I hope all of you are safe and in good health! I wanted to briefly update all of you about the status of speech and language sessions for this year. Under the current guidelines provided, I will be able to provide sessions either in person or online, depending upon what you are comfortable with. Safety guidelines will be followed, including distancing, wearing masks, etc. As a building team, we are currently discussing the specifics of how our scheduling will work for all special education students, so I do not know at present exactly when I can fit each student in. However, very soon I will be able to collaborate with all of you in finding the best days/times, method of service, etc. I look forward to seeing all of you again and continuing to make progress! Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Good morning! I hope all of you are doing well and are safe and healthy. I wanted to provide a few resources for families that have children who use AAC devices for communication. Since several different programs are used by Nowlin students, including LAMP and TouchChat, I will provide general guidance/resources. However, please feel free to email me at any time if you have questions or need guidance with regard to a specific program. Similarly to my earlier advice, I highly recommend that any activities performed be fun and engaging, but also ones that provide for lots of language opportunities. With the weather improving (at least on some days), getting outdoors and requesting activities or commenting on the students’ surroundings would be great activities. If you would prefer something indoors, there are countless opportunities, depending upon what your child enjoys. This could be arts and crafts activities, cooking, playing with toys, reading and commenting books, etc. The following links give more ideas and directions. I hope that these are helpful, and again please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions, comments or concerns!
I hope that all of you are safe and in good health!
Many students in both the ASD and POHI programs of Nowlin have goals related to language development. This can mean anything from learning and using single words (vocabulary) all the way up to producing sentences of six or more words. I’d like to focus on two simple, yet very effective activities that can be used at home for our students that are motivating and also beneficial.
Firstly, although many of our students are able to express wants and needs, sometimes continued practicing of this skill can be beneficial, especially if the student has not practiced it in some time or does so inconsistently. While I may have worked on requesting with them for a year or more, they will need some practice moving forward to keep the skill and ensure they don’t lose it. This can be done by simply prompting them, “tell me what you want.” If a response is not given, you can provide a sentence starter by saying “I…” or “I want…” Those two words can also be written to give visual support, especially with ASD students. Once this becomes consistent again and easy, you can make the task harder by including a verb or an adjective. For example, if your child is requesting chips for a snack, and are consistently saying “I want chips,” you can model “I want to eat chips” as an expansion. Similarly, if your child is playing with toys, instead of having them only repeat “I want cars/blocks” (or any other item), you could prompt them to say “I want green car” (or any other color) or “I want the small/big ball.” These are simple activities, but help to maintain a necessary skill and reinforce the power of words in our lives.
The second activity is what is called Dialogic Reading, and it can be done in many ways. Usually, a book is read to a child and then the child is prompted to retell the story while looking back at the pages again after it is completed. It can also be done as you go (so you would read one or two pages and then have them say what happened or ask a question about the pages). My recommendation here is to keep it light and simply do what is effective and keeps your child engaged. It is important to try to engage with your child, and be supportive of them while also teaching them. Here are a few examples of how this can be done- 1) You stop after two pages and prompt your child to explain what happened in those pages, and they respond, “swimming.” You could affirm their words but also add, “that’s right, Pete is swimming in the pool,” or even say, “yes, Pete is swimming in the…” to see if they can finish the sentence with “pool” or “water.” 2) While retelling, your child points to part of the story and says, “car.” At this point, you could get them to expand by giving them a choice-“that’s right! Is it a blue car or a yellow car?” You could also work on using prepositions by asking, “where is the car?” There are hundreds of examples that could be given here, and it will be different for each student, as they are all at different stages in their language development.
I hope that this helps provide some good ideas and methods. With us and our children being forced to stay home, I know that this can add a lot of stress and make our days difficult. Hence, the bottom line here is to do what is fun, engaging, and gets them talking! If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, etc please feel free to email me and I will try to answer and also address any issues here. Take care, and say hello to your children from me! I miss them very much.
First and foremost, I hope that all of you are in the best of health and are safe. I know that this is a very difficult time for all of us, and especially our students who do not have the ability to fully understand what is happening. I miss all of your children very much and am saddened that we cannot continue to make as much progress during this time. However, there are of course greater concerns at hand. The good news is that progress can continue via a home program, and it does not need to be very complicated. Some basic, consistent practice can go a long way! I have attached below a list of basic resources compiled by Dearborn’s SLP team that can help. In the coming days and weeks I will attempt to post resources more specific to the populations I work with. It is diverse, and each student has his or her own needs, but I will do my best to provide things that cover all needs. Please feel free to email me at any time for more specific guidance and we can collaborate on a good solid home program that will be fun, beneficial for the student, and not too time consuming. Please be safe and take care! I hope to see all of you again soon!
Sincerely,
Caleb Carter
Dear Parents,
Here is a list of ideas to help your children develop their speech and language skills while we are off:
Play a game where you hide something and give your child specific directions on how to find it (i.e. Go up the stairs. Turn right and walk to 10 steps. Look behind the pillow.) Then have your child take a turn hiding something and giving you specific directions.
Play a game where you describe an item and have your child guess what you are talking about. Then have your child take a turn describing an item for you to guess.
Write a sentence, cut the words apart, mix up the words, and have your child put the words in order.
Have your child name all the items they can think of that fit in a category (i.e. fruits, vegetables, etc)
Ask your child imagination questions (i.e. if you were a bird, what would you see when you are flying)
Have your child make up a story.
Have your child tell you how two things are alike and how two things are different (i.e. an apple & a banana; a fork & spoon; a car and a motorcycle)
Simon Says
Headbandz game (use it for describing items together, turn-taking, predictions – you can write down what the other person says to help you find out what item you have on your head)
Make a treasure hunt for the kids to find fun toys or snacks
Name a shape and have your child go around the house and find things that are that shape
Place objects from around the house (i.e.: spoon, crayon) in a pillow case or bag and have your child describe to you what each object is using specific characteristics (i.e. size, shape, color, parts, location, group it belongs to)
Have your child follow directions to work on prepositions (i.e.: in, on, over, under) with your child’s favorite toy. Tell your child to place the toy “under” the chair or “in” the box. After, have them work on their expressive language by having them create the direction using a preposition.
Wall Bop – Put each alphabet letter on a sticky note and put them on a wall or door. Have the kids throw a beanbag at them. Whatever letter they get, they have to name the letter and something that starts with that letter.
HearBuilder Online Free Trial Hear Builder is a great way for your child to work on following directions, phonological awareness, auditory memory, and sequencing.
Vooks is an online animated stories site with lesson plans available to read books and answer questions: Vooks is a great resource to use in the home with your children. Vooks is a streaming library of ad-free, kid-safe animated read-aloud storybooks, trusted by teachers and enjoyed by millions of children around the world every week. It is an entire library of storybooks, brought to life, to help encourage the love of reading. You can sign up for Vooks and use the take-home resources to help keep your children reading 20 minutes a day during these extraordinary times.
§ What It Is: This site uses curated PBS videos along with lesson plans, interactive materials, and more to cover lots of subjects in an engaging fashion.
§ What They’re Offering: PBS Learning Media is always free for teachers. Sign up here.
§ What It Is: Scholastic created the Scholastic Learn at Home website to provide students with approximately 20 days worth of learning journeys that span various content areas. Students get approximately three hours of learning opportunities per day, including projects based on articles and stories, virtual field trips, reading and geography challenges, and more.
§ What They’re Offering: This service is free and limits printing materials for those who don’t have adequate access. Learn more here.
§ What It Is: ReadingIQ is a comprehensive digital library offering books, magazines, comics, and more for kids from ages 2-12. It’s a smart replacement for library time right now and makes it possible for teachers to monitor what and how much their students are reading.
§ What It Is: BrainPop offers in-depth learning on topics across the curriculum for upper elementary and middle school students. Each topic includes videos, quizzes, related reading, and even coding activities. Teachers have access to planning and tracking resources too. They also offer BrainPop Jr., specially designed for younger kids.
§ What They’re Offering: All schools get free access to their COVID-19/coronavirus online learning resources for talking to students about the topic. Any school closed due to the outbreak can receive free unlimited use of BrainPOP during their closure. Contact them here.
§ What It Is: This comprehensive program covers a wide variety of subjects for students aged 2-8 (Pre-K through second grade). It offers more than 850 self-guided lessons across 10 levels. A companion program focuses on teaching English as a second language for this age group.
What are the best educational Netflix shows? We’ve gathered the top 30! Whether you’re showcasing these to students or using them as part of a distance learning curriculum, these are the best options currently streaming.
Note to teachers: Some schools block Netflix, which requires you to use Netflix’s offline feature to download preferred shows and use them during class. When it comes to the legality of streaming Netflix in the classroom, the company notes which media are available for educational screenings.
Best educational Netflix shows for elementary school
When a science concept just isn’t clicking for your students … Ms. Frizzle to the rescue! Stream episodes on the human body, gardening, weather, and more.
Based on the popular book series, this live-action sketch-comedy show brings important historical figures, like King Tut, Marie Antoinette, and Pablo Picasso, to life in an entertaining and hilarious way.
A question speech pathologists are often asked by parents is how they can get involved. This is a great question, as speech therapy usually takes place only once or twice a week, which leaves 5-6 days in which no therapy takes place. Those extra days present with great opportunities for parents and to jump in and continue targeting the skills worked on in therapy. The following article contains some fantastic advice on how parents can do just that.
Welcome to Nowlin Elementary Speech and Language! My name is Caleb Carter, and I am the Speech-Language Pathologist at Nowlin. The purpose of this Blog is to share any resources I come across that I believe could be beneficial for parents, staff or any individuals who know and work with our students in addressing their speech and language needs. As our students present with a variety of needs, I will do my best to post a variety of resources that address those needs. Please feel free to contact me with any issues or concerns. Thank you and I look forward to an awesome year!