Literature books provide ALL the vocabulary we need to help our students develop their speech and language skills. Classrooms are full of varied children's books providing easy accessibility for the school SLP.

While pushing into classrooms, I've focused on finding ways to support communication skills within everyday activities. Book bins, or containers for housing student selected books that fit their reading level, are prevalent within the classrooms around my building. I decided to adapt a way to use this container for further articulation and vocabulary practice. I created the Book Bin Buddy to keep within containers for writing and/or drawing articulation or vocabulary words as encountered within text.

These are easy to download FREE, then print, copy and place in student book bins. You can provide explicit instruction by modeling their use during speech therapy sessions. You can have students focus on finding words with their speech sounds or new vocabulary encountered within text. Encourage students to use their Book Bin Buddy during their independent reading time within their classroom. These also lend themselves nicely for a follow-up therapy session for review and even for sending home for more practice.

What other ways have you found to promote generalization and utilize routines in the classroom to build communication skills?

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Sparklle SLP

I admit I have a problem with purchasing children’s picture books. Luckily, I find most of them at Thrift Books (no affiliation). I generally use 2-3 books per month for students on my speech therapy caseload in grades 1 & 2. Since I push into these classrooms during literacy time, I often find new picture books right in those classrooms, either as teacher read alouds or in my students’ book bins. Language therapy planning using books makes the prep simple and the routine predictable; however, also adds meaningful context using classroom/daily materials which is varied to allow for new vocabulary, knowledge and thematic content.

Here are some quick tips for using books in your therapy planning.

• VERBAL SEQUENCING/RETELL:  My 1st graders love to draw their own retelling of the stories. I focus on 3-4 part retelling (first, next, last OR first, next, then, last) with this age group. Often times this is done after my therapy lesson and during the students' independent time during literacy within their classroom. Using the book, they make their own drawings and then bring back their product to verbalize their 3-4 part retelling before I leave their classroom.

The Speech Therapy Book Companion Open-Ended for Any Book

• VOCABULARY/SIMILARITIES & DIFFERENCES:  Explicitly teaching compare and contrast was a district focus this year. My 2nd graders drew their Venn diagrams or Top Hat organizers right on the therapy table using dry erase markers and chose items right from the story to talk about similarities and differences. You can find both types of compare and contrast visuals in my graphic organizer product.

• WH QUESTIONS:  I start with basic WHO, WHAT, WHERE, & WHEN questions which can be targeted on every page using books.

One Page Language Book Plan for Hotel Bruce

• STORY GRAMMAR/NARRATIVE DEVELOPMENT:  I focus on teaching Story Grammar using a visual support. The predictable visual support is constant which allows independence for students when practicing their summaries. This sheet below is from my Essential Visuals for Student Success Signs packet.

• SYNTAX:  Spoken grammar targets can be directly practiced using books which allows for a more structured approach as compared to drill activities since it is contextualized. The vocabulary and structures presented within the story are meaningful and relevant. 

Don't Feed the Bear Companion Activities

• PREDICTING & INFERENCING:  Making predictions and inferences are also great targets for using story books in speech therapy. A quick tip is to use the cover of the book for making predictions. We focus on the words and pictures to make our predictions about the story. Often times the vocabulary used in the title needs explanation for my students as in this book, Nugget and Fang, pictured below (no affiliation). We talk about what students already know and then make connections to help with their predictions. Inferencing is targeted through how and why questions about character feelings, which also lends itself to pragmatic language development. 

If you haven't tried using books in speech therapy, I challenge you to give it a try using some of these tips. It is my favorite way to plan for therapy, I can target all the goals and my students are highly engaged!

I’d also love for your to follow by Book Companion Pinterest board for links to all these activities!

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Sparklle SLP

I feel like this push-in speech therapy post has been a long time coming. I’ve actually thought about what I would write many times over and never put pen to paper or in the case, texting thumbs to my blog app. Many titles for this post as well as emotions have entered my mind trying to create the perfect reflection to share my experience with push-in speech therapy. What I’ve decided is to blog about tips from my experience with room for prequel and sequel posts in an effort to break this writer’s block. *Updated June, 2020.

Here’s the cliff note history of my push-in journey. I was interested as well as challenged years ago to begin pushing therapy services into classrooms. Last year, the push for this service delivery was greater and I found myself fully included in K-5 classrooms about 75% of my direct therapy time. The first quarter did not go well. I dreaded most of the experience and wanted out. I was completely uncomfortable and unsure I was going to be able to adapt to this change.

Fast forward to now, with five additional school year  quarters under my belt, I’m genuinely settled and might even tell you I’m not ever leaving the classrooms. I’m also beginning to witness the benefits that I was blind to before.

Since this post isn’t designed to share all my feelings, a pro and con list, specific logistics for caseload factors, or even how to start, I’ll rather move into sharing some tips from my experience providing speech therapy services in classrooms.

• Be true to yourself. Know your strengths and weaknesses. 

I am VERY anxious in new situations. I freeze in front of groups and become dysfunctional, losing all my confidence. Going into classrooms was completely out of my comfort zone.

I am, however, flexible and as a colleague once told me, I’m good at seeing the positive in others...so I used that to build relationships with teachers, slowly. Don’t get me wrong, I was awkward, often. As my comfort level rose, so did my confidence in interacting.

• Watch, listen and process what is happening in classrooms.

This takes time and is different for each grade, teacher, subject area, etc. Find how you can best integrate yourself into their routine, at first. In my experience, small group time is ideal! Logistics inhibit a perfect schedule, just as with pull-out therapy. Be open to large group, at times. Also be open to subject areas you might not have initially entertained. Our focus was on the ELA time block. Enter that schedule problem of being in all ELA blocks while having a large caseload. Math, science, and social studies can be excellent times for push-in. Don’t forget about morning meetings, if your teachers incorporate this activity. Additionally, having a good understanding of the curriculum aids your ability to determine what students need to be successful.

• Don’t be afraid to abort the plan! 

You know the saying...best-laid plans. This doesn’t mean stop pushing in, this may mean trying something different. Pick a different subject or time. Reevaluate your students’ needs. Refer back to your observation notes! My schedule changes no more or less than it did with pull-out therapy.

• Communicate! 

It’s what we do best, but I found it hard due to my comfort level. Tell teachers what you need, offer tips,  ask questions and for suggestions. Ask for their plans or get their weekly newsletter sent to you, so you know the skills and strategies they are focusing on each week. 

• Change your perspective. 

This might be the most difficult and most important. Yes, you have far more control in your small group pull-out sessions. You can control the content, materials, prompts, the environment, the data you are collecting and so much more. You feel confident with your perfectly tallied data, know you have chosen materials to meet each goal and your prompts and cues are spot on. Classroom therapy may be different. Very different. You have far less control, at times. You may be using materials that are less familiar. Distractions are present and frequent. Different is not always negative, in fact I’ve found many differences to be quite positive.

• Keep your therapeutic focus.

Remember, you are using your speech-language pathologist lens and the angle you take makes the experience therapeutic. Language is everywhere and we can provide strategies and practice of target skills for our students anywhere using any material. Being familiar with the curriculum allows you to determine the language underpinnings necessary for student understanding of the content.

• Do more with less. 

I cart around fewer materials with a bigger impact. I have streamlined the materials I use and try to use curriculum/classroom materials when I can.  I keep visuals with me, organized for quick accessiblility. Check out posts here and here about my visuals. I spend less time and gain more focused therapy. I have the opportunity to do some 1-1 quick drill with students when necessary. I’m also getting more time on task because I’m not transitioning the students to another location and not needing a structured therapy routine that’s different from the classroom. Managing behavior takes far less time. My therapy is less mixed group and more focused on like goals.

• Start somewhat small.

I’d like to tell you to start small, but since I did and continued to only do what was comfortable for me, I never really immersed myself in the classrooms until I was pushed (silently kicking and screaming BTW). So, go ahead and push yourself. You can start small by keeping the way you provide the service in a similar fashion (just inside the classroom) until you have more comfort with how your services can evolve.

• Keep it up with distance learning (teletherapy).

Since we all were thrown into a whirlwind during our quarantine time, many adapted to teletherapy quite quickly. I had less than 5 days to convert my entire caseload to distance learning, using both teletherapy (Google Meet and Zoom) and a password protected site (Google Classroom). While it seemed that abandoning my classroom-based services would be appropriate at this time, I did not allow myself to go back. In doing so, I gained even more momentum to continue push-in speech therapy. Being able to search through roughly 25 classrooms online allowed me to adapt my therapy plans and continue to support the speech and language needs of my students using relevant activities from their now online classrooms. For younger grades, I focused on continuing with those language underpinnings and speech sound development. I continued to use the literature books used within my middle elementary classrooms and for my upper elementary students, I explored social studies and science topics and supported communication through these topics.  

Even as I’m finishing this post, I can’t believe the transformation I’ve made to accepting and even promoting push-in therapy. I’m still learning everyday and by no means is the path smooth; however, it wasn’t before either:)! I’ve gained confidence, a new perspective, built stronger collaborative relationships and have witnessed positive student benefits.

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Sparklle SLP

Using leveled reading fluency passages is a great way to generalize speech sounds with a curriculum-based focus. For students working at the reading, structured speaking or carryover levels within the articulation continuum, this curriculum material is a sound choice!

Since I push into classrooms, I have the benefit of access to quick collaboration with teachers on a daily basis. Seeing students work on reading fluency passages weekly allowed me to easily realize how effective adding targeted speech sound practice would be for my students. While this post is not meant to offer specific reading passages or information/research on reading fluency, I will offer my experience as a school-based SLP and how I’ve used leveled reading passages in articulation/phonology therapy.

Ideas for Where to Start:

• Ask your client/student’s teacher to provide you with the reading level of your student. If they have reading fluency passages that are appropriate already, by all means use what they provide. If not, search resources on Teachers Pay Teachers or other commercial materials to find short leveled reading passages. Our district purchased reading series has these leveled passages for easy download.
• I have found that leveling down works best for my students. If my student is reading at a 2nd grade level, I may choose late 1st grade or wherever the child reads fluently with high accuracy. This is my tip as I want my students to be able to focus on their speech sounds, which takes more effort and slows down the reading. So, in essence, the task of the actual reading should be less challenging for the student. Again, this is my experience and has worked for me. Use your clinical judgment and collaborate with teachers.
• Decide on weekly speech sound target(s) for your student. For students working on carryover of multiple sounds, I usually stick to one sound or class of sounds/patterns (ex: morphological endings, blends, fronting, etc.). You can also choose one sound in one position or all targets. Again, use clinical judgment and follow your therapy plan for that student.
• For baseline or progress monitoring, I start with the student reading without any highlighting of sounds. I tell them what I’m listening for, but you could also take data on all targets. If you need a tip on accomplishing this task, I usually use a 100 word sample sheet and mark the targets I’m listening for and do a plus/minus system for occurrence. You could also just do a plus/minus for each word as correct or incorrect and then log sounds/patterns consistently in error. Check out my Workload product for a 100 word sample data sheet. You could also make a copy of the passage and mark targets right on the story.

• I then use a highlighter to mark speech sound targets on the student copy and have the student read the passage again. You can again take your data on this sample, depending on how your goal is written.
• Send the passage with the highlighting home for practice. I ask that students practice it twice each night.
• I give another passage the following week and repeat the process. You can also take data on the previous week’s passage to note progress. My teachers refer to the initial “cold read” and the final “hot read” for fluency. With this articulation fluency, you are working on automaticity, so I think it goes well with this rehearsal factor of building fluency.
• For work at the structured speaking and carryover levels, have the child retell the story or answer comprehension questions. Many reading passages have questions following the passage.

This therapy idea is very individualized as you are selecting the child’s reading level and specific sounds targets. It has a curriculum focus on reading fluency and it’s easy to incorporate into push-in classroom-based speech therapy. For select students, I’ve been able to work 1-1 with them for 5-10 minutes per week within their classroom. Maybe the best part is the built-in home practice that is manageable for families, aiding both speech sound development and reading!

Have you tried this technique to aid generalization?

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Sparklle SLP

Embrace change, step outside of your comfort zone, push speech therapy services into classrooms.   It is possible.

I made a commitment to push into classrooms regularly this year.  One week per month, I drop the lesson plans and materials organization in exchange for providing services in classrooms.  The result. I love it! I carry a clipboard with data sheets, a pen, and some comfy clothes to jump right into the mix or onto the floor.  My goals are simple.

Observe

Support

Promote Carryover

Collect

Observing students in their general education classrooms offers much more than I could have expected. Seeing my students as either active or passive participants and gaining a baseline of typical student performance offers ongoing assessment of student growth and needs.

Supporting both students and teachers is another goal. Just last month I pushed into a 3rd grade classroom while the teacher was prepping for state tests. While I like to think I can keep up with all the curriculum happenings and state mandated assessments, it's just not possible. Joining this classroom, I was able to play an active role in the discussion during the practice assessment. Earlier this year, I sat on the carpet with a student vying for teacher attention. While I am able to give students attention within my small groups within the speech room, the classroom teacher is spread so thin.  That day, I listened to reading, while sneaking in some vocabulary practice along the way.

Linking skills and strategies taught within the speech room to classroom tasks promotes carryover.  I had the opportunity to join a 2nd grade classroom practicing word reading fluency drills using an interactive SmartBoard activity. The word list contained consonant clusters (skr, st, bl, gr).  Among several students within that classroom, one student was working on /s/ blends within speech sessions. While she read fluently, she didn't attend to any of the blends. Guess what I grabbed on my way out...a copy of that word reading fluency list! Don't you know we worked on producing those words during our next pull-out session.

Which brings me to collecting. I collected that fluency list.  I jotted down Tier 2 words from a vocabulary discussion.  I took notes about strategies and skills that were important to the teacher/curriculum.  Of course I gathered data for those student objectives targeted and observed during my time.

Does every opportunity hit the jackpot? No. Neither does every pull-out group session. Yes, I said it! So, embrace change, step outside of your comfort zone, push into classrooms.  It is possible. It is beneficial.

If you haven't yet grabbed this Push In To Classroom Data Collection FREE resource head on over to my store, make yourself a set and attach to your clipboard. Exchange pull-out therapy for push-in once a month and let me know your thoughts!

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Sparklle SLP