Good Reads

 A roundup of good articles I have read lately

Through Twitter, Pinterest, and different blogs I read, I have found a lot of good resources and articles related to speech pathology. Here is a quick roundup of some of my favorite articles I have read lately.

Those of us who work in the education setting have been said for a long time that reading to your preschool children (and younger!) is SUCH an important activity for brain development. This article, based on a study done in Pennsylvania, shows that such early reading exposure impacts brain development even into the teenage years. Cool!

Here is a wonderful list of apps for education, organized by subject area and price. There are THOUSANDS of apps on this list!

This article summarizes an intense summer fluency program at my Alma Mater - the University of Iowa! I was a part of this program during my masters program. It really is such a great offering for summer speech practice.

Finally, this short video is a TED Talk by Faith Jegede. In just five-and-a-half minutes she speaks a heartwarming message about her two brothers who have autism and how they have helped her to think about life differently. It is such a great video to watch and I highly recommend it to all.

As Easy as a Bucket

A simple reinforcer for any activity

I wanted to share one of the easiest reinforcers I have found. It works with many ages, and can be used for a large variety of activities. It's a bucket. That's it!

I found this trash can at the dollar store and have been using it for about 4 years now. When I am working with a student using flash cards, articulation cards, or small objects, I simply have them "throw away" the card/object after we are finished using it.  Or they collect the cards they articulate correctly and try to toss them into the bucket (without the lid) and see how far away they can still make tosses.

They love it! I think the swinging top has a lot to do with the "fun factor". It's kind of silly how simple this is, but I feel I got a big bang for my buck with this trash can. I highly recommend it!

Leave a Comment: What quick and easy reinforcement activities do you use?

WH-Question Monsters

A quick and easy card game to target WH-questions

Whew! The past two weeks have been craaaazzyy busy! I had to update/print graphs and complete progress reports, two days of conferences, and wacky sugar-high kids due to Halloween! Things settled down this week a bit so I was able to update a couple more downloads for my students...

The preschool student I made my Yes/No Monsters for has met his goal for yes/no questions and we are moving on to WH-questions! Almost every time he comes to speech he requests the "monster game", so I updated the cards to target WH-questions.

These cards target when, where, and what questions, along with functions of objects, and some basic identifying information (i.e. "What is your name?", "Where do you live?", and "What are your parents' names?"). I believe students should be able to answer basic information early on in case they were to unfortunately find themselves separated from their parents at any time.

These cards are intended to be used with students age 3+. I use them with my 3, 4, and 5 year old preschoolers. If they need additional prompting, it is easy to give them two or three multiple choice options to answer the questions. I will be adding to these questions as I need to, and will update the download as I go, so keep checking back.

Download your free WH-Monsters cards here! Please leave me a comment or become a follower if you do!