Beach Themed Multiple Meanings Memory Activity

One of my favorite places to go during the spring and summer is the BEACH!! I love the sound of the ocean waves crashing on the shore, the smell of the salt air, the feel of the sea breeze, and even the sand beneath my feet. I created a fun resource using photographs of some of my travels to Key Biscayne, Florida (Bill Braggs State Park); Ormond Beach, Florida; Dunnedin, Florida (Honeymoon Island State Park); Ocala, Florida. 

This is a fun activity for use by speech language pathologists who are working in private practice in the summer, teachers instructing students in summer school, or as a back to school activity for teachers/SLPs to help students practice multiple meanings vocabulary. The purpose of this learning game is to increase students’ short term memory, working memory, and receptive/expressive vocabulary knowledge. 

Students will take turns looking for matches of homophone and homograph pairs. If they get a match, they get another turn. There are a total of 40 matches. I recommend that you divide the cards into a homophone set that has 20 matches and a homograph set that has 20 matches. At the end of the game, have students use their vocabulary matches in sentences to correctly convey the multiple meanings. There are 2 ways to win the game. The player who has the most matches as well as the player that can correctly communicate the greatest amount of his or her homophone/homograph pairs in sentences. 

This is available for purchase at: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Beach-Themed-Multiple-Meanings-Memory-Activity-716732

Thanks for your support, 

Tamara Anderson, M.S., CCC-SLP
Speech-Language Pathologist on Summer Break! 

Basketball Challenge- Speech, Language, and Academic Skills

Wow! I can't believe it's June already. I am thankful to have completed another successful school year. My summer break started 2 weeks ago. Hooray! The last 2 months of school was quite busy with the usual tasks of group speech-language therapy sessions, testing students, IEP meetings, special education team meetings, staff meetings, committee meetings, and tons of paperwork/computer work. Let's not forget our beloved high stakes CRCT, the state test here in Georgia. Among all those important and urgent activities, I made a deliberate effort that my students have fun while learning and practicing their speech and language skills in my therapy classroom.

I am pleased to share with you one of my newest resources that I created and used with my students during the months of April and May. The Basketball Challenge-Speech, Language, and Academic Skills is an awesome interactive activity that kept my students engaged during their 30 minute speech-language therapy sessions. I primarily used my English/Language Arts Common Core Vocabulary questions (http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/4th-Grade-EnglishLanguage-Arts-Common-Core-Standards-Vocabulary-652220) with this activity. Here is how to play this basketball challenge. Most of my groups have 4 students, so they would divide into 2 teams, and select a name for their team.

I would write the name on the statistics sheet shown here.

Then, they would choose a basketball player.

. 

I would place the basketball court and 2 nets on the table.

I would then place all the basketballs face down on the table.

Each student took turns answering a learning question, then they would pick up a basketball, dribble the ball to the net, and shoot the ball. It was the luck of the draw if they would get 1 point, 2 points, or 3 points.

During the game, I recorded the number of basketball points each student earned and the number of learning points they earned by answering questions correctly on the statistics sheet.

The game would end when their speech-language therapy session time was over. I would then calculate the accuracy percentage for answering their speech, language, and academic questions.

My students were so excited to see if their team won the game and also what individual player had the most basketball points and learning points.

This activity is definitely a win-win for both the students and the SLP. You can purchase it here to use with your students: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Basketball-Challenge-Speech-Language-and-Academic-Skills-717131

Thanks for visiting my page today!! I will have several new posts and therapy/educational products available next school year.

Tamara Anderson, M.S., CCC-SLP

Speech-Language Pathologist on Summer Break! 

March Mania & Spring Fever: English/Language Arts Common Core Style

My school district is already in the final stretch for the school year as we are in the  midst of the final nine weeks of instruction and have ONE more week before SPRING BREAK!! This is the time of year when speech-language pathologists and teachers focus on the remaining skills we desire for our students to learn. In the speech-language classroom, the typical vocabulary echoes throughout the room: story elements, main idea, supporting details, fiction, non-fiction, antonyms, synonyms, homonyms, word associations, BREATHE, basic concepts, following directions, idioms, similes, compare, contrast, cause, effect, fact, opinion, BREATHE, parts of speech, irregular plural nouns, irregular past tense verbs, types of sentences, summarize, and REPEAT!! Last month, my school had a "March Madness" theme and many students received extra instructional time during SPECIALS (e.g. music, art, P.E., etc.) to improve either English/Language Arts or Math skills that needed remediation.   

For the past 3 weeks, I focused on reviewing English/Language Arts common core standards questions with my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade speech-language students in their usual therapy sessions. I created a set of 36 English/Language Arts questions based on common core standards relevant to skills that I address in my speech-language therapy sessions with my students.   

During each session, I put a red token next to each learning question card.  Each page had 6 questions and 6 tokens. Students got to pick up a token when they answered a question correctly. They were very competitive and eager to see who would earn the most tokens.  I told them that their goal is always to try and beat their highest individual score. I have to admit that it has been quite exciting and interesting in the speech room lately.  Most of my students are happy and cheer when they earn the most tokens or "learning points" while I've had one to cry because he didn't win.  The latter moment is when I switch into my unofficial title of counselor, mentor, listening ear and shoulder to cry on! YIKES! The joys of elementary education...I digress...

Anyhow, here are links to the awesome and time saving materials I created:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/2nd-Grade-EnglishLanguage-Arts-Common-Core-Standards-Vocabulary

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/3rd-Grade-EnglishLanguage-Arts-Common-Core-Standards-Vocabulary

After a few sessions reviewing questions using my classroom original, I photocopied  individual learning packets of these questions for my students. We completed the packets in class by circling the correct responses from a field of 4 choices and writing the correct vocabulary word in the cloze sentences. My students took the packet home after each session for independent practice. 

This is a great way to incorporate the English/Language Arts Common Core Standards into speech-language therapy sessions and also help prepare students for end of year state tests.

The 4th grade and 5th grade learning sets are coming soon!!! The 4th grade set has 42 learning questions including questions related to idioms and similes! 

These learning activities may be used with an accompanying basketball game. The custom made illustrations and game pieces will be available soon. Check back again soon!! 

4/8/13 Update The 4th grade English/Language Arts Common Core Standards learning packet is available and now has 48 questions. Don't hesitate to click on the link below! :) http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/4th-Grade-EnglishLanguage-Arts-Common-Core-Standards-Vocabulary

                                      Thanks for visiting today!! :)

Spring Word Associations Freebie!!

I absolutely love spring time! I love the weather, emergence of colors in the blooming flowers, and I love SPRING BREAK which is 3 weeks away for me here in Atlanta! Most importantly, I am grateful that Jesus Christ loved mankind so much that he made the greatest sacrifice for us. Spring is a season to reflect on his  death, resurrection, and free gifts of GRACE, MERCY, and FORGIVENESS to all those who believe in him. 

In anticipation of spring, I want to share a gift that you can use in your classroom so I specially created a Spring Word Associations Freebie for you to use with your students. 

Click on the link to download the resource: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Spring-Word-Associations

In the download, you will see photographs I took over the past few years of plants from my garden (green hosta, pink lily, yellow lily, pink knock out rose), my mother's garden (white magnolia bloom), and my Aunt Pauline's garden (orchids). I hope you enjoy the activity and photos! 

Fiction Book of the Week: Green Shamrocks

This week, some of my speech-language students in grades K-2 listened to a CD with a reading of the fiction book Green Shamrocks by Eve Bunting. The learning objectives for the lesson were for them to answer listening comprehension questions, sequence the story events, and verbally retell the story. I have one student in kindergarten who stutters so he also practiced his speech fluency using his slow and easy speech. 

I was lucky to have multiple copies of this book, so each student had a chance to do their own "picture walk" by looking at the illustrations in order to make predictions about what the story would be about. The students did a great job naming the characters  before they heard the story and shared their thoughts about what was going to happen in the story. 

They did a great job answering literal who, what, where, when, and why questions that were directly stated in the story. They needed some verbal prompts to sequence the events and orally retell the story.  

I see most of my students 2-3 times a week for speech-language therapy. So, on the 2nd therapy day we completed an arts & craft activity. Here are a few photos:

Thanks for visiting the blog! Happy early St. Patrick's Day!

Why Teach Multiple Meaning Words?

A student with a language disorder walks into a regular education classroom where he or she is bombarded with multi-step teacher directions in a fast paced classroom. The student struggles to get out all the materials for the first academic subject much less comprehend what the teacher is saying. "Students, get out your math book and journal. Turn to page 25 and write your name on the right hand side of the next blank page in your practice journal. Our class is going to spend the next hour learning about measurements and we are going to measure and record the size of  our hands, feet, and height. We will use a ruler, yard stick, and tape measure to record the inches and feet." Student A says "awesome, I'm going to have a ball because I'm the tallest kid!!" Student B says"huh?" "I thought we were going to make and record a song!!" Teacher....blank stare!!

Now imagine that some of the students in the class are also bilingual and are learning English. However, they don't have a solid foundation in their primary language and they are language disordered. They would be confused by the teacher's lengthy instructions and most likely not understand several of the vocabulary words. These students struggle processing and understanding  a variety of language concepts including multiple meaning vocabulary.

Students who have language disorders often need direct vocabulary instruction with multiple meanings. The speech language pathologist is key to providing this instruction. Most elementary school students are familiar with the terms: homonyms, homophones, and homographs. However, they easily confuse the meanings and need plenty of receptive and expressive language practice with examples of these words.

In my speech language therapy sessions, I instruct my students on the 2 categories of homonyms or multiple meaning words. Then, I take baseline data to see what words they understand and can effectively use in a sentence. I suggest:
 http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Multiple-Meanings-Vocabulary-Baseline-Progress-Check-Data-Forms

Then I provide multiple opportunities to practice increasing their vocabulary skills with a variety of activities and learning games. I have my students practice verbally describing 2 meanings of the target terms and I provide verbal and visual prompts as needed. I also like using cloze sentence (fill in the blank) tasks or semantic absurdities activities in which students have to correctly identify/name the correct homonym.
Here is a list of some of the activities and resources I use to address developing
this skill:

1. Go for the Dough Board Game by Super Duper
My students love this activity and it addresses multiple meaning words , synonyms, antonyms, categories, and more.
2. Homophones Photo Fun Deck by Super Duper
3.Homographs Fun Deck by Super Duper
4. Multiple Meanings Deck and Homonyms Photo Fun Deck by Super Duper
5.Homophones I PAD application by AbiTalk
6.Bluster I PAD application by McGraw Hill Center for Digital Innovation
My students are always eager to participate in the homophones activities. There are also fun activities to target word roots, prefixes, suffixes, synonyms, rhyming words, and adjectives.
7.No Glamour Vocabulary book by Linguisystems
This book has great worksheets for guided practice and homework review. I tend to use worksheets after the skill has been practiced orally in therapy a few times.
8.Numerous SLP created products available at : teacherspayteachers.com

What additional resources or methods do you find successful with teaching multiple meaning words?

EVIDENCE BASED PRACTICE:

Johnson, C., Ionson, M., and Torreiter, S. (1997) state that direct vocabulary instruction in the area of multiple meaning words is essential for successful comprehension of spoken and written language. In their study, the research results  indicated that children with language learning difficulties  are able to provide adequate verbal definitions when target meanings were presented in sentence context compared to tasks that did not provide a context. How should I use this knowledge in my classroom? SLPs and teachers should directly teach vocabulary and provide opportunities for students to practice their word knowledge using context clues in sentences. 

Reference

Johnson, C., Ionson, M., and Torreiter, S (1997). Assessing children's knowledge of multiple meaning words. American Journal of Speech Language Pathology. (6) 77-86. 

Thanks for visiting the blog today! :)

Celebrating Dr. Seuss in Speech-Language Therapy

Last week, my school had a celebration for Read Across America Week and Friday was a celebration in honor of Dr. Seuss' Birthday. Some of my speech-language students had the opportunity to practice language arts vocabulary, orally summarizing story events, sequencing events, and speech articulation skills during Dr. Seuss themed activities. One of my favorite activities of the week involved using the book: The Lorax. I differentiated or modified instruction as needed for my students based on their IEP goals. Here is a picture of books I used:

I previewed relevant language arts vocabulary that we typically discuss with fiction stories. For example, I asked my students to name the title, author, and illustrator prior to reading the story. I pointed out the publisher and explained that I would be their narrator. During the story, I modeled "think alouds" and had my students name the characters, describe the characters' traits, and point of view of the story. After the story, we summarized the plot and compared/contrasted what happened at the introduction vs. conclusion of the story.

I love this book because at the end of the story it promotes preserving the environment and restoring the Bar-ba-loot Bears' habitat by planting trees. So, my students eagerly created their own "Truffula Forest" from the seed that the Once-ler had at the end of the story after he selfishly cut down all the trees for his "Thneed" clothing manufacturing business. Here are some examples of my students' beautiful and colorful creations:

Here was our inspiration page for the craft activity:

These bright colors have me looking forward to fun speech-language craft activities with spring and summer themes during lessons in my speech-language therapy classroom!! Oh yeah...I should mention that I am eager DESPITE the light snow flurries we had in Atlanta over the weekend.

Thanks for stopping by the blog today!! Stay tuned for resources to support the English/Language Arts and Reading Common Core Curriculum Standards.