SEEL: early literacy resource for SLPs, teachers, and parents

I have been spending a lot of time preparing speech and language sessions centered on reading and writing development.  The best part about combining speech and language with literacy...they are so dependent on one another!

In one activity focusing on phonemic awareness I can also target articulation goals (final consonant deletion, voicing errors, minimal pairs, etc.) as well as getting language goals (plural /s/, pronouns, 3rd person singular /s/, verb tenses) AND transfer the principles to comprehension strategies and prediction as I expose children to text!

And the best part...you don't even have to plan for that kind of carryover!  It will just happen as you use books and target early literacy skills.

Here is my new favorite website for teaching early literacy skills: http://education.byu.edu/seel/

The website is for the SEEL (Systematic and Engaging Early Literacy) program.  This website lists hundreds of activities for increasing literacy skills through phonemic awareness tasks like rhymes and alliteration.  Plus they add new activities frequently.

Best part:  It is totally free.  I am a huge fan of helping kids and not having to spend money for specialized programs.  Thank you BYU and thank you SEEL program.

My personal favorite page of the website is under the Lesson Plan Library: Scopes and Sequences tab.  Here you can find developmental sequences associated with early literacy.  The steps are broken down into very user friendly chunks.  Plus they have linked the steps with appropriate activities, you want to teach first developing letters?  Click on any of: M, B, T, S, O and X

*notice that the letters are not sequenced alphabetically, that is not the easiest way for kids to learn their letters!  I LOVE that they don't take the "letter of the week" approach.  (which is ok, don't freak out if that is what your pre-school is using, your kids will still learn...but evidence suggests there are better ways)

One word of advice though:  even when I have taken extra time to make sure I am hitting multiple goals with one activity I still try to focus my cueing and prompting on my top priority goals.  It is easy for kids to get overwhelmed if you slam them with too much.  So be sensitive to what you want the child to work on and for everything else offer as much support as the child needs to be successful.

Check the program out.  You will love it.

I added a new page! FAQs

I added a new page to my blog but I thought I would post the information here as well to keep everyone informed.

1.  I am concerned about my child's speech (or language) what should I do next?
I recommend that you look at some of my blog posts about developmental milestones and what is considered "within normal limits" for someone your child's age.  If you are still concerned after reading through some of the material give me a call or send me an e-mail.  I am happy to discuss normal development.  Part of my job is being able to tell you whether or not your child would benefit from speech/language therapy.

2.  Where would we meet for speech therapy sessions?
I would come to your home.  Most of my clients are children and I believe that they benefit most from receiving speech therapy in their own homes.  There is sound evidence behind this practice, particularly for very young children.  You will be able to complete homework assignments easier and have better generalization of acquired skills if we work at your house.

3.  What are the benefits of private speech therapy?
I have worked for school districts and I have worked privately.  There are benefits to each kind of therapy approach:

-School provided therapy:  The biggest pro is it's free!  Also, if your child needs to work on social skills with peers those goals are much easier to address.  However, I found that it was very difficult for me to have good communication with my student's parents when I worked in the schools.  Also, I was always crunched for time.  It takes time to give kids one-on-one speech therapy sessions, it takes time to prepare for each session and each child individually, it takes time to communicate with parents and teachers about a student's progress...I just never had enough time!

-Private therapy:  I feel like the biggest pro in the private sector has been being able to communicate with my client's parents before/during/after each session.  I see WAY more progress in my clients when parents are on board and know why we are working on certain things, how to approach goals, and how to move on to the next step.  Also in private therapy I devote time before each session to design activities specifically for each client to help meet their individual goals and I seek continuing education courses that help me provide better therapy approaches specifically for individual clients.  I feel like I am able to provide high quality speech and language sessions.

4.  How much do you charge for evaluations?  
I have no extra fees or charges for an evaluation.  Screenings and evaluations are included in your therapy session fees.  Also included in your fees are yearly service plans and 6 month progress reports, which will include a summary of therapy progress, goals, and recommendations.  In addition, I offer professional support through phone consults and e-mails.  I ask that you be considerate of my time when making these calls.

5.  Do you accept insurance?
No.  I currently only accept private pay clients.  I am happy to work with your family and design the therapy approach that works best for your child (and you wallet) if money is a concern.

Talk with your child's SLP

Ok, so this post is more of a soap box stand than anything else.  It will be short.

A few weeks ago I was at my kid's parent teacher conferences and as we were leaving, at the end of the night, we walked by the school SLP's room.  She was sitting at her desk ALL ALONE.  I asked her how many parents she had seen that night...four.  Out of a caseload of nearly 70 kids, she had only seen 4 parents!  I remembered having the exact same experiences and feeling SO frustrated!

Now that I provide private therapy I get totally spoiled because I get to talk with my client's parents every session.  I get to show them exactly what I am doing, why I am doing it, and teach them how to practice the same principles at home.  And I see tons of progress.  In the schools I did everything I could to include parents, but I was BUSY!  I saw so many kids, I couldn't possibly e-mail each one's parents at the end of every session with an update.  During parent teacher conferences I set aside hours for two days just to talk with parents...who would forget to stop by.

I know we are all busy, and I know that it can be hard to just get to parent teacher conferences and see each kid's main teacher, it is easy to overlook the SLP.  But if your child qualified to receive speech therapy at school that means your child has a disability or delay that impacts their academic success.  Your SLP is working hard to help your child...next time GO SEE HER when you have the chance!

Using holidays to encourage Conversation Skills

This post is all about helping kids generalize their language skills using something that all kids love...holidays!  Talking about upcoming holidays is a great way to help kids solidify their newfound language skills because:
1. Holidays are super motivating for kids, they are fun!
2. Holidays are very high frequency topics in the weeks proceeding each major holiday.
3. Holiday conversations often are repetitive and predictive...talking about Halloween, well then expect to be asked what you will dress up as, talking about Christmas, expect to be asked what you have asked Santa for, etc.

So I take full advantage of the holidays when they roll around.  Having a private practice helps because then I don't have to worry about crossing some blurry school vs. church topic line.  I ask parents beforehand and go with what they generally talk about.  I LOVE working directly with parents.

These are some of the big goals that I work on in our conversations:
 topic maintenance if we are talking about Halloween let's stay there for a few minutes and not jump around to Star Wars or Cars II.
 conversational turns are we both sharing the talking time, is my client giving answers and asking questions, etc.
 ability to answer wh-questions and ask wh-questions this is a big one, in therapy it is easy to work on  answering wh-questions but harder to find spontaneous opportunities to ask them.  The basically scripted holiday conversation routines everyone uses are great for that.
eye-contact is the student engaging in appropriate eye-contact, especially when requesting information?
and other conversation level grammar and speech sound goals (using correct pronouns, correct helper verbs or conjunctions, verb tenses, /k/ sounds, etc.)

and the best part...these are conversations that have a huge likelihood of being taken outside of the therapy session time so the students can practice and apply the skills we have been working on to help them interact with peers.

Best Language Milestones References

Here are some of my favorite Speech and Language Milestone References.

LinguiSystems Communication Milestones FREE (has a ton of data, might have some terms that are confusing if you are not super familiar with SLP literature)

Zero to Three Developmental Milestones a great resource for kids ages birth to 3 years hits all major areas of development (not just speech and language)

ASHA Birth to age 5 Reference  contains information about language and speech development for ages birth to five, broken down by how old they are

ASHA Kindergarten to 5th Grade Reference contains information about language skill for school age kids broken down by what grade they are in


There are a lot of developmental checklists out there for tracking your child's speech.  You will notice that each checklist has a wide range of when kids are supposed to be picking up new skills.  That is because all kids progress differently and that is ok...but sometimes it is hard to know exactly when to worry.

Will your child figure it out if you just watch and see?  Does your child need specialized help?  It can be confusing and cause anxiety...if you feel worried I suggest that you first talk with your pediatrician and the child's preschool or school teacher.  These professionals know normal development and are very good at sensing if there is a bigger problem.  Then you can reach out to a Speech and Language Pathologist (SLP) if it is appropriate.  There are some milestones that are very important for kids to master, a SLP will be able to tell you exactly which skills your child is in the process of learning and which will come next and where to start working and how to target each goal and most importantly...why these skills are so important.

*tip - as you are researching I highly recommend checking out the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association website:  ASHA's website. It will contain the most recent evidence-based research so you can be sure you are getting facts and not crazy internet information that will just freak you out.

A NEW Red Light Green Light: learning past tense verb endings

A lot of my clients are working on past tense "ed" verb endings.  A lot of my clients have worked on -ing endings.  Verb endings are hard, especially for kids with language delays or disorders.  This game is appropriate for kids who are 3+ years old but older kids (6-7) enjoy it too.

*extra info: past tense means the "ed" ending that you put on words when you talk about what you did yesterday.  Some words are irregular verbs and don't end in past tense yesterday...like run - ran.

This is a game that I created years ago when I was completing my internship in an autism cluster unit.  I use it all of the time and kids LOVE it.  It works especially well at the beginning of the school year because that is when classes are really hitting safety as kids go to school.

1. Get a piece of red paper, green paper, and yellow paper.  Teach (or review) what each color means at a crosswalk...you can read some fabulous books about safety here, Scholastic has some, your local library has some :)

2. Have your kid pick a motion.  At first I like to have some written down that they can choose from, pull out of a hat, etc.  Look for words that do not have irregular past tense verbs.  If you need help here is a list of some you can start with:

walk

clap

stomp 

jump 

hop 

look 

work 

call 

clean 

hum

For my example I will use "walk" but you can use anything that ends in "ed" if you did it yesterday.
Then practice these phrases while holding up your colored papers:

NO PAPER: Vocab Prep We will walk
GREEN: Start walking We are walking
YELLOW: Start walking slower We are walking slowly
RED: Stop walking Now we are finished...we walked.

*tip-make sure you really emphasize the "t" or "d" sound at the end of the word so the child recognizes it is there. If your child is just not getting it you can try touching your nose each time you say the "t" or "d" sound to give them a visual cue that they need to attend to the end of the word.

One book I love that goes with this skill:  From Head to Toe by Eric Carle, you can do each motion then pause and say...Now we are done, we raised our shoulders, or whatever page you are on.

Disclaimer:  remember if you think your child has a speech or language delay it is always best to work with a trained Speech and Language Therapist...they can tell you for sure which activities are best for your individual child.

Bake a Cake Activity

Theme: Bake a Cake

Targets these skills:  following directions, final /k/ sound, early language, verb tenses, plurality, sensory play, turn taking, sequencing, wh-questions

Beginning Vocabulary-

Bowl, Stir, Milk, Sugar, Flour, Egg, Batter, Pan, Oven

Additional Vocabulary-

Pour, Bake, Measure

Take pictures of:

Individual ingredients

Adding each ingredient (breaking the egg)

Stirring the batter

Pouring into the pan

Putting pan in the oven

Finished cake

Eating (breaking) cakes

Rhyming “ake” words

take, make, cake, bake, break, shake, mistake, wake

Activity Ideas: (need pictures of the activity, they are super helpful!)

Sequence the steps to making a cake

Match vocabulary word with picture

Match each step with its picture

Fill in the blank on each step (writing)

Pretend with cooking toys

Teach Dad how to make a cake

Books:

The Little Red Hen

The Gingerbread Man

Videos:

Meet the Baker http://pbskids.org/lions/stories/food.html

1. Put the mix in the bowl 

2.  Put the milk in the bowl

3. Put the egg in the bowl

4. Put the sugar in the bowl

5. Stir the batter

6. Put the batter into the pan

7. Put the pan into the oven

 references: 

http://www.first-school.ws/activities/alpha/b/baker.htm

http://pbskids.org/lions/stories/food.html

http://www.everythingpreschool.com/themes/index.htm

Culatta, Barbara, Project SEEL