Periodic Push In to the Curriculum!

I've decided {as with most of my decisions} to jump in with both feet and not look back.  Check out my SLPs Pushing In Series here to find out where I started.  Today, I am sharing where I am today.

Yes, I did receive some weird looks as I moved myself into classrooms to observe, chat with a small group of students, offer a strategy, scaffold, or provide a visual cue/prompt.  I reassured the teachers I was NOT observing them, merely I was immersing myself into the curriculum with the hope of gaining new knowledge about my students and hopefully earning a welcome for future returns.  I may just shout from the rooftops, I loved every minute of pushing into classrooms!  In small, controlled doses.  I'm calling it periodic push-in.  I'm not giving up my day job of pull-out speech language therapy.  Therapy is a necessary component for students identified with speech-language impairments.  In my opinion, therapy cannot take place solely in a large classroom setting or even in a small group within a large classroom setting, as I refer to as pull-away services.  Inclusion or push-in services is part of a continuum of service delivery options from which to choose.  A continuum is NECESSARY and so is individual and/or small group speech therapy services in the speech room!

If you want to give periodic push-in a try, I created a freebie for data collection.  You can find it in this post.  So far, most of my push-in times have been unplanned.  Students forgot to come to my room, so I went to their room and found a great activity going on, so I stayed.  A meeting was scheduled during a regular group time, so I pushed into music during my lunch.  Schedule changes created a domino effect, so I went with it...into the classroom.  Testing was going on here, so I went there.  You get the idea!

To offer a little more persuasion in hopes that you might too try periodic push-in, I've decided to take this whole week before winter break to only push into classrooms.  I am completely optimistic that this will be a grand week!  I started by developing a plan to push into classrooms by following my regular pull-out schedule.  Instead of having my students come to me, I will go to them.  This would work even better if my groups of students were only developed with students from one classroom, but that isn't always the case.  I sent out a staff e-mail {scary} and informed them of my decision to push-in, asking each teacher not to change anything.  If an activity throughout the week offered communicative opportunities, then I would be happy to push-in at the time instead.  I promised to bring my flexible brain!

So, I took my regular schedule and shrunk all the names leaving room to write in any invites.  I'm happy to report I have three so far!  I'll be involved in a "buddy" activity in kindergarten, watching some of my students present in a play in 2nd grade, and offering some help with independent studies in 4th grade.  I'm definitely ending the week with productions by our drama club, in which I volunteer to assist weekly as an after school activity.  In between those invites, hearing screening follow-ups, and scattered meetings, I hope to see all 80 of my students this week.

I promise to report successes and failures!  Happy last week before break speechies!

I'm also linking up {late} with Old School Speech's Week in Review since this is what I have planned for my week.  Despite taking tons of pictures last week of all my craftivities in speech, I neglected to include any in a post.  Best laid plans...