Goodwill finds of the week....

It's another Reading Foundations week for me. The training is a good review of grad school concepts, but I'm looking forward to being done with reading articles for homework. The 3am puppy wake-up calls have made me into quite the zombie. 

I thought I would share two neat thrift store finds in the meantime. The bear blocks are good for simple sorting tasks. It's designed for preschoolers but it's good for older students who are working on basic concepts too. I can have my students find the bears that only have hats or have on something red. The Goodwill in my hometown usually doesn't have games aimed at younger kids so I was very surprised.   

My second find is another Find It for 1.99 (which is a steal based on the Amazon price). This one is aimed at younger kids with it's collection of alphabet blocks and basic objects. My princess version taught me the importance of looking for "I spy" types of games. Students just love these toys and it's a great way to work on vocabulary. 

I also love to use these games in articulation groups. They help keep my students entertained while they are waiting for their turn. It's not particularly loud and there's no mess to worry about. I know that the wait time between students can be a challenge for SLPs who don't like to use crafts.

More reflections on Summer Institute

This past week opened my eyes to a world of new possibilities.

The first is figuring out a way to help my district start attracting student interns. The second day of the internship course focused on items that can strengthen districts'/supervisors' relationships with different universities as well as with the students. The thing I really carried away from it was the need to develop our own internship manual. Universities provide them but schools often operate on a somewhat different system. Manuals set up clear expectations for students and their supervisors. I like the idea of taking the guess work out of the equation. The difficulty is just figuring out how to modify the information that universities give out to fit the school's standards. My belief is that this will be a rather time consuming task with an estimate of several months worth of contemplation. 

The second training I attended was Language-Literacy Evaluation and Treatment in a Digital Age. The speaker, Sandie Barrie Blackley, was by far one of the best presenters I have heard so far in my limited professional development career. I was completely blown away by the information we learned about dyslexia. It makes me want to change the way I conduct assessments so that I include more phonological awareness tasks. I guess it will be a challenge for myself in the upcoming school year. Mrs. Blackley emphasized using a systematic multi-sensory approach for intervention (think Orton-Gillingham or Lindamood Bell LiPS). She also has a computer-based program that families can use to practice at home to compliment face-to-face therapy program. It's called Lexercise. The clinician sets up the games based on what the student is learning in therapy to reduce frustration levels. I like that the program is very personalized, but I'm not sure that very many of my students would be able to access a computer-based program.

Overall, I think it was another very good experience. 

Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork....the challenge of keeping data.

I think a common concern of many school-based SLPs is having an efficient data system. We ask each other at conferences, small workshops, district meetings, and online. How do you keep data? Do you like the way you keep data? More importantly, will you please share the forms that you use? That's why I wanted to join up with Crazy Speech World's data linky this week. 

My district started the process of creating uniform data sheets during my CFY. I think that this is really beneficial to the district and to our therapists. We have different writing styles, but we know where to find the things that we need should students switch from school to school. The district has a set form for our service notes, evaluation reports (which we give out in addition to what's on the IEP paperwork for evals. & re-evals.), and plan of cares. 

The form I love the most is our service note. It includes all the information I need to bill Medicaid electronically. I print double-sided sheets out for every student that last for 6 week periods. I like to arrange my notes into two binders. I have a binder for Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday. The binders contain tabs of 30 minute time slots. I stick the service notes into their time slot so it's easy to find the group/student that I need at the drop of a hat. 

My coworkers did an awesome job on the creation of these forms.

Here is a copy of our form with a blank for the name of your district. I've also created a new sheet similar to this one for my inclusion groups. One page has space for 3 students with abbreviated goals. I can print out these sheets and transfer the data to their normal service note after each session. It's a much needed solution after I discovered how hard it was to keep 6 sticky notes from falling off of my clipboard. The copy of that file can be found here.

Summer Institute 2013: Day One

It's that time again. I'm doing three days of training at NC's Summer Institute Program for the Exceptional Children's Division. The courses I took last year were awesome and today did not disappoint either. 

The first course I'm taking is a two day trans-disciplinary workshop with OT, PT, SLP, and School Psychologists on supervising graduate students. The information makes me appreciate all of my graduate school supervisors in a new light. As a student clinician I think it's easy to forget that supervisors have to manage both their caseloads, your training, and make time for their own lives as well. You are just mostly concerned with how you are doing and what your supervisor thinks of you. I know I was definitely a student who worried about her performance in the eyes of her supervisors due to my out of field background. It took me well into my CFY to truly feel comfortable using my outside experiences to amp up my therapy sessions.

Today, we mostly discussed the roles of Supervisor and Supervisee. What makes a good SLP supervisor? The answer varies from person to person but here are some key features:

• Someone who teaches and is willing to be taught. Students are sent to you to learn something, but that doesn't mean that they can't also offer new knowledge to you. It's a mutually beneficial relationship that allows both of you to develop new skills or strengthen weaknesses.
• Someone who communicates. This means providing frequent feedback and asking students open ended questions that help them reflect. Professors at colleges have open door policies for concerns. Why shouldn't a supervisor offer the same (with guidelines on when to call)? It's important to offer students multiple methods of communication such as emails or little notecards that they can use based on their comfort level with the particular question/concern. 
•  Someone who is supportive. Students like to feel like you actually have a vested interest in their success. This is difficult given our hectic schedules in the schools. It's way too easy for students to fall under the impression that you don't want them there because you pay more attention to completing paperwork. It's nice to know that your supervisor wants you to do well. It could mean encouraging the student to look for resources on a certain topic or asking them to write down that awesome idea they just used in therapy. 

P.S. I don't have any students coming my way in the near future. I want several more years of experience (and training) under my belt. It's just an aspect of the field that I find intriguing after seeing so many Livejournal posts concerned with horrible supervisors. 

Love it & List It: July

Disclaimer:  Amazon affiliate links are included in this post for your convenience.

Hi everyone!  I'm linking up with Jenna's Love it & List it over at Speech Room News.

The link up is going to be a regular monthly feature.  This month, Jenna is asking us to share our favorite games with you.  Here are some of my favorites (because I have tons) in no particular order:

1. Cat in the Hat, I can do that! - This game is good for pre-K and kindergarten groups. It targets following directions in up to 3 steps. I also use it to teach turn taking. 

2. Monopoly Junior- My students love anything to do with money so I use this as motivation during reviews. 

3. Tumblin' Monkeys- It's another motivator. 

4. Highlights Hidden Pictures Game- It's a good way to work on vocabulary and language. 

New baby

As facebook fans already know, I'm taking a little bit of time off on materials to spend time bonding with our new family puppy. 

(I've only managed to get pictures of her sleeping so far but this is one of the pictures that made me fall in love.)

Crazy bones

I'm always amazed at how much I can learn about kids toys & games through thrift shopping. I found this little tin over the weekend. I had never heard of crazy bones but thought I would take a chance on the odd little figures. 

 The rules are fairly simple. You get points based on the way that the figures land.

How to Play

In my mind, I see these little guys as a great way to increase interest in drilling tasks. I plan on using the same scoring system to determine how many times my students have to attempt a target. They will totally think that they are getting out of doing all that work when really I'll just be adding in extra cards to the drill (hehe..I love being sneaky) for the ones that they get to skip.