Articulation Homework

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 I like homework, especially for articulation. I know some people don't like to send homework.  The truth is, it's not returned consistently and I'll admit that sometimes it's frustrating at the end of a 30 minute session making sure that each of my students has his or her homework.  But in the end, I feel like I need to maximize my sessions with my kids, and one way that I can do that is offer the opportunity for my students to practice at home. The truth is, my students who do their homework make faster progress.  And since my job is to help students not need me, then it only makes sense to send homework.  I find that many students may not return their homework, but they are practicing at home.  Parents will stop in the halls and say that they didn't manage to return the homework, but they are still practicing.

Typically I like my articulation homework to be 3 to 5 words or phrases that were practiced successfully in the speech room.  I want them to practice 5 minutes a day, every day.  A few years ago, I made up a form that provided directions in both Spanish and English with lines for each day of the week, for the parent to sign indicating that they had practiced with their child.  I had a large blank space in the form in which I would write the targeted words.  This was a quick and easy way for me to individualize each students homework based on their goals.  You can download a free copy of that form on my teacherspayteachers page.  Towards the end of last year, I realized that I could make it even easier on me.  In reality, I usually send the same words for each phonological process, because I have the best success with those words.

I read in someone's blog that they set their homework up by copying multiple pages from the Webber Jumbo Articulation Drill Book, and then passed out a copy for homework.  I considered that idea for a while. I do love that giant book.  It definitely has it's uses. It's an awesome tool for single sound disorders.  But I have two reasons why I didn't go that route: 1) I want more explicit directions.  I found that parents really didn't understand what they were suppose to do with the pages. And if they did practice, they might only practice once that week.  2) I don't like all the words.  The pictures are great, but many of the words were too hard or had sounds in other places in the words that made the target more difficult.  The words "cat" and "coat" have a /k/ sound in them, but they are horrible words to work on velar fronting.

So I took my blank homework sheet, and created a homework page for each of the phonological processes I typically work with in my speech room: syllabic reduction, initial consonant deletion, final consonant deletion, velar fronting, cluster reduction and stopping.  

I based my targets on Barbara Hodson's Cycles.  If you are unfamiliar with Cycles or need a refresher course I recommend  checking out playingwithwords365.com's series of posts about it.  It is an excellent tutorial with lots of great resources.

You can buy my homework packet on teacherspayteachers.com here.  Or you can enter my raffle.  Bear with me, as this is my first time using rafflecopter.  But I will give out a copy to a winner on August 1. (I'd like to give out 3 copies, but I'm not sure how that works yet, so I'm only promising one.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway




 

Marble Runs and blog recognition

I want to do a quick cheat and show you two blog posts that really impressed me this week:

First: Playing with words 365's post (or posts) regarding Phonological delay.
I really really wish that I had this knowledge when I first started working with children 12 years ago.  Actually this knowledge would have been good even 5 years ago. I highly recommend that everyone working with the birth to 3, preschool, or elementary age students read her four posts regarding phonological delays. 

Second: Tatyana Elleseff MA CCC-SLP does an excellent job as the a guest blogger for ASHAsphere.  While I never wrote a goal about emotional vocabulary, I couldn't help but work on it with every single one of my language delayed kids.  Most of the kids I have worked with could identify 3 feelings: sad, mad, and happy.  Their limited language truly impacted how they experienced the world.  And in general they responded to stimuli with the limited emotions that their language allowed.  Is it any wonder, that language delayed kids have such high incidence of behavior problems? 

Now that I have cheated, I thought I'd share with one of my favorite therapy activities.  I won't lie, I am a drill and kill kind of girl when it comes to speech sound disorders.  Part of it is my general belief that I have a limited time with these students and I want to get everything I can out that time.  I struggle with coming up with highly motivating activities that still allow me to get up to 100 correct productions of my target.  But a marble run has never failed me.  My marble run is made up of multiple partial Discovery Toys Marble works:

I went through two separate phases of selling Discovery Toys and combined both sets from my demo products. I also have found partial kits on ebay and garage sales.    Of course, Discovery Toys is not the only place that sells marble runs. So while that's my preference, I don't think it's your only option.

So how do I use the marble run:

First is the building. I have learned through trial and error that I should be the one to do the building. I usually eliminate the difficult pieces, for my own sanity.  Then I let the child pick one at a time.  Depending on the child I can have the child practice their target sounds/words/ or phrases as they pick pieces.  I try to limit the building to about 5 minutes.

The next step is control the marbles. I've learned to make sure that the marbles come towards me and away from the child.  Occasionally, they will try to get a hold of the marbles, but I make it clear that after the marble has run down, I get the marble. If they want the marble back, they have to say words.

I usually have the general rule that for every 5 or 10 words they get 1 marble.  This will depend on their attention and maturity.  But I can often tempt them to attempt even more trials with the promise of more marbles.  20 words at time could give them 4 marbles to send down the marble run.  The final motivation is that if everyone has given 100 correct productions then I quite drilling them and they get to just play.  I find I do need to use a timer for this, or I have a hard time convincing them to clean up.

I have used a marble run successfully from ages 2 years to 12.  And I suspect that I could get kids 12 and up to work for the marble run, but I've never tried.