Thursday, May 30, 2013

{Review} Speech Corner Products

I love products that I can get a lot of trials with and that also appear to be "games" to my students.  Luckily, Speech Corner covers both of these areas with two of their products, called "Synonyms & Antonyms Double Dice Add-On Deck" and "Category Double Dice Add-On Deck".  I also have an RTI product from Speech Corner to share with you as well!

Synonyms & Antonyms Double Dice Add-On Deck
This item helps students become more familiar with synonyms and antonyms in order to improve their vocabulary skills and can be used with students ages 5 and up.  This product includes 27 antonym cards, each with 4 sentences on it and 27 synonym cards, each with 4 sentences on it, for a total of 216 synonym and antonym sentences!  Because of this, the activity can be used many times with limited or no repetition of sentences!  Each card has a highlighted word that the student must replace with a synonym or antonym.

To play this game, lay nine playing cards face down on a table.  Each shape in the deck should be represented once.


Next, roll the super cool double dice.


In this case, the dice landed on "circle three", so the circle card is turned over and the third sentence is read.


The student correctly replaces the highlighted word with a synonym or antonym and wa-la - the "game" continues in this same way!


Here's a look at the sentences on all nine of the cards.

You can find "Synonyms & Antonyms Double Dice Add-On Deck" for $16.99 HERE!

Categories Double Dice Add-On Deck
This item is very similar to the synonyms and antonyms deck.  It helps students develop their ability to categorize items and can be used with students ages 5 and 12.  This product includes 54 category cards, each with 4 sentences on it, for a total of 216 category prompts!  Each card has 4 sentences on it that instruct a student to name certain items (e.g. "Name things that are bouncy") related to appearance, function, components, and location.

To play this game, lay nine playing cards face down on a table.  Each shape in the deck should be represented once.


Next, roll the double dice.


In this case, the dice landed on "rectangle four", so the rectangle card is turned over and the fourth sentence is read.


The student names items that match the prompt stated on the card.  For example, this cards asks a student to name things that are found in a pet store.



Here's a look at the prompts on all nine of the cards.

You can find "Categories Double Dice Add-On Deck" for $16.99 HERE!

What I love about these "double dice" products:
- 216 synonym and antonym sentences as well as category prompts!  My students could use this activity quite a few times without ever repeating a sentence!
- The sentences on each question relate directly to the picture.  I often find that tasks are just easier with a picture to refer to.
- Easy to use - All I had to do was quickly read the short, concise directions before turning my students loose with this activity!
- "Game quality" - Although students are getting many turns to target their synonym and antonym/category goals with this product, it also feels like a game which makes therapy sessions even more enjoyable!

Data Collection for RTI - CH/SH/TH Workbook
This item is designed to make artic therapy and data collection a breeze (and it actually does just that!)


First of all, this item includes really helpful information and tips on guidelines for data collection, data collection scoring, and alternative ways to use the product.  (I'm always looking for ways to "reinvent" my therapy materials and use them in a different way!)

This workbook comes with a screening form, which is a quick and easy way to gather baseline data for your students.  It also includes the following for "ch", "sh", and "th" in the initial, medial, and final positions:

- 1-syllable pictures
- 1-syllable words
- 1-syllable phrases
- 1-syllable sentences
- 1-syllable reading passages
- 2-syllable pictures
- 2-syllable words
- 2-syllable phrases
- 2-syllable sentences
- 2-syllable reading passages

In addition to being a comprehensive therapy material that includes many levels of the articulation "hierarchy", it also makes data collection a snap!  Here's an example of one of the data collection sheets.


What I love about this product:
- The span of levels included, from 1-syllable pictures to 2-syllable reading passages!
- The easy data collection - Simply write in each box to indicate how the student did with their production, tally, and you're ready to go!

You can find "Data Collection for RTI - CH/SH/TH Workbook" for $19.95 HERE!

Speech Corner has a variety of awesome speech and language products that you can check out on their website!

Thanks for reading about these well-rounded products!

Disclaimer: These products were given to me for review.  No other compensation was provided.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

{Review} Three Amazing Products by SpeechPage.com!

Today, I have three great products to share with you from SpeechPage.com!

First of all, these products are so well thought out.  Each product has colorful and engaging picture scenes and each page is laminated, which makes the pages and individual pieces very sturdy.  Many products are already hole punched for easy storage and each product comes in its own plastic bag for easy storage!  (Talk about thinking like an SLP; we love to be organized!)

As I mentioned before, I have three fantastic products to share with you today including "Interactive Prepositions - Scenes Around Us! 4C", "Language Listening to Multi Steps 4A", and "Life Skills Predicting Problems 6B".

First up, is "Interactive Prepositions - Scenes Around Us! 4C"!



This product is great for targeting concepts such as "front", "between", "beside", "in", and "behind".  It includes four different "scene boards" such as: "The Beach!", "The Backyard!", "The Playground!", and "School Yard!".

Students can follow directions given by an adult to move certain velcro-ed pieces around the board (e.g. Put the snake in the boat.") or give directions to one another (e.g. "Put the shovel beside the pail").  I especially like this product because "behind" is always such a tough concept for my students to understand, but this product makes it easy to teach!  I also love the pictures that are used in the scenes because each item is a basic vocabulary word that the students can learn about.  The velcro "patches" around the board did throw off my students a bit, but after reminding them that sometimes we wouldn't need to use the velcro spots, they easily adjusted.  Overall, I think that this $21.95 product would be a great addition to any SLP's preposition arsenal!  You can find this product HERE!

This next product, "Language Listening to Multi Steps 4A", is wonderful for targeting multi-step directions.


It includes four different "scene boards" such as: "Jungle Fun!", "Alien World!", "Under the Sea!", and "Farm Fun!"

Students can follow directions given by an adult to move certain velcro-ed pieces around the board.  An additional "prompt samples" sheet includes "three detail" directions (e.g. "Put a monkey on a tree"), "four detail" directions (e.g. "Put a red alien between stars"), and "multi detail" directions (e.g. "Put the red fish in the cave and shell on the treasure) for each of the scene boards.  Certainly, there are even more directions that can be given beyond those that are on the prompt samples card.  Again, the scene cards also include pictures that can be used to discuss basic vocabulary.  I love how colorful all of the scenes are, as well as the "prompt samples" card for no-prep usage!  I would love to see even more tasks included on the prompt samples card because they're so useful!  At $21.95, this is a great product for multi-step directions!  You can find this product HERE!

Although all of these products are wonderful, this last one may be my favorite!  "Life Skills Predicting Problems 6B" uses six illustrated pages to help students predict problems that could happen in everyday life.



With twelve scenes on each page, this activity includes 72 questions, such as "What could go wrong with using a cracked glass?" or "What could go wrong with leaning out of a window?"  Not only does this activity target a student's predicting skills, but it also creates conversations about solutions to problems and ways to be proactive to prevent problems.  You can find this fantastic life skills product for $15.95 HERE!

In the future, I'd love to see activities that can target multiple goal areas at one time from SpeechPage.com, but all of the above products are just wonderful!

You can also follow SpeechPage.com on facebook or visit them on their website!  Thanks for checking out these useful products!


Monday, May 27, 2013

{Review} Language Lab: Spin & Speak

I'm excited to share another great app with you today!  This social skills app, by PRC, is called "Language Lab: Spin & Speak".


The app targets pragmatic language with specific respect to requesting objects, asking for help, directing others, exchanging information, making choices, using imaginative skills, and stating facts.  Each student can work on their own, individual goal(s) throughout the game, which promotes differentiation.  It also includes an easy to use data tracker that records correct, incorrect, and assisted responses!

Before the start of the game, the therapist can choose the areas for the student to work on, and each student can choose their own icon to play the game with.  Next, it's time to play the game!  (Check out the super colorful game board below!)


Students take turns answering flashcard-type questions that pop up on the screen, and then tap the wheel to spin.  Next, the student moves the correct number of spaces indicated on the wheel.

There are seven different social language question categories to choose from, including:

directing activity,


discovery,


imaginative,


information exchange,


 informative,


personal,


and requesting scenes!


The first player to the end of the game (spot 50) is the winner!

After the game is completed, data for all players can be accessed.


What I love most about this product:
- the variety of pragmatic language categories that are addressed in this one app,
- the way that this app makes it so easy to have students working on their own, individual goals,
- the colorful and motivational game board and variety of actions on the game board such as "lose a turn", "go back", "go ahead", which allow the student to learn while also having fun,
- the real life scenarios that are included,
- the useful and straightforward data collection.

Things I would like to see in an update:
- additional question cards in each category to cut down on repetitions of the same card.

If you have students working on social language skills, this is a wonderful app to use!  You can find this great app for $5.99 at iTunes!!


Disclaimer: This app was given to me for review.  No other compensation was provided.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

End of the School Year {FREEBIE}!

This activity can be used to celebrate each student's accomplishments throughout the school year and highlight areas that still need improvement and it's FREE at my TpT store!

Introducing, the "End of the Year Speech Celebration Pack"!!!



For the student, this activity includes:

1 boy superhero writing sheet



and 1 girl superhero writing sheet.


For the therapist or teacher, this activity includes 2 "high five" hands and 2 "shoot for the stars" stars.


You can grab this activity at my TpT store by clicking HERE!!

Please also consider "liking" my facebook page to stay up-to-date with freebies, giveaways, and sales!

I hope that this activity helps you to reflect on an awesome year with your students!


Saturday, May 25, 2013

All Things Butterflies!

Although many of you are reaching your last few days of the school year, I thought I'd share a fun and easy activity with you in case you're looking for a few last minute projects.  Check out these fun and easy hand print artic butterflies!


First, have students put their painted hands down on paper, cut the hand prints out when dry, and write their artic words on the fingers/wings.  Then, just cut a circle head, oval body, grab some googly eyes, and attach two pipe clean antennae.  Beautiful artic butterfly masterpieces!!

If you need a few more butterfly activities to complete your "ensemble", here are a few activities that I have available at my TpT store!

Butterfly Categories
This 27-page activity includes 78 convergent naming cards and 78 divergent naming cards that target both concrete and abstract categories.  Students take turns drawing convergent naming cards and determining the category that the items belong to or drawing divergent naming cards and stating items that belong to the category.



You can grab this activity HERE!

Butterfly Analogies
This 36-page activity includes: 

24 object : function analogies, 

 

24 object : synonym analogies, 


24 object: antonym analogies, 


24 part : whole analogies, 


and 24 object : category analogies.


Students take turns drawing cards, determining the relationship between the first comparison and then generating a word to complete the second comparison.

You can find this activity HERE!

You can also "like" my facebook page in order to stay up-to-date with freebies and other fun giveaways HERE!

Last, but not least, you can enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below to win a copy of "Butterfly Analogies"!

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Friday, May 24, 2013

{Review} Tell Tale by Blue Orange Games

Here's a review of another great product, called Tell Tale, by Blue Orange Games.

General Overview
Tell Tale is designed for ages five-adult and can be used with 1-8 players.  It includes 120 picture cards, highlighting characters, settings, objects, and emotions, that can be used to create and retell stories!  Tell Tale can be used to target language, listening, creativity, and self expression.

A Speech and Language Perspective
Obviously, from a speech and language standpoint, this game is awesome for targeting story telling.  However, I used this activity for articulation and also included additional ways to use this product.

*Articulation - I have a few older elementary students who are working on carryover of their speech sounds.  Although we often work with their academic material, Tell Tale provided a great and fun break!  Specifically, one of the groups worked on carryover of the /r/ sound.  In this example, the story about this set of pictures was, "There once was a man named Peter who wrote a letter. When he was done with the letter, he had a party and served hamburgers.  Then, he took a vacation to a warm place."  Tons of /r/s in just one sentence!!


Here are a few other "out of the box" ways to use this product:

*Syntax - By presenting one picture card at a time, students can work on syntax skills in short sentences.

*Grammar - Target a variety of different grammar skills (pronouns, verbs, etc) by making short sentences about each picture.

*Attributes - Played like "I Spy", spread 4-6 object pictures out on the table.  The therapist or students can give 2-3 clues about an object based on its attributes and then the others can guess which object the person is describing.

*Sentence Repetition - The therapist can break the story up into individual sentences and then the students can repeat sentences of varying length.

What I Love Most About This Product
Any product that can be used with multiple grades and to target multiple goal areas is a great product in my book.  Furthermore, any product that my students see as a "game" is even better in my book.  This activity hits both of these areas!  The pictures are bright and vivid.  This activity had no problem holding my student's attention since the stories often became pretty silly and there were lots of giggles!

Where To Find This Product
You can find this great product HERE at Blue Orange Games!!

GREAT OFFER!!
In honor of ASHA's Better Hearing and Speaking Month, Blue Orange will send a free copy of the game Flapz to interested therapists at the end of May. Blue Orange Games has would like to invite OTs and SLPs to subscribe to their therapist list so they can take advantage of this offer and future opportunities. You can take advantage of this opportunity by clicking on this link!!

Disclosure statement: Word Nerd Speech Teach was provided with a copy of this game for review.  No other compensation was provided.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

{Review} Vocabulary Development and Narrative Assessments by Smart Speech Therapy and a Giveaway!!!

I was so excited when Tatyana at Smart Speech Therapy LLC asked me to review a few of her products!  She provides comprehensive resources with extensively researched and easy to read information.

First up, is "Vocabulary Development: Working with Disadvantaged Populations".


This 18-page packet includes: 
- reasons why vocabulary should be considered as a therapy goal, 
- limitations of poor readers, 
- components of a strong vocab program, 
- groups of children that are at risk, 
- ways to explicitly teach vocabulary, 
- a structural routine for vocabulary, 
- word learning strategies, 
- tips for older non-readers.  

What I loved most about this pack are:
* the simple tips that it offers to educators to improve vocabulary development, 
* specifically refraining from "dumbing down" our own vocabulary.  
* the step by step "explicit vocabulary instruction" portion of this powerpoint.

If you'd like to check out this great product, you can do so HERE!

Next up, is "Narrative Assessments of Preschool and School Aged Children".


This 73-page packet includes:
- reasons to assess narrative abilities,
- a list of story telling features, types of narratives,
- explanations for a series of standardized/normed tests that assess narratives (Renfrew Bus Story, The Strong Narrative Assessment Procedure, Test of Narrative Language, Narrative Assessment Protocol, and Narrative Language Measures),
- advantages for informal narrative assessment,
- ways to elicit fictional narratives,
- narrative assessment procedures,
- an in depth discussion of narrative microstructure (content and form),
- an in depth discussion of narrative macrostructure (use),
- word finding related to story retelling,
- perspective taking as it relates to narratives,
- narrative ages and stages,
- writing measurable narrative goals,
- 8 easy to read appendices,
- FREE resources!

What I love most about this pack are:
* the exhaustive list of areas that story telling encompasses (I have to admit, I hadn't really thought of all of the areas that this packet mentions!),
* specific definitions of the types of narratives,
* the extensive list of narrative assessments,
* the microstructure vs. macrostructure explanations,
* a discussion of word finding as it relates to story retelling,
* the explanation of perspective taking, and the narrative ages and stages (for real - this graph/explanation alone is worth getting the packet for!)

If you'd like to check out this fantastic product, you can do so HERE!

Tatyana also reviewed my "Robot Phonological Awareness" pack and "Common Core Based Language Assessment". You can find her review HERE. If you'd like a chance to win "Robot Phonological Awareness", enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below! Tatyana will also be doing a giveaway of her Vocabulary Development resource, so check out her blog to enter!

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

{Review} Speech File Folder Games by Perkilou Products

I'm so excited to share products with you by Dina at Perkilou Products!!  Dina offers an awesome variety of products and also includes a bunch of freebies at her website!

Over the last few days, I have been using her "Set of 6 File Folder Games", which is a fantastic product!  This product includes:

24 "go together" picture pairs, where students find two items that go together and can then state "how" the two items go together,


20 irregular past tense verb picture pairs, where the student finds the irregular plural card to match with the singular noun card,


24 opposites picture pairs, where the student finds a card that is the opposite of one of the items shown on the file folder,


24 regular past tense verb picture pairs, where the student finds the regular plural card to match with the singular noun card,


96 picture cards with 8 categories to sort them into.



What I love most about this product:
- there are so many goal areas that are targeted in this easy to use pack!
- each file folder game includes at least 20 pairs of words!
- the picture cues help non-readers become more independent with the activity!

At $6.99, this product is a great addition to any therapy room!  You can find this wonderful product HERE!  Dina also has a bunch of great freebies on her website as well that you can access HERE!  You can also follow Perikou Products on facebook!

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

{Review} TpT Products by The Queen's Speech and a Giveaway!

I'm so excited to be bring you a review of three great products by The Queen's Speech!

First up, is Snail Sentence Repetition {Long Version}.


This 21-page activity includes:
- 2 pre/post test pages (which are great for collecting baseline data!),
- 13 "Snail Trail" practice pages
- 20 sentences at each level to repeat verbatim (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 words)


What I Love About This Activity:
- The range - This activity includes 20 sentences at 10 different levels!!
- Data tracking - We used the "Snail Trail" sheets to track progress.  One student was green and red and the other was blue and orange.  If the students repeated the sentence correctly, they put a blue or green chip on the circle spot.  If they produced the sentence incorrectly, they put an orange or red chip on the circle spot.  This is just one more way that this great product can be used!
- The graphics - These super spring-y graphics go right along with my snail theme!
- The price!  At only $2.00, this product is a great value!


Next up, is Speech-Language Therapy Objective Binder.


What a creative and useful product!  This wonderful material allows students, co-workers, administrators, etc to know that the therapy objective is for the day in this easy to use activity!  This product includes objective pages for:
- artic
- fluency
- voice
- social skills
- asking/answering questions
- following directions
- retelling stories
- pronouns
- plurals
- verb tenses
- vocab
- progress reports
- life skills
- figurative language usage
- organizing writing
- defining words

Here is an example of a few of the sheets that are included.


What I Love About This Product:
- It's so simple, yet so useful!
- It reminds students what "mastery" looks like.
- The price - At $2.00, this product is one that you just shouldn't be without!

Last, but certainly not least is Summer Sea Creatures {Language Pack}!


This "catch all" pack includes:

- 50 directions to follow related to the pictures on the page,


16 regular past tense verb fill-in-the-blank sentences,


16 irregular past tense verb fill-in-the-blank sentences,


15 fact or opinion sentences and 15 answer cards,

42 sentence correction cards,


13 "who am I cards" with a description of an animal and 13 answer cards,

1 sea creature board game,


2 sea creature die!!


What I Love About This Product:
- Versatility - I can find a use for this product in just about every one of my 1st - 5th grade language groups!
- The amount of cards for each area targeted
- The answer cards that go with the "who am I" cards and the "fact or opinion" cards
- The price - At $3.00, this product is so worth the "investment"!

If you love these products just as much as I did, you can check out more from The Queen's Speech at her TpT store, blog, or "like" her on facebook!

Want a chance to win "Snail Sentence Repetition" or "Take a Lick: Past, Present, and Future Popsicles"?  Enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below for a chance to win "Take a Lick: Past, Present, and Future Popsicles" AND hop on over to Queen's Speech to enter her giveaway for "Snail Sentence Repetition" by clicking this link!

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