I don't know one single person who hasn't expressed their love for the 80's in some way, shape, or form. The hair, the fluorescent colors, and, my personal favorite, the music! I am an 80's baby, so maybe that's the draw...either way, when I found clipart with an 80's theme I did the running man I was so excited! You may think I'm joking, but my friends know this is a definite Jenn move :) May I present.... Now. I recognize that our students most likely won't get the theme....and I am totally okay with that. I feel like this is an opportunity to throw in a little about another decade, when things were incredibly different. I love talking to kids about how much the world has changed, even just in my lifetime. Their faces are priceless when I say things like... there was never a game system in my house or I didn't use the internet until I was about 15 or that my first cell phone was the size of a house phone. The first activity in this pack is Sunny Synonyms...all set with blue, pink, purple and orange shades! Each pair of sunglasses has one synonym pair on it. Just cut down the dotted line and you have a matching game! There are 28 sets of synonyms in all. Here comes Jammin' Pronouns! Now of course there were huge boomboxes and who can forget cassette tapes?!?! I had about....a million. For this activity, there are 4 boomboxes, each with a pronoun. The tapes have a sentence on them, with one underlined word. Students will read the sentence, figure out which pronoun replaces the proper noun and sort to the correct boombox! I targeted he, she, him, and her for this activity. There are 20 tapes in all, 5 for each pronoun. And last but not least...a Rubik's Cube Card Game for why and how questions! When I asked my FB followers what kind of materials they needed, I got a lot of "wh" questions responses....well this is part one of that request. Included are 21 why and 21 how question cards, as well as 10 penalty cards. You can put all the cards in a pile and play to see who can collect the most cards with correct answers OR you can use them as stimulus for another activity. I did not include answer cards, mostly because kids can come up with different answers and still be correct, so I wanted it to be more open ended. These types of question cards can be used for pragmatic language, sentence construction, comprehension, and so much more! Well there is my trip down memory lane...what do you think? This language pack is available in my TPT Store! And as always, thanks for your support!

Adding to your professional library is just as fun to me as adding to my therapy materials closet...I love going through books and learning new things or reviewing things I forgot. When I first started doing literacy based intervention, it was because I went to a conference about the language-reading connection and was given a book that became one of my most valued resources. Since then, I've added a few to my collection that I want to share with you! There are more than 5 but these are the ones I turn to the most often.

Need ideas for getting more repetitions during articulation therapy? Here are some articulation activities speech therapy high-trial ideas!

When we treat language impairments, it can seem like we have the weight of the world on our shoulders. That’s why I’ve created The Power of Meta: Vocabulary Booster, a free 30-page manual for treating school-aged language disorders. When we’re working with students who have language issues, there are so many things we need to...

Could I BE any more excited about this? Anwser: No. Not possible. A goal of mine is to always have a home program for my students. Always. Regardless of whether they do it or not, I feel like it's my job to provide it. And typically, I'm quite the procrastinator, so the home practice they […]

I knew this week would be a good one and I had been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks! All of my activities were centered around aliens and rocket ships, which always sparks so much creativity from my friends. Here are some of the activities we did...

Your child does not say many words yet? What can you do to boost his language learning?

From literacy instruction to arts and technology integration, explore strategies for engaging English-language learners.

Based on article by Runyan and Runyan (1986) Clipart by: http://www.graphicsfactory.com ___________________________________________________________________ ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Hi! I'm Cheri, SLP and doctoral student. I'm an Ivy League graduate and creator of one of the first and longest-running speech therapy blogs in the world, Super Power Speech. Since graduating with my master's degree in 2000, I have worked in schools, clinics, hospitals, and private practice. I am a national presenter and have taught students around the world in my online courses. In my free time, you can find me playing soccer with my two teens or reading three books at the same time (in front of the fire, while crocheting). ⭐️⭐️ SUBSCRIBE HERE for access to my library of free speech materials.⭐️⭐️

I've been realllllly enjoying the weather lately…it's been 80 degrees and beautiful at my house! Of course, I need to have some new, springy activities for my students! We have been doing the garden theme and I decided we would make snails!

I love literacy ideas that actually will be useful. Sometimes I see beautifully decorated classrooms, but if the teacher is working way harder then the students...something is wrong. Way way wrong. I don't know what it is about word walls, but I am awful at keeping them up to date. Our school does "power words" of the week to improve our students' vocabulary, but around November, I get overwhelmed (shocker) and forget to staple up any new words. However, I stumbled upon this idea on Pinterest: Using paint chips from Home Depot or Walmart, students work with you to create the word wall. Students can also make their own mini-thesaurus by using the longer, skinny paint chips, a three hole punch and binder rings. The binder rings are to clip all the paint chips together to a desk so the pages don't go missing :) Alternative Ideas: 1. Using these paint chips for "shades of meaning" for vocabulary 2. Using these paint chips for synonyms & antonyms, as shown below 3. Using these paint chips for affixes or Greek/Latin roots 4. Using these paint chips for operation strategies (math) 5. Using these paint chips for test-taking strategies 6. Using these paint chips as a monthly book challenge where students must read one book per color (can be modified by using paint strips with less colors), as shown below 7. Using these paint chips for word families (for younger grades), as shown below 8. KWL (what I know, what I want to know, what I learned) charts, as shown below Second issue: editing and revising I'm constantly looking for real world examples beyond my students' notebooks. Then I stumbled upon this gem: Students here are shown with tweets from NFL stars, but this could be changed to celebrities or other sports depending on students' interests. I love how it hooks them by using technology references (Twitter, tweets) and by incorporating their interests. Students can work in groups to be the stars' "publicists" and edit the tweets. These can also be used as mini-lessons to address specific skills that are seen in students' writing. Plus, students can see the real world implications of poor grammar :) Idea #3: Dollar Store picture frames = instructions for centers, stations or computers. I would probably use this to display website links, user names and passwords for computer sites because the picture frame can be easily stored on top of the computer. Obviously I'd use a larger font, but this helps students become self-sufficient at stations. You can list the do's and don'ts of each station, thus eliminating (or at least reducing) the number of interruptions you receive while with small groups. Plus, you can easily switch out the pages and the cost is relatively cheap :) Idea #4: The Class Journal Now, these composition notebooks aren't cheap and I certainly wouldn't devote an entire notebook to a single prompt, but I like the idea. You could put in post-its or tabs to differentiate the prompts or have the journals for table teams. This would be a great back-up plan for when technology chooses not to work (since many of my lessons are on the smart board) or for students who finish standardized tests early :) Idea #5: Peer Reviews and Book Recommendations I found this image on pinterest and while it is a bit juvenile for fifth grade, I like the idea of students recommending books to one another. I mean, we do this all the time as adults, so why not have the students do the same? (Ok, I may not do it as an adult, but Oprah does and I like her book recommendations!) This makes me want to have a mini-book fair between the classes and have students do a book share :)

-Final consonant deletion cards include 35 minimal pairs, with words and pictures.

This pack is available in my TPT Store!

Practical resources for Speech and Language Therapy Language is all around us and what a better way for children to develop their oral language skills but through play. Our resource Building Language into Play makes it easy for teachers, class helpers and parents to present questions at the right level for all children in the group. Simply print the pages, laminate and place near play stations in your classroom. Our full resource contains Blanks Question sheets for: reading, painting, home corner, playdough, cut and paste, sand or rice tray, and vehicle play. Marion Blank devised a four level system of questioning for oral language development aimed at children in the early years. She acknowledged the importance of keeping questions within a child’s level of understanding so that while they can be challenged they are not overwhelmed. Blank’s questions are a list of different types of questions, from easy to more difficult, which help children’s learning by encouraging them to: • Observe and discuss objects and events that go on in the world around them • Classify and categorise objects or events (e.g. banana/apple/pear = fruit) • Think about and talk about why events happened • Problem solve difficult situations and possible solutions • Make deductions or inferences Check out our freebie version before you buy Related Products • Blanks Questions - Building Language into Play - Sample • Blanks Questions - Mr Gumpy's Outing • Blanks Questions - No Roses for Harry • Blanks Questions - One Mole Digging a Hole • Blanks Questions - Room on a Broom • Blanks Questions - Spot goes to the Farm • Blanks Questions - The Gruffalo • Blanks Questions - The Very Cranky Bear • Blanks Questions - When the Wind Blew • Blanks Questions - Who Sank the Boat • Blanks Questions BUNDLE

Here are a few suggestions for encouraging literacy and language development in young children. Engage and talk to your child about the world around them.

Visualizing and Verbalizing Lindamood-Bell “If I can’t picture it, I can’t understand it.” -Albert Einstein.

Speech therapy inferencing: how and why we work on inferences and predictions, plus 100 real photo inferencing picture scenes!

Stuttering therapy got you scared? Conquer your fears with the 3Es—education, ease, and empowerment.

-Final consonant deletion cards include 35 minimal pairs, with words and pictures.

Symbol-based communication app for children, teens and adults who cannot speak

I'm so stinkin excited about this product. I LOVE IT! Tons of you snatched it up during the TPT sale last week, so that means many of you are excited about it too! I didn't get a chance to blog about it before the sale, but here it is!!!

Now that you’ve educated the parents, coached them through strategies, and their child is demonstrating the Pre-Linguistic Skills we addressed in our first two blogs, we can start building on those skills! But where to begin? Think back on how you observe children acquiring language. Does a 1 year old spontaneously go from never making any verbalizations to suddenly responding to verbal routines or saying “hello” and “mama”? Not typically. All of those small little coos and giggles eventually manifest as whole, recognizable words over time and with the right encouragement.

Christmas ELA activities to do in the classroom or home! With these freebies, students will practice synonyms, holidays around the world, retelling a story!

I heart fold-ables. You can use them for anything! They also feed my need for cutting things and semi-crafty. I say semi, cause if I told my older kids that these were crafty, they probably wouldn't enjoy them as much as they do! Here are a few of the different kinds I have used...

Other things I didn't get to snap pictures of?

For the rest of the month I am focusing on the one thing that gets me through: The beach. I can't wait for summer break to start so I can go there whenever I want! But until then, I'm dreaming of those days from work and creating fun, beachy activities for my students… articulation sand castles!

By the time you reach adulthood, learning a foreign language is a struggle – even after you memorize grammar and vocabulary, there's no guarantee that you'll understand a fast-talking native speaker, and when you stop studying for even a month, you seem to forget everything you'd learned.

Here are five reasons to use books to work on practically any speech or language skill.