I have always
been the type of person who loves structure and routine. Shortly after starting my job as a school
speech and language pathologist, I realized this profession doesn't have a
whole lot of that! Students of varying
skill levels, cognitive levels, and personalities come waltzing into your room
and you quickly have to give a lesson that will meet all of their
needs/goals….and in 30 minutes! An
overwhelming task for sure! It was my
goal to figure out how to to structure my school year (create a "curriculum") in a way that made
planning easier for me, met all of my students’ goals, and could help them
practice their skills in functional contexts.
I didn't like just flying by the seat of my pants and definitely didn't believe that playing a game every single session was going to help my kids
utilize their skills in the general education classroom. Drilling isolated language skills such as
phonology, semantics, pragmatics, and syntax/morphology then expecting kids to
go into other environments and use those skills is just not realistic all the
time. I learned, through the Story
Grammar Marker program, we need not forget about the Discourse level which
bridges the gap between language and literacy.
At this discourse level, we can help kids utilize their language skills
in functional contexts and hopefully allow for greater carryover into other
environments. Not all kids are ready for
the discourse level right off the bat.
Students who are very low cognitively may have to do that drilling of
isolated skills for a great length of time before moving to the discourse
level, if ever.
After
purchasing the Story Grammar Marker program last year (realizing many of my
kids needed to be working on narrative skills) and religiously reading the Mind
Wing Concepts blog; I realized that I could structure my school year around
their concepts/programs which are also aligned with the Common Core
Standards! This is the blog post that
gave me my idea:
Since the
elementary school I work at does trimester grading periods, it was easy to
divide my year into the three levels of discourse (I call them “units” with my
kids) that the blog post talks about (conversation, narration,
exposition). I figured by doing this I
could keep all of my language groups on the same page and actually feel a sense
of direction!
Now, this is
my first year trying this sort of set up, so I definitely expect many bumps in
the road as I go. This will be a great
learning experience for me! I created
this blog so anyone else who loves structure as much as I do can follow my
little experiment and decide if maybe this is something they would like to do
at some point! In addition to just
keeping you updated on my curriculum, I also plan to post therapy documents I
have created/used, activity ideas, classroom decorating ideas, and anything
else I want to share! I hope you find
something in this blog that is useful to you!
I love your blog -- your classroom is so cute too. I have a question about the Story Grammar Marker -- did you purchase it straight from Mindwing? Or Super Duper? There's a large price difference, so I am wondering which kit is best to order. Thanks :)
ReplyDeleteThe $36 through Super Duper is only for the teacher SGM tool and a mini poster. The $194 through MindWing is the ENTIRE kit....manual, teacher and student SGM tools, enhancements, posters, etc. The manual is DEFINITELY a must! Includes how to do everything, assessment protocols, data collection forms, lesson ideas, samples, etc. I personally LOVE this program. I would even go as far to say it is the best purchase I've made in my profession so far!! My kids absolutely love it and they really seem to grasp all the concepts.
DeleteI purchased the manual, 2 student SGM tools, 1 teacher tool, and the Complete Episode mini poster through Mind Wing Concepts last year. This year, with the budget we were given, I purchased 2 more student tools, a few different mini posters, and the data collection & progress monitoring book. I want it all! But what I started out with last year was perfectly fine and was enough for just starting out the program.
Hope this helps!
Thank you!! I posted this same question on Speaking of Speech and I think you replied :)
DeleteI am definitely going to check into this and start making some purchases. I can't wait to use it!!
I love your ideas and set up of your room. I purchased the SGM last year and worked with the LD teachers. They loved it and are using as part of their reading and writing instruction. My question is how often do you meet with your students weekly and for how long?
ReplyDeleteI would love for our LD teacher to use the program too so we can give our kids some consistency and added practice! I wanted to have a good handle on the program before I suggested that so I will definitely have to talk to her about that ASAP!
DeleteI meet with my language groups 2-3 times per week for 30 minutes. I sometimes feel rushed with the 2x per week groups so wish I had them all 3x per week! How often do you meet with your students weekly??
Hi Allie,
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering how you structure your speech sessions? I have many students working on listening to a story, sequencing pictures, and then retelling the story. I find it hard to do all that in a 30min time slot! Any advice? Also can you give us some examples of goals your students have? THANKS!
I agree, it is definitely hard to fit everything into 30 minutes! The structure of each session really just depends on what I am teaching that day. I mean in general, I always start with a review of the previous sessions and finding out what the kids know about the new topic. Then I move into teaching and tie up the session with a quick summary.
DeleteI would maybe try to focus on one thing at a time and not try to fit everything into one session. Do you have Story Grammar Marker? There is so much you can target in just one story and it may take weeks to get through that one book. This time when I get to my Narrative Unit I will definitely slow down a bit and really hit on the critical thinking triangle discussed in the SGM program. I feel like last year I kind of rushed through it and just focused on identifying the elements within a story.
As far as goals, I plan on posting my Goal Bank soon! I basically just set up my annual goals and benchmarks according to the Six Strands of Language as discussed in my most recent post. Then when I find goals I like from websites and what not, I copy and paste them into the appropriate category. My narrative goals come from the SGM manual and some of those will be included in the Goal Bank as well.
It has been really busy at school, so I will get some more things posted as soon as I can!