It is progress report time which has meant that I have administered an articulation test to all my speech students. I am consistently amazed at how well they do each quarter with many of them reaching their yearly goal within the quarter.
How is this possible? Using evidenced-based articulation therapy which requires that a student get the opportunity to have multiple repetition of the correct sounds.
For several years now I have been seeing my articulation students individually for short periods of time over multiple days rather than what had been a more traditional approach of group therapy for thirty minutes twice a week.
Benefits of this methodology:
- Students do not hear other child’s incorrect articulation
- Students have more contact with speech therapist and more opportunities to correctly produce targeted sound
- Therapy is very direct maximizing the number of sounds produced in a session
- Research says that distributed practice is more effective than massed practice for the learning of new material
My Five Minute drill articulation students are making progress but are they also wanting to come to treatment? YES, I am finding that the students are also being able to see their progress. They are more consistent with their homework so the school/home connection is strengthened. The first thing that I usually ask is ” Do you have homework for me?” Although we don’t play ‘games’ there are ways to make the drill work needed to do for articulation fun.
This year we have been in and out of the classroom due to COVID. I needed to have some material that could be used for practice as well as for our Google Meets. I began to create BOOM decks. These are adding an element of excitement or gamification to our practice and homework.
One series that I have made is about a penguin needing to get back to his family after being stranded on an iceberg. There are three different adventures Fill in the Puzzle, Flashlight Search, and Feed the Animal. This gives me the opportunity to have multiple repetitions of the sound in words. I have these as separate decks for each of the sounds I have been working on as many of my students are very young and the less reading and choosing on a menu the better. The series is also fully narrated again due to the reading level of my students. I want them to concentrate on the sound we are working on and not on trying to read the words. Click below to bring you to my Boom Cards on the TPT store. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Rakovic-Speech-And-Language-Chat/Category/Boom-Cards-424788
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