to an end, this is a great time to naturally reflect on skills that you have taught your students and the progress that they have made.  However, it is equally important that you teach students, especially students with language disorders the evidence based strategy of summarization. 

Summarization is a skill that requires an individual to synthesize or bring together information that they have heard, read, and learned in a simplified and organized manner. It may involve a verbal summary, written summary, or both. This strategy can be applied in all the content areas of language arts, math, science, social studies, and various specials or electives classes. Once students learn how to use this skill and practice it effectively, it will have positive implications in their ability to master academic standards as well as become more effective communicators.

Now educators and speech-language pathologists may think, "oh, I have my students do this all the time." But do you really do this on a consistent basis? This is an excellent strategy that allows the teacher or SLP to check for a student's understanding of curriculum relevant standards as well as their oral/written language skills. It is ideal that this strategy is paired with an age appropriate graphic organizer to aid a child's recall and organization of content related to a particular topic. As children develop it is important to increase the expectations for them to have increasing depth of knowledge on a topic. A teacher or SLP may even use a rubric to progress monitor growth of summarization skills such as:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Oral-Story-Retelling-Rubric-819201

Teachers and SLPs of children in grades K-3 can have students summarize fiction text both verbally and in writing. Here are some suggestions for great holiday and winter themed books:

There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell by Lucille Colandro

Footprints in the Snow by Mei Matsuoka

The Mitten by Jan Brett

Snow Dog, Go Dog by Deborah Heiligman

Teachers and SLPs of children in grades 4-8 can have students summarize non-fiction information both verbally and in writing. They can summarize main ideas and related details learned in social studies and science content. I love having my students make metacognitive maps which are a visual representation of main ideas, vocabulary, and details on a selected topic. You can read more about that here: http://bslspeechlanguage.blogspot.com/2014/10/i-love-semantic-maps-evidence-based.html

Here are some examples of graphic organizers that require increasing linguistic or language complexity:

K-W-L Chart

*interactive computer made & printable chart: http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/creator-30846.html
*printable chart http://printables.scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf/00/ORG00_009.pdf

Beginning-Middle-End/Story Train Chart: 

http://printables.scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf/00/TEA00_205.pdf

Story Board Chart:
http://printables.scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf/07/1000000107_f.pdf

5 WH Q's Chart: 
http://printables.scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf/00/TEA00_205.pdf

Main Idea and Details Chart:
http://printables.scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf/00/ORG00_008.pdf

Non-Fiction News Chart: http://printables.scholastic.com/printables/detail/?id=40879

Venn Diagram:
*interactive computer made & printable visual: http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/venn-diagram-30973.html

Metacognitive Map: http://drleaf.com/about/dr-leafs-research/

Gist Template:
 http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson290/Template.pdf

Make sure to integrate summarization, an evidence-based strategy into your speech-language therapy sessions and classrooms on a regular basis! You will see positive gains in your students over time!

Reference: 

Better: Evidence-based Education Magazine

Published by the Johns Hopkins University School of Education's Center for Research and Reform in Education, Better magazine takes an evidence-based approach to figuring out what works in teaching.

• Summarizing text: "Explicitly teach students procedures for summarizing what they read. Summarization allows students to practice concise, clear writing to convey an accurate message of the main ideas in a text. Teaching summary writing can involve explicit strategies for producing effective summaries or gradual fading of models of a good summary as students become more proficient with the skill."   http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/Better/articles/Winter2011.html

Tamara Anderson, Ed.S.. CCC-SLP

Speech-language pathlogist

Education Specialist

Writer

7 Days Until Vacation! Say What? Celebrate with a Sale!

I am thrilled that I will soon be on winter break until 2015! I can not wait. Now is a great time to add new resources to your speech/language therapy materials to make your sessions a breeze for the rest of the year and beginning in January. My TPT store is on sale  20 % off starting today-Thursday December 18th. I definitely recommend my progress monitoring tools and winter themed activities. You can find these easily in my store at the top of the page at: www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Tamara-Anderson

I have been doing lots of winter themed activities to keep my students' interest and of course to provide their necessary speech/language interventions. This week, I read aloud, There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell, Snow Dog Go Dog, and Matt & Molly snowman story with various groups. 

My students also practiced oral language skills with correct subject/verb agreement. I also used lots of activities to build their receptive grammar knowledge such as is/are sorting with fill-in-the blank sentences. 

My 5th grade students practiced Tier II vocabulary by using context clues to figure out the meanings of words in written sentences and paragraphs. Some groups made semantic maps to review Tier III or English/Language Arts vocabulary by making semantic maps. For example, a few of them were struggling with remembering the differences between the types of writing so I modeled how to make a semantic map for these key words. Making and using semantic maps to recall content is an evidence based strategy to improve comprehension of vocabulary and key ideas. 

Always remember that as SLPs, we frequently make adjustments in our intervention approaches and activities based on the responses of our students. So its always great to have a few resources available each session that you can use to instruct students and to switch it up as needed. 

Get your time-saving resources:
www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Tamara-Anderson

Tamara 

TPT Cyber Sale!!!

Hey everyone. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday. The past 2 days have been super busy at work. I feel like it should be Friday already! Yikes!

I bought some great speech-language therapy products during the TPT Cyber Sale today such as:

Nicole Allison's Leveled Vocabulary Intervention

 Jenn Alcorn's Book Companions

Lauren LaCour's Fluency Treatment Packet

Maureen's (The Speech Bubble's) Can You See It My Way activity to address pragmatic language/perspective taking. 

I have several products that you definitely need in your speech-language sessions as well to make your life much easier. I highly recommend my Vocabulary Progress Monitoring Tool. This assesses 300 vocabulary terms according to a semantic processing hierarchy. 

My Speech Progress Monitoring will help you quickly and easily take data on speech fluency and speech intelligibility. 

You definitely need to purchase my English/Language Arts Comprehensive Categorization Bundle. This is a perfect intervention packet for students in grades 1-5 and even middle school to work on classifying Tier III English/Language Arts vocabulary. There are 5 activities included in this great resource! Each item is available separately in my store if you prefer just 1 or 2 items. 

My winter word associations activity is a great way to introduce the season while working on students' expressive vocabulary and word retrieval skills. 

Here is the direct link to my store: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Tamara-Anderson Remember to use the code: TPTCYBER to receive the full discount of 28 % off! 

Happy Shopping! Check out the links on Jenna's blog at Speech Room News for other great products. 
http://thespeechroomnews.com/2014/11/whats-in-your-cart-linky-party-3.html

Tamara Anderson

SLPs Build Successful Lives! ASHA Bound!

I am so excited for this week. I have a 2 day work week and then I am off to Orlando, FL (my home state) for ASHA Conference!!! Then I will attend a wedding and have a week of Thanksgiving BREAK!! :)

The new year, 2015 will be here before you know it. 2014 has been a great year for me!! It marks my 10th year of living in Atlanta, GA and working as a pediatric speech-language pathologist. Wow! I really can't believe that these years have gone by sooooo fast. I LOVE working with children with special needs!!! I look forward to many more years to come of enriching the lives of children with various communication, developmental, and learning disorders. 

Building Successful Lives. This is what all SLPs do every day through our awesome job as a SLP!  We teach children how to build language comprehension, oral language, correctly pronounce sounds, speak fluently, and effectively communicate with others. This only scratches the surface of the positive influence that SLPs have on the children and families that we serve. 

Building Relationships. This is what all SLPs do as we equip children with the skills they need to communicate and interact with their family, peers, teachers, and others in their community. We teach them how to observe social cues and problem solve in a highly social world. SLPs also build relationships with parents, educators, OTs, and PTs as we all work towards a common goal of enriching the lives of children with special needs. 

Building Hope.  SLPs are skilled at speaking with parents who are still trying to digest that their child has a communication disorder, hearing loss, developmental disability, and/or learning disability. SLPs empower parents to understand how they play a role in assisting their children achieve communication and language goals. We know how to share evaluation results while highlighting a child's strengths, areas of needs, and speech/language goals. 

On those extremely hectic days of speech/language therapy sessions, IEP meetings, staff meetings, RTI, report writing, and a million other tasks, remember that SLPs Build Successful Lives!

I look forward to seeing my fellow SLPs at ASHA! Leave a comment to let me know if you'll be there. Thanks! 

Keep scrolling down to read my previous 2 entries to enter the giveaway for progress monitoring tools. The winners will be announced on Thursday! :)

Tamara Anderson

BSL Speech & Language

Speech Progress Monitoring {Product Launch & Giveaway}

Over the years, I have provided speech therapy for several preschool to middle school age children who stutter.  I know how valuable it is to have a way to quickly take data on the frequency of a child's dysfluent episodes, types of stuttering, stuttering severity, and secondary behaviors during therapy sessions. That's why I am thrilled to share with you what has helped make my fluency intervention sessions a breeze!!

My latest product, Speech Progress Monitoring, was released last week in my TPT online store. It includes my speech fluency data collection tool that is perfect for progress monitoring in the speech room, general education classroom, or home environment. On the form, the SLP should record the setting the speech sample is taken, type of sample (e.g. picture description, story retell, conversation) and write tally marks to indicate each spoken syllable. Under each tally mark for a dysfluent episode, use the provided acronyms to record the types of stuttering. The formula to calculate the percentage of stuttering or severity is included. As a bonus, the SLP can circle if any secondary behaviors were observed during the speech sample. Using this form, will improve your ability to write fluency objectives such as the child naming the types of stuttering and reducing the percentage of stuttering in different speaking situations using fluency strategies. 

In speech therapy, there is a definite need to also have a speech intelligibility data collection tool. The progress monitoring form that I created provides a quick and easy way to calculate the percentage of speech intelligibility for children. I currently use this tool for children on my caseload with moderate intellectual disabilities. Many of these children struggle with speech articulation at the word, sentence, and conversational levels as well as with their communication partners understanding their speech. With direct intervention, the SLP can facilitate improving the speech intelligibility or the level that their speech is understood by familiar and unfamiliar speakers. This tool is essential for all speech language pathologists addressing increasing speech intelligibility with kids on their caseload. 

So head over to my TPT store to purchase this awesome resource at an incredible price! 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Speech-Progress-Monitoring-Fluency-Intelligibility-1537215

Enter here for a chance to win 2 of my latest progress monitoring tools in honor of ASHA in Florida! The winners will be notified next Thursday! :a Rafflecopter giveaway  


Tamara Anderson
BSL Speech & Language

Vocabulary Progress Monitoring {Product Launch & Giveaway}

I am excited that my latest product, Vocabulary Progress Monitoring, is available for use by speech-language pathologists and can be purchased in my TPT store. This essential and effective informal assessment tool assesses 300 vocabulary words. 

                                              
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Vocabulary-Progress-Monitoring-1520541

I have personally used these quick evaluation tools with children who have speech-language disorders to measure their semantic processing skills. Several SLPs purchased this product last week during my November 7th Must Have sale so I know this is a necessary product to have handy in your speech-language therapy room.

The resource is organized by vocabulary skills that require increasing receptive and expressive language abilities. In this extensive resource, you will receive vocabulary progress monitoring documentation forms to evaluate these specific semantic skills:

1) Object functions- 20 words (school & home items)
2) Word associations- 40 words
3) Categories- 10 groups
4) Similarities/Differences- 10 words
5) Synonyms/Antonyms- 40 synonyms, 40 antonyms
6) Multiple meaning words- 90 words
7) Oral definitions with Tier I words- 10 words
8) Oral definitions with Tier III (academic) words- 20
9) Figurative language- 20 words

I recommend making an assessment binder with several copies of each form and keeping them in sheet protectors. This way you can easily access them when you need to complete an informal vocabulary assessment for a student. 

This must have progress monitoring tool is on sale now in my TPT store for one week only because I know how much you need this product! As a special gift to my blog readers,  enter now for a chance to win my 2 latest progress monitoring tools! The winners will be notified next Thursday in honor of ASHA in Florida! a Rafflecopter giveaway  




Thanks for visiting the blog today. 

Tamara Anderson
BSL Speech & Language

Literacy Website Review # 4 {Fry Sight Words}

Many students with language disorders have co-occurring learning disabilities in the areas of reading and writing. They need direct intervention to increase their reading decoding, sight word recognition, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. 

Students need practice to improve their automaticity for oral reading of sight words. Recently, I have been thinking of ways to support the special education teachers' goal of improving the reading skills of students with reading disabilities and language disorders.  Sometimes the progress is slower than we would anticipate and we are eager to close the gap when the kids are reading several grade levels behind. We discussed that the students really need to improve their sight word recognition of Fry words. Research shows that students need to read the first 300 by 3rd grade and 1000 words in 4th and 5th grade to successfully read on grade level. 

I was going to make flash cards for students to take home for practice and then I stumbled across the website: http://www.uniqueteachingresources.com/Fry-1000-Instant-Words.html

The Unique Teaching Resources website is awesome because it has the Fry words flashcards for 1000 high frequency words already created! Plus, there are progress monitoring checklists for all the words. I especially like that the words are divided into sets of 10 and 20 words based on the needs of students that you are working with. 

This is an excellent resource to share with parents for them to encourage their kids to practice their sight words. If you have a literacy night at your school, this is a great website to share with parents and staff to access the FREE and beneficial resources! 

An added bonus on this website is that it includes 100 nouns with pictures. This is great to use with language disordered kids who are building their receptive and expressive vocabulary skills. 

In a special education classroom, students sometimes practice their sight words online via a power point presentation of words. However, I think is important for  them to also have access to practice their sight words with flash cards when they are on the go. They can practice reading on the bus, in the car, at home easily without having to turn on a computer. Yes I do love technology. However, I also believe back to the basics instruction is needed as well. 

Students in K-2nd generally practice their sight words with hands on flash cards or other word work activities when they are learning to read. What about students in grades 3-5 or even middle and high school who are reading below grade level? They still need intervention to improve their sight word recognition and reading decoding even though they are expected at that level to read to learn. But what happens when they still need to learn sight words? Special education teachers need to make remediating this area a priority and not just teach comprehension strategies and the grade level standards despite time constraints. Yes, kids need to learning comprehension strategies but they must learn sight word and how to decode words too! 

This educational literacy website is created by a teacher for other educators and it is definitely jam packed with great FREE literacy resources along with some lesson plans available for purchase. 

The website does not directly share other ideas for students to learn sight words other than flash cards. However, they can play games such as BINGO, Go Fish, and Memory to practice this skill. Dr. Edward Fry's book is the perfect resource for this.
(Dr. Fry's 1000 Instant Words: The Most Common Words for Teaching Reading, Writing, & Spelling). You can view a preview here:books.google.com/books?isbn=1576907570


Here is a great website if you would like to see the Fry word lists as related to the Common Core Standards for K-5th grade. http://www.k12reader.com/subject/vocabulary/fry-words/

I like that the K12 reader website reminds you to have students practice their reading sight words in contexts of sentences, paragraphs, and writing the words as well. 

Thanks for reading the blog today!

* Tamara Anderson
BSL Speech & Language

Literacy Review # 3 { Technology }

This week, I have been integrating technology based literacy activities in pediatric speech-language group therapy sessions. So many kids with receptive language disorders need to improve their listening  comprehension skills when read fiction and non-fiction text. That is why I love the 2 products from Super Duper Publications, Auditory Memory for Quick Stories (fiction text) and Auditory Memory High-Interest Quick Stories, Curriculum-Based Stories for Science and Social Studies (non-fiction text). There are 30 fiction stories and 30 non-fiction stories. I purchased these about 3 years ago and I am so glad that I did! 

http://www.superduperinc.com/products/view.aspx?pid=AMLQ110&stid=

http://www.superduperinc.com/products/view.aspx?pid=AMLQ220&stid=#.VEmlm_ldWSo

Using these resources allows the SLP or classroom teacher to differentiate instruction by content or what the child needs to learn. The SLP may vary her delivery of services by providing individualized instruction to a student on a specific learning objective (e.g. multiple meaning words) while other students practice their listening comprehension skills using these literacy technology resources. 

These Cds also have built in capabilities for differentiated instruction based on the process because there are leveled settings available that the SLP or teacher can select based on a child's current literacy abilities. For example, on level 1, a child is presented with a question after each picture. The levels increase by providing more auditory information and visual pictures before the next set of comprehension questions. The 4th and highest level is strictly auditory and requires keen listening for details from stories. 

I love this product because it provides children an opportunity to improve their memory skills and language comprehension. It also helps foster a love of literacy. This is a definite win for the SLP and teacher because this program tracks data according to percentages from each story. I recommend printing the scores regularly to ensure that you maintain meticulous therapy data or work samples for your classroom.   

Have you used this resource before? What are your thoughts?

Tamara Anderson
BSL Speech & Language

October Children's Literature Reviews

Here are my children's literature reviews for books to use during the month of October. The first two books are ideal for addressing listening comprehension and vocabulary skills with children who are learning everyday Tier I words. 

A is for Autumn, by Robert Mass is a colorful book with great photographs that display nouns and adjectives of the season. The language in the book is simple enough for students in preschool and grades K-2. SLPs and teachers may lead students in an auditory memory activity to recall facts from the book or practice naming vocabulary associated with fall. The targeted vocabulary are: apples, birds, colors, daylight, exercise, frost, games, Halloween, ice cream (great for any season!), jacket, kayak, leaves, Monarch butterfly, neighborhood, owl, pumpkins, quilt, rake, scarecrow, Thanksgiving, umbrella, vegetables (gourds/squash), X (train crossing), yellow, and zipper. 

 Here's a snapshot from one of my favorite pages:

Word Bird's Fall Words, by Jane Belk Moncure is a book that introduces themed vocabulary to early learners. This is a simple text that teaches kids words associated with fall such as leaves, red, yellow, orange, football, acorns, squirrels, caterpillar, cocoon, Columbus Day, wild geese, pumpkins, Halloween, jack-o'-latern, trick or treat, turkey, Thanksgiving, Mayflower, Pilgrims, Indians, and tepee. Preschool and elementary school aged children can practice identifying and naming the key vocabulary. This is a fair book for kids with limited semantic or vocabulary skills. I use this book with kids with moderate intellectual disabilities and co-occurring language impairment. It can be used with a variety of children with language difficulty. 

My speech students love the books The Saturday Triplets in Lost in the Leaf Pile and The Saturday Triplets in The Pumpkin Fair Problem by Katharine Kenah. In the first story, the siblings decide to make a game out of raking leaves and in the process they lose their kitty, Boo. In the other story, the triplets go to the fair with their parents. They are so excited to be there, but can't agree on what to do! The illustrations are fantastic in these stories and provide a great opportunity for kids to practice basic level verbal narratives. 

It wouldn't be a new season without using one of Lucille Colandro's books. I definitely recommend There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat! and There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly! Yes, the children you work with will probably be grossed out again by the things this silly old lady eats. However, these books are an engaging and fun way to allow kids to practice identifying the correct sequence of the story events and verbally retelling the fiction story. Of course, you should always ask "wh" questions to check for comprehension. Although these books are at a second grade reading level, I think they are appropriate for a read aloud for preschool-3rd grade kids with language impairment or in a general education class as well. 

Enjoy the month of October! What are some books that you use this month in your classroom or during speech-language therapy sessions?

Tamara Anderson

Language Processing Treatment Plan {Evidence Based }

The majority of children on my caseload have a mixed receptive and expressive language disorder. They struggle with both language comprehension and oral expression. They also have language based learning disabilities with challenges in reading and written expression. In order to remediate their difficulties, it is important to remember the hierarchy of language processing skills that will enable children to be more successful communicators and learners. 

I love the Language Processing Test Elementary by Gail Richard and Mary Anne Hanner. http://www.linguisystems.com/products/product/display?itemid=10360


There is also an accompanying intervention book that describes the importance of providing speech language therapy services according to the following hierarchy. As a SLP, you can determine a child's language strengths and areas of need. Then you can provide direct instruction in those areas. Remember that these skills require increasing linguistic demand or receptive/expressive language abilities. 

1) Labeling
2) Functions
3) Associations
4) Categories
5) Antonyms
6) Synonyms
7) Similarities
8) Differences
9) Multiple meaning words 
10) Oral definitions with attributes (*This corresponds with the assessment subtest. However, the treatment book includes practice with idioms and analogies instead of attributes.)
http://www.linguisystems.com/products/product/display?itemid=10438




Although I have not yet used the specific activities in this book, I have provided direct speech-language therapy on these specific language areas of need for years. It is important to remember this hierarchy when writing speech-language goals & objectives for children and providing therapy services. Each language area requires knowledge and expressive communication abilities of the previous language skill. 

So many students with co-occurring disorders struggle with these concepts. Students may have an identified speech-language impairment (SLI) along with specific learning disability(SLD), SLI with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), SLI with Moderate Intellectual Disability (MOID), SLI with Mild Intellectual Disability (MID), SLI with Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD), or SLI with Deaf/Hard of Hearing (D/HH). Regardless of these "labels" or classifications, speech-language pathologists have the important professional task of remediating the language processing skills listed above as appropriate for each child. 

I have several speech-language therapy activities that address these skills in my TPT online store. Head over to my store and add them to your SLP time saving and effective resources. 
www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Tamara-Anderson   

Thanks for reading the blog today! 


Tamara Anderson

I love Semantic Maps! {Evidence-Based Strategy}

I love any reason to use markers in speech-language therapy sessions with my students. When I demonstrate how to make semantic maps, I naturally use markers to make the terms more appealing. Who doesn't like colorful work samples anyhow? Plus, it is a great memory aid as well. 




Semantic maps are visual representations of key vocabulary words that are accompanied by definitions, pictures, and/or acronyms to help individuals learn academic content. 

I provide speech-language therapy to kindergarten-fifth grade students. Typically, I use this evidence based strategy with my 5th grade students with science and social studies content. However, it is beneficial with younger kids as well. 

Last year I implemented a single subject research design study for my Ed.S. degree program in curriculum & instruction. I compared 5th grade students' receptive social studies vocabulary knowledge after instruction using semantic maps with World War I and World War II terms vs. the intervention method of flash card drill & repetition. Making semantic or metacognitive maps were a part of Dr. Caroline Leaf 's, The Switch On Your Brain 5-Step Learning Process system that I implemented during this research. She is a neuroscientist and speech-language pathologist. How cool is that! I met her in person two years at a conference and she is a phenomenal speaker! 



http://drleaf.com/store/the-switch-on-your-brain-5-step-learning-process-dvdworkbook/

Ok, back to semantic maps. My research findings revealed that the use of the semantic map strategy increased the receptive vocabulary knowledge of 5th grade speech-language impaired students at a greater rate than vocabulary instruction using the flash cards method. On average, my students made a 35 % gain from pretest to posttest with WW I terms and a 50 % gain with WW II terms using semantic maps as a vocabulary learning strategy. When they used the flash card method during the non-treatment phase they demonstrated a  11% increase with WWI terms and a 15 % increase with WWII terms. 

This year, I have reviewed key ideas about the Civil War, reconstruction, westward expansion, animal cells, and plant cells using semantic maps with my students who have language disorders and co-occurring language based learning disabilities. 

Here are some more snapshots of the maps:

Thanks for reading my blog today! :)

*Remember to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for regular updates as well! I appreciate your support of Building Successful Lives (BSL) Speech & Language. 

Tamara Anderson

Fiction Book Series # 2 {Froggy}

As you may know, I love using literacy during my speech-language therapy lessons like most SLPs. I have many students who have speech objectives to verbally retell stories and answer literal/inferential questions from fiction text. 

My younger elementary school aged students enjoy the Froggy series books by Jonathan London. The stories are engaging and the illustrations are great too!

The majority of these books are at a 2nd grade reading level. During speech-language sessions, I read aloud these stories with my students in grades K-3.  The majority of my students with language impairment also have a language based learning disability and are reading below grade level. However, their listening comprehension skills are usually higher. 

Here are four of the books from the Froggy series that I used within the last few weeks. 

What are some series that your students or children enjoy? Follow the blog for more posts about other fiction book series.  

Tamara 

Fiction Book Series # 1 {Pirate Pete}

Apparently tomorrow, September 19th, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Say what?! This is certainly news to me because this day has always been and will forever be my dad's birthday! Happy Birthday to an extraordinary man, a.k.a. Mr. Retiree, who I love dearly! 

This week,  I decided to introduce pirate themed fiction stories because I love literacy! Plus, I figured my students would get a kick out of  knowing that there is such a holiday that celebrates pirates. 

There are three books in the series by the author, Kim Kennedy and

her brother and illustrator Doug Kennedy.  I used the first 2 books in the series this week in speech language therapy with my students. I have read them in the past, but not in honor of this holiday. I was lucky to have the audio CD for the Pirate Pete books that the kids love! 

The First in the Series by Kim Kennedy is Pirate Pete. In this story, he travels to Mermaid Island in search of treasure. He is guided by the map that he mischievously took from the Queen.  Pete gets side tracked on his voyage and visits other islands along the way. His loyal parrot gets him back on track to finding the treasure! 

Then, there is Pirate Pete's Giant Adventure. This time, he travels to Thunder Island in search of a Sea Fairy's missing blue sapphire. On the island, Pete meets an unexpected antagonist who is determined to ruin his adventure. 

There is also Pirate Pete's Talk Like a Pirate. In this book, Pete eagerly recruits new crew members to begin another voyage. He is convinced that they must all know how to talk like a Pirate! Arrrr matey! 

These books are great to use in speech-language therapy sessions, reading activities in the classroom, and to read with your child as well! Here are some ideas of children's activities to address speech language objectives and literacy skills: 

• articulation practice of /r/ words in the text
• answering literal and inferential questions
• verbal story retell
• written story retell
• compare and contrast the stories in the series 
• context clues for unknown vocabulary

Thanks for visiting the blog today! Enjoy International Talk Like a Pirate Day tomorrow! It's September 19th every year. 

Tamara