Happy Holidays Part 2 - How the Grinch Stole...

Synonyms & Antonyms!

**update 12/11/2012**....but then it turned out that I actually stole The Grinch. Unfortunately, I was just informed the Grinch is trademarked. That means no more love for The Grinch this Christmas and no more Grinch for sale in my TpT store. 

Check back again soon for new, improved & non-trademarked materials!

In the spirit of legality,

Mrs. Ludwig

DOS: the "Uno-Like" Speech Sound Card Game

Time to introduce a game that I think will be in my therapy toolbox for a very long time. **drum roll, pleeeease**


The game is called DOS: the "Uno-like" Speech Sound Card Game (Dos as in Spanish for two). My kids LOVE to play Uno, so I made a game just like Uno with a few tweaks and modifications to make it work in Mrs. Ludwig's Speech Room.

My first version of the game targets the "sh" sound. You can download it for FREE from my Teachers Pay Teachers Store: Just give it a click! This is what it looks like: 

A full set of directions: 
Classic Uno Rules with a Speech Twist

"sh" cards for numbers 0 to 9 
come in 4 different colors

"Skip", "Reverse", and "Draw & Say 2" Cards 
come in every color

And WILD cards too!

I also made some additional add-on packs to incorporate different sounds when working with groups. Mix & match your DOS Decks to target lots of different sounds all within one session. You can buy some of the add-on packs for additional sounds in my TpT Store: Just give this a click.

Oh, that awful /r/...

I spy sp- & sk- blends:

Here's an example for the multi-target game:

• Use the 0-5 cards from the /r/ pack.
• Use the 6-9 cards of the s-blend pack.
• Include all the same Wild, Skips, Draw & Say 2s.
• Two targets in One big game.

Hey there, efficiency. 

A note on Target Selection:
I tried to choose mainly CVC words since there are no pictures on the cards. They will be easier for the little kids to sound out, which is good for spontaneous productions. Also good literacy practice for the first & second-graders! Bonus.

A quick note on Evidence-Based Practice: 
I love reading up on the new research in our field and incorporating the latest and greatest into my own therapy. I based my word selection off of my former professor's newest research article that considers Age of Acquisition (AoA) as a variable in treatment efficacy. 

Results: Later-acquired words were found to have better phonological generalization than early-acquired words. Also, the study provided more evidence that the late-8 sounds showed greater gains compared to middle-8 sounds. 

Targets were gathered from an AoA rating database (Kuperman et al. (in press)) and chosen based on an older age of acquisition. Cheers, to Evidence-Based Practice! 

Article citation: 
Gierut, J. A., & Morrisette, M. L. (2012). Age-of-word-acquisition effects in treatment of children with phonological delays. Applied Psycholinguistics, 33, 121-144. NIHMSID: 353839

Kuperman, V., Stadthagen-Gonzalez, H., & Brysbaert, M. (in press). Age-of-acquisition ratings for 30 thousand English words. Behavior Research Methods.

I hope you can find this useful in your speech rooms. Happy DOS-ing!!

Deuces,
Mrs. Ludwig

HERE!

A Few Resources

I wanted to throw down a post dedicated a few resources. Okay, here we go!

READING COMPREHENSION
ReadWorks.org - it's amazing! Just create a log in and you can get access to tons of FREE informational text passages and suggested kid books that target specific skills. You can search for passages by lexile levels or by skill sets (e.g. cause & effect, fact/opinion, figurative language, vocabulary in context). All of them are aligned to the Common Core Standards.

Perrrrrfect!

VOCABULARY: www.freerice.com. The kids get to build vocabulary while donating rice to help feed the hungry. How motivating is that, right? The words get harder as you get more right and easier as your success rate plummets. I like to use it with the middle schoolers and high schoolers because you can choose to target academic vocabulary & SAT prep words. It looks like this:

iPAD APPS
I am blessed to have several iPads to use with my speech kids at school and have been collecting lots of apps to use in my speech room. Here's just a few I've enjoyed using:

Sentence Builder

The kids get to choose from a set of words to make grammatical sentences. There are 3 different levels and an option to turn on/off reinforcers. They kids think the dancing animals are pretty funny when they get the sentence correct!

AudioNote

A voice recording app. How I use it: To collect my language samples and responses during evaluations (e.g. the CELF-4 recalling sentences). I started off with the free version and eventually ran out of space so I upgraded to the full version. I use it all the time.

Camera

The standard camera. A few of many ways I use it:

1) To practice speech sounds. It's a great visual reinforcer to have the kids look at themselves while they produce the  target sound. (e.g. "Ohhhh, that /r/ looks like a /w/..." I stopped counting a long time ago how many times I've used that phrase.) 

2) Snapping pictures around the school for vocabulary practice with my lower language kids.

3) The video function as a "Let's pretend we're on TV and interview each other." Elicits questions and answers to wh- questions. Win, win.

Doodle Buddy

A free drawing pad for kids. A few ways I use it: 

Following directions activities (e.g. "Draw a square under a circle").  Hangman to target question syntax,

 "Is there a ____." & copula verbs, 

"No there IS not a ____." Arts-infused therapy!

And....CUT! The first of many posts dedicated to my iPad usage in the speech room.

I'm excited to announce I will be attending the ASHA Convention this week in Atlanta....yessss! I am SO excited to get some new ideas, resources, and CEUs. Check back later for ASHA updates!

Thanks for checking in! :)

~ Mrs. Ludwig

The Many Roads to the Treasure Box

Prizes and Candy. Prizes and Candy. Seems like all the kids ever want are prizes and candy.

My first year as an SLP I gave out a lot of candy...and I mean A LOT of candy. My husband, who happens to be a dentist, had to have an intervention in the aisle of Sam's Club to avoid buying another mega-pack of chocolate bars.

I've gone through a few different prize systems that looked a little like this:

First system: the kids all had Speech Passports. The Passports had pages inside where the kids got a stamp each day they attended speech. That worked well for little awhile. However, at times it became a hassle to find the ink, stamp their book, and send them on their way without being late for my next group.

Next, I switched over to dealing out Shine Tickets. The kids had to earn Shine Tickets throughout the month and during the last week of the month we had a raffle. More shine tickets = Better chance to win.  I'll admit the raffle was a little rigged to ensure every kid got a chance to "win"... :)

Then, we switched to a sticker chart. One big chart where they earned stickers all year long. 10 stickers = prize.

My new system is based on a punchcard. The kids have to earn 10 punches on their card to get a prize. It looks a little like this:

And they hang on the back of the door like this:

I introduced them with the multiple meaning word: punch. Many different kinds of punches! And the punches, or holes, are nice and hidden in those pockets, so they aren't distracting during our group time. So far so good!

And when prize day finally comes, here is my giant treasure box the kids get to pick out of. I keep it locked and we have to use the key to get inside. Here it is:

I spy only a little bit of candy...

 
Instead of prizes & candy, maybe some day they'll be asking for /r/ sounds and pronouns, /r/ sounds and pronouns. Ha, right...

Thanks for visiting!

~Mrs. Ludwig

Thanksgiving, here we come!

November is officially here! Phew, time is flying! Our school didn't get a fall break this year, so we are all anxiously awaiting our Thanksgiving break. Only a few more weeks to go!

As the temps have dropped in Indy and the Halloween candy is all on sale at the grocery story, I've found myself getting in the November mood. Time to start thinking about all the many million things we have to be thankful for. I'm always thankful that the holidays provide some extra inspiration for my therapy activities!

Here's a sneak peak at some of the activites we're using in Mrs. Ludwig's Speech Room. You can find them all in one big FREE pack in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store: Thanksgiving Speech & Language Pack

1) Preposition & Concept Memory Match. We play just like classic memory match but this time with a fun turkey teaching us important concepts!



2) We are also using this Thanksgiving scene for working on our sentences using is & are. It's also the Common Core Standard my first graders are targeting, so perfect timing to get some reinforcement. 

3) I also made some easy coloring sheets. The kids can color this cute turkey while taking turns practicing their sounds.

Here's a few my kiddos did at school. My 2nd graders are thankful for: 1) people that help the world & 2) gravity. Both solid choices.

4) Pronoun Sentences. The kids had to choose from the word bank to apply the appropriate he, she, they, him, her, it pronoun and write it on their worksheet.

5) I have a kiddo with Childhood Apraxia of Speech who is struggling with reading, especially the CCVC words. We have been working on segmenting those words, so I made some CCVC segementation cards with a visual to use with manipulatives.

Happy November and check back again soon! :)

~ Mrs. Ludwig



Happy Halloween!

We had a great time in the speech room with our Halloween-themed activities!

I brought back an activity that I did two years ago during my first year. The kids still talk about this game, so I decided to give it another go. Here's how it worked:

The kids had to reach into a set of 10 paper bags and feel for different items: goblin's toes, witch's skin, goblin's ear, vampire eyeball, etc. All real, of course! ;) Add a little spooky music from Pandora and dim the lights, and their imaginations get right to work!

At the end of the game, they found out the "body parts" were just edible items from the grocery store (see below).


LANGUAGE TASKS
Vocabulary: What did each item feel like? Spooky, creepy, slimy, soft, prickly? Here is the list of Halloween adjectives we used.

Vocabulary: Name fruits and vegetables in the bags after the game was finished. Some of the little ones were a little nervous to play the game and my secret had to be revealed before the end of the game.

Inference: I made a worksheet that had text clues about each item (e.g. The goblin's toes were orange, healthy, and full of vitamin A). The kids had to use the clues from the text + what they know (from feeling each item) to make their inference.

ARTICULATION TASKS
Say 5-10 words before each bag reveal. The bags were motivating and great reinforcer!

At the very end, the kids realized the monster parts were.......

Goblin's toes: carrots
Skin of a witch: onion skin
Witch's fingers: green beans
Goblin's ears: cauliflower
Frankenstein's eyebrows: broccoli
Bat's wings: dried apricots
Vampire eyeballs: peeled grapes
Ears of a mummy: sliced cucumbers
Nose of  a troll: strawberry
Brain of a black cat: spaghetti noodles

ARTICULATION GAME
We also played a game this Halloween season called FrankenSTEAL. It was a versatile game that can target many different skills. I made the game targeting some of my kids' sounds and also some regular past tense verbs. Here's a little preview of Frank's game:

Check out FrankenSTEAL here! ("sh", "r", and s-blends) 
And here is the FrankenSTEAL with regular past tense verbs: FrankenSTEAL Regular Past Tense Verbs


Have fun trick-or-treating and don't forget to brush your teeth! Happy Happy Halloween!! :D

~Mrs. Ludwig

Welcome!

Welcome to Mrs. Ludwig's Speech Room! My name is Julianne Ludwig, M.A. CCC-SLP and I am a school-based speech-language pathologist working in an urban school with kids K through 12. I'm starting this blog as a project to document what goes on in my speech room and keep track of all my materials and ideas. Come back and visit often to check out my speech therapy ideas, my favorite resources, my self-made materials, cool educational links, and all things SLP. Phew, welcome to my project.

Thanks for stopping by my room. Come back & visit often! :)