Archive for December 2013

Grand Finale of my 1 Year Bloggy Birthday!

Thursday, December 12, 2013

My last day of my week long celebration! Thank you for stopping by everyday this week to enter!

I honestly cannot believe how fast this last year has gone. To think my first blog post was over a year ago?? Now I have people that actually buy things I make? (and like them!?) It's so cool! I have met so many fantastic SLPs through this process (cannot wait to meet all of you!!).
 Honestly this blog what I needed to stay motivated, up to date and have fun again! Often we can get so bogged down in the paperwork and yucky stuff about our job. I enjoy creating it reminds me to lighten up and not be so serious. Getting crafty can really change your mindset. Here is to another year of creating! CHEERS!
Grand Prize: What Am I Bundle?, Pronoun Bundle, Objective Binder and $10 TpT giftcard!
Second Prize: What Am I? Bundle
Third Prize: What am I? Christmas Edition and Pronoun Christmas!

Good luck!


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A Royal Affair Day 4

Day 4 is a giveaway of 6 products! Woo hoo!! 

1. Flip-Flap Knock Knock Jokes: Humor, Social Skills, by Speeech2U (A blogger buddy since the beginning of my blog. She write a fantastic blog herself and have awesome awesome products!) 

2.  A Pocket For Corduroy by,Gold Country SLP 
(another California SLP! woo hoo! She is making some great new products!) 

3. Restaurant Themed Language and Auditory Processing, by, SpeechSnacks(a new speech blogger buddy of mine! Very creative ideas!)

4. Apraxia Building Utterances, by, Expressly Speaking(awesome store! She does not have a facebook so follow her on TpT!

5. Articulation Silly Stories-Fall and Winter Theme, by, Speechasaurus (a great new TpT Store and blog! Follow her!)

6. Holiday Category Sort by Just Wright Speech (another bloggy friend from the beginning! She is having a baby girl soon! Congrats!) 

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A Royal Affair- Day 3

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Are you all ready for Day 3!? More great products from my blogger friends!! 

1.  Who? -er Noun Derivatives, by, Straight Up Speech (Jenn you rock! Another close blogger buddy of mine from the beginning!)

2. Taking Perspective Holiday, by, SLPrunner (Watch out for SLPrunner! She is a fast moving SLP! Organizer of our facebook frenzy and man can she pump out great products!)

3. Where is the Snowman? Preposition Pack for Speech and Language, by, Rae's Speech Spot
(another blogger buddy from the beginning!)

4.  Christmas Barrier Games, by, Putting Words in Your Mouth 
(Another blogger buddy since the beginning! She makes amazing amazing things! Such inspiration!)

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A Royal Affair- Day 2

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Another day of giveaways! I have to again thank the community of bloggers that have donated to these giveaways! You gals are awesome!

1. Itty-Bitty Book Bundle by, SchoolHouseTalk (if you have not checked her out, you better! She has great products!)

2. Shopping for QR codes by, The Speech Bubble (Maureen, I use your products probably more than any others I have bought. Love them! Happy Bloggy Birthday to you as well! We started our blogs only a few days apart).

3.  Hold Your Horses, by Speech with Sharon (Sharon, I use your Idiom of the Week ALL the time and my kids love it! It never leaves my whiteboard)

4. Reindeer Pronouns and Prepositions, by Miss Gator Speechie (Welcome to the TpT World new friend!)

5. Auditory Zoo: Auditory Memory Activities For Sentences Riddles and Stories, by Speech Universe (Love your products, and we started out blogs very close to each other, as well! Happy bloggy b-day)

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A Royal Affair- Day 1

Monday, December 9, 2013

Well an entire year as flown by! It's unbelievable really how far I have come with this little adventure!  I started out with my blog in December and never had the intention of starting a TpT store, until someone commented, "You should sell your objective binder". So I thought I would give it a try and all of you love it! Who knew!? You have made that product one of the top 20 SLP products on TpT! It hasn't even been a full year yet since I started my store. I amazed at the whole world of SLPs. Such a supportive and fun group of professionals. Very proud of the products we all make and use!

I would not be here if it were not for my blogger friends! They have generously donated to this birthday celebration!!

Win this bundle: 

1. Super Strategies for Word Retrieval by Figuratively Speeching SLP (Shout out to Jess, she was one of my very first blogger friends! One day we will meet in person!) 

2.  Holiday Synonyms, Antonyms, & Figurative Language Unit by Twin Sisters Speech and Language (these gals know how to make great big products!!)

3. Snow Princess Language Unit by Happily SLP (Carly, you were one of my most loyal followers! So happy you have your own store!)

4. Auditory Processing Deficits (APD) Checklist For School Aged Children by Tatyana of Smart Speech Therapy LLC  (Tatyana is the queen of finding awesome new research. Love reading your blog)

WIN THE BUNDLE, ENTER BELOW!

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Schedule of Bloggy Birthday Events!

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Each giveaway will last only 1 day! Products will be revealed the day of the giveaway!
Make sure you enter everyday for your chance! 
The Grand Prize giveaway will last 3 days to allow more time for entry!

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Assessment of ELL students- A Quick Review

Thursday, December 5, 2013

This post is a bit of a mishmash pulled from a training I went to today! 
Attended a great training today by, Franklin W. Bender, MS, CCC-SLP 

Evaluating and Serving ELL Students for SPED Services
He gave us permission to share! What a nice guy!  Hooray!
 Want the Power Point?  Here and Here!

This is a harsh reality of our jobs: We are here to help students with DISABILITIES, not to help ALL children. Ouch. Right? But it's true. If we have 100+ students on our caseloads, we are helping no one. Everyone could benefit from extra help, that does not mean they should all get the help.
http://31.media.tumblr.com/2302741399d4544179e6aded1d945ad1/tumblr_mjhw3tMXV21s05obfo1_500.jpg
Image: pro-good.tumblr.com
It is very common for ELL students to be incorrectly identified as speech and/or language impaired.  We have to improve our assessments of ELL students (and monolingual students as well), so our services continue to be effective and efficient.  

Why do we have problems with assessments of ELL students? Conditioned beliefs. Like what? Just an example, "We have to wait to at least 4 years to assess for language impairments." Why do we think that? Well we were taught in graduate school and through research that the acquisition of Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) takes 5-7 years (Cummins).  CALP never stops developing. In fact, I can prove it! Is your vocabulary better than when you graduated from high school? I can guarantee it is! So waiting for CALP to "finish" developing is not going to happen, and a truly language impaired student will be struggling from the very beginning (with skills like BICS). We have to get better at looking at BICS, and a pattern of strengths and weaknesses. We also have to get over our personal fears of "OMG this student speaks Tagalog!? I can't do this!" Yes, you can. Find an interpreter and get to work....

We have to look at the data. Even after a year or two we can see trends in student's data that the student is not acquiring the language as they should. Examples: We need to look at BICs, we should be looking at their data from school (what tests are they taking and how are they doing?). Are they being given a language proficiency test every year? How are they doing on it? (In California we have the CELDT. I can pull all the data for each child and compare it to an average for my school!)  We have to look at the pattern of strengths and weaknesses. Another example: a child has Down Syndrome and is bilingual. Are you going to wait to conduct therapy because CALP takes 5-7 years to develop? Absolutely not! Pull all of the information together.

Another common misconception is that because parents are not well educated the student will struggle too. There are many students who surpass their parents education level (e.g. our presenter Franklin Bender MA CCC-SLP's parents were high school graduates and he is currently getting his Doctorate! Proof!)  We have to question our thought process, look directly into how and why we are doing our assessments.

The golden ticket should not, "Finally he/ got an assessment!" An assessment is just another tool to find more data and determine if the student meets eligibility criteria.  We should not be looked at as "gate keepers". We need to remember to be objective.

How do we start to fix the process? Stop going with your gut and, "Show me the data!"  
http://www.newfangled.com/stuff/contentmgr/files/2/0a2889156e4cbcb9bda9eed3192dadfc/misc/show_me_the_data.jpg
image: http://www.newfangled.com
 We need a better process for a Pre-Referral. 
This will keep us from getting inappropriate referrals. Sweet! 
  • Look at home language and culture. 
  • L1/L2 Acquisition Characteristics 
  • Academic History
  • Attendance Stability
  • Teacher Concerns
  • RtI 
  • ESL testing data
  • Parent reporting-medical history, development, language development and learning. 
  • What is typical language acquisition? What is not? Here is a developmental milestone chart.
-What does the data suggest? We need a preponderance of evidence that the student's learning is atypical. We to triangulate the data and look for a pattern of strengths and weaknesses. It takes time.

- Stick to the criteria. Special Education as it is defined is not a remedial support program (yet, the laws can change!). The law says we need 3 criteria to be eligible for services:
  1. Qualify as having a handicapping condition using appropriate evaluation methods. 
  2. Documentation of an educational impact,
  3. requiring specially designed instruction to address educational deficits.
So how do we figure out if it's normal second language acquisition or if it's disordered? That is tricky. Data collection should be fluid,  meaning not just a standardized test (your district may tell you otherwise). A dynamic assessment is an example of a fluid assessment. Dynamic assessment is great, as long as you have research to support your methods! Remember that whole concept of the Zone of Proximal development?  Also checklists and charts that are research based. You can also read articles or find books on second language acquisition that you can site in your reports.

Don't think you have the time for dynamic assessment? Administering the CELF and analyzing and writing can take up to 4 hours. Right? We already know the student is struggling so use a checklist and see what they can and cannot do. Write down the data and then write your report on that! Need an example? The powerpoints above have examples!

The hard part about this is knowing where to start. Don't let yourself hit one of those conditioned beliefs (road blocks or fears). You can do this! Even as a monolingual SLP!
Image: www.prettybrainy.com
Now I can't really tell you exactly what to do for an ELL language assessment. That all depends on the student you are assessing and your professional expertise.  I suggest downloading and reviewing the powerpoints mentioned above. Franklin Bender, MA, CCC-SLP  has included a TON of information, checklists, articles, books and information on where to start.

Things I took home from this seminar:
Image: middlezonemusing.com
One thing I have always been looking for is this: sometimes student present with patterns that are not truly an error, but a transfer of syntax or phonology from L1 to L2.  These patterns need to be accounted for and explained in our reports and when scoring assessments. This is a great resource that shows the Language Transfer Patterns for ELLs for 10 different languages. Here!

Also, the power of retention is huge in therapy. Start doing quick reviews at the end of your sessions (i.e., today we practice pronouns she/he/they, and regular past tense verbs).  If you do this, students will retain more information long term. If you don't retention can drop to 50% by the next day! Ack! And the day after that 30% retention! Remember that Objective Binder of mine? That targets one of the 5 characteristics of Foundational Teaching--the MEANING! Why this concept is important and how it relates to student's experience. Why are they there? Why is it important?

What is your favorite tool to use or refer to for bilingual assessments? Do you think schools over or under qualify ELL students? What is your biggest challenge? I would love to hear and chat with all of you about your experiences!

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1 Year Bloggy Birthday!

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Details announced Monday December 9th!

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Cyber Sale and New Products!

Sunday, December 1, 2013


Oh my goodness! The huge CYBER SALE  is upon us! Are you excited? I am!

I have some new products for Christmas and HUGE bundle savings! 
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pronoun-Christmas-1003616
NEW Pronoun Christmas Pack is available for $2.50

If you like my Pronoun Packs I now have them bundled, 4 for $10.00
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pronoun-Holiday-Bundle-1003756




NOW FOR WHAT'S IN YOUR CART? 
Linking up with Speech Room News! 


1. Opposites Bingo by Straight Up Speech- looks great for my preschool/kinder groups!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Opposites-BINGO-1003507

2. Snow Princess Language Unit by Happily SLP- all the kids are LOVING Frozen and this looks just like the movie! Lots of great language practice.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Snow-Princess-Language-Unit-978485

3. Build A Snowman Open Ended Games by Figuratively Speeching SLP

4. This is not on TpT but if you haven't seen Miss Thrify SLPs Common Core Goal Banks- GO CHECK THEM OUT they are FREE!

5.  Christmas Language Activities: Common Core Aligned by The Speech Bubble (LOVE LOVE LOVE HER STUFF)


6. Anything by Putting Words in Your Mouth! If I had to pick one thing it would be her Christmas Trivia!

7. Preposition Pack {BUNDLE} by Rae's Speech Spot- I can never have enough prepositions for preschoolers!

8. Interactive WH question Bundle by Speech2U- who could ever have enough WH question packs!?


What will you be buying in the sale!?

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