Hi! This may be the first official entry on my blog BUT it is actually not the first blog post that I have written that was geared towards SLPs/educators! I have spent a lot of summer 2020 (The One Where We Were Quarantined) collaborating with the fabulous Lucy Stone of The Speech Express (@the_speech_express) to co-write several posts over on her blog!
Quick plug: if you work with middle or high schoolers, you need to drop everything and go check out Lucy's amazing resources-- my favorites are her Truth or Myth resource, all of her themed mini-units, her listening comprehension resource, and her conjunctions resources-- but all of them are incredible and extremely comprehensive. Seriously, you'll thank me later!
The posts Lucy and I have written so far have focused on teletherapy and distance learning following our (very abrupt) shift to this service delivery model (thanks, Covid!!) They are LOADED with ideas, activities, and freebies-- we have done a ton of the research and planning for you. These are all worth taking a look at and bookmarking to visit later, especially if you are starting the school year off with virtual learning or teletherapy sessions:
This was designed to be the ULTIMATE master list of ideas, resources, and links to use during teletherapy sessions or distance learning. We've included research on teletherapy for EBP, some quick and easy ideas for getting started if you are new to teletherapy, and teletherapy activity ideas sorted by goal area. If you scroll to the bottom, you'll find lists of great apps, game websites, links to teletherapy tutorials, and a ton more!!
Includes a gigantic list of activities (with links) that have been pre-sorted by age and theme (ex: back-to-school, camping, beach, fall). Choose one theme for each week and then select activities under that theme for each student on your caseload depending on their age and goals. Almost everything listed is free and we will continue to add new themes!
Lucy and I also started writing a Distance Learning Series that includes session plans and resources that can be used to target specific speech-language skills. More are in the works but these are the skill areas we have covered so far:
Here are a few additional posts by Lucy Stone-- I can't take any credit for these (which is unfortunate) but they're awesome too!
Includes a list of short videos along with descriptions. These are fantastic for targeting speech-language skills such as grammar / sentence structures, describing, answering "wh" questions, making inferences, articulation, and perspective-taking! I especially love using Simon's Cat-- the fact that most videos are black and white like coloring pages allows you to pause and color in parts of each scene using the Annotate tool!
These activities are great for working with older students on functional life skills activities via teletherapy or distance learning. This post includes ideas for targeting activities of daily living (ADLs), transitions, and job-related skills.
If you haven't yet used Jamboard to create virtual folders, this post is a must-read! These folders are compatible with Google Classroom and can be completely customized to include activities for individual students or groups of students. They can be used during sessions (such as for warm-ups), for independent work for homework, and more! There are so many possibilities and Lucy has created a resource containing pre-made editable folder templates.
Includes suggestions to share with families on how they can incorporate speech-language activities into their daily routines.
I am so thankful for the collaboration and support of other SLPs/educators during this bizarre and challenging time! Shout-out to @mrsmcspeechie, @speechbrain, @scanlonspeech, and @coffeeandspeech! In addition to @the_speech_express you should go follow them all on Instagram because they are fabulous.
I hope that everyone is staying safe, healthy, and sane!!