Part Two of my recent finds....

Last week, I posted about my recent discovery of the Entire World of R products. I absolutely love their two story books, but I also needed something for students who aren't quite ready for reading paragraphs. I started out by simply writing two to three target phrases on sentence strips. These work really well if you have students who are struggling readers. You have complete control over the words that they will encounter. I wanted something similar for targeting sentence level, but I didn't have time to make my own. Luckily, I noticed that Amazon also carried the Entire World of R flip books. 

It's an eight book set that targets the different variations of /r/ in every position of words. It's $84 on Amazon which is definitely hard to swallow when you first see the books. Why? They are printed on some sort of cardboard-like paper that students can easily destroy by bending or inadvertently ripping out when turning the pages too roughly. I wish they were made more similarly to Super Duper's flip books and turn & talk series. It is a pretty big negative for a material that is very useful otherwise. I really like how students can mix up the pages to create their own silly sentence or just follow the original order of the pages. (Would I buy it out of pocket again now? No. This is something I think would be better on a purchase request given the questionable quality.)

The second material we are currently enjoying in my room is Alfredo's Food Fight. This was Goodwill find in the .50 cent game section. I took a chance and bought it without doing a thorough inspection of game pieces. I was lucky to find out that it was complete and barely used. 

The object of the game is to throw meatballs at Alfredo as he spins around. The fork launchers can be a little testy if you aren't paying attention to the "noodles" (yarn). It's really bad to get stuck in the forks. However, it is hilarious to see the meatballs flying around. I have used this with preschoolers and fifth graders alike. It is something that they all have loved and request to play again.

Kicking up articulation therapy a notch.....

Between struggling with bronchitis for three weeks and watching two family members fight fraudulent credt/debit card charges, I have been less than motivated to do much of anything besides sleep. I did; however, discover several new materials recently that have made my life a little bit easier. 

My favorite finds are these two books of carryover stores from Say It Right that I found on Amazon. 

The Entire World of /R/ Book of Stories contains simple sound loaded paragraphs for /r/ in its various forms. Each story has 3 comprehension questions that students can either respond to aloud or write down. I typically end up asking more than just the three for additional practice at the spontaneous speech level. This book has been wonderful for my third and fourth grade students. Even though the stories are obviously fictitious, they hold the interest of my students in a way that some of the ones on Communication Connects do not (I can't complain too much about getting those stories for free though). The stories have some challenging words that I model but most of them are decodable. At $35, it is something that I would recommend for people who have a large amount of articulation students on their caseload.

The Big Book of  R Carryover Stories also contains sound loaded paragraph stories with comprehension questions for /r/ in its various forms. The stories in this book are longer and often more challenging than the yellow book. I've used it with fourth and fifth grade students, but I can see this easily carrying over into the middle school therapy room as well. I like this book because it is not nearly as difficult as the You Decide : Carryover Articulation Stories for S and R book that my previous district had. (Granted, that book is another great resource for more advanced readers/grade levels.) You can have each student read their own story at around 5 minutes apiece versus nearly 20 for the other. At another $35, it is something that I would recommend for people who have a large amount of upper elementary articulation students on their caseload.

Overall, I am really happy that I decided to bite the bullet and purchase these two books out of pocket. I can really envision using them for years to come.

Pronouns at Recess

Once again, I find myself blogging about pronouns. I spend most days talking about pronouns at least twice if not more. I typically do this by drawing a boy and girl stick figure with various articulation and verb card decks. It's an easy way to keep my therapy table from getting loaded down with clutter. However, I recently decided to add in a little technology to the mix using my projector.

This simple little slideshow is designed to be used with PowerPoint on either a Smartboard, projection screen, or a computer. You just click view slideshow. 

Students are given a choice of pronoun at the bottom of each slide for either labeling or developing a sentence based on what they see. 

If you are using a Smartboard, you can let students draw additional items into the picture. They can also write their sentences on the board. You can also have them write sentences on a whiteboard.

Grab your copy of Pronouns at Recess here.