Junganew: A Herd of Sounds ~ App Review!

I've got a new and very unique app to share with you today!  Let's check out Junganew's A Herd of Sounds app for /s/.  Disclaimer: Though this app was provided to me, the thoughts and opinions are my own.

This game is different from other articulation apps in that it has a story format.  You follow the adventures of Theo the tree frog and help him work on his /s/ sound.  It's great for auditory bombardment and discrimination as well as practice for all positions of words.  Below you'll find the home screen.

The Play button starts the story from the beginning.  Starting there sets the stage for the story and gives you some great auditory bombardment.

Mirror models are a great feature for students to learn to critique themselves and see what they can do.  Follow along with Ms. Snake and she'll help you practice.  It allows students to see themselves like a mirror and even records them saying the sound.

The Map allows you to go immediately to any of the 5 places that Theo travels to in the story.

The For Adults tab gives you information about the app and directions for each section of the game.

Now for the game.  The story takes you to different places that allow you to practice /s/ in different positions.
Sand Central Station: You start by doing some auditory discrimination/isolation tasks.  It actually can be a little tricky distinguishing between /th/ and /s/.

There are 4 icons in the corners.  The leaves let you go to the next and previous pages.  The house brings you back home and the compass brings you to the map.

Here you also work on initial /s/ with a hide-and-seek game.  Sal A Mander gives you clues to where he is hiding - all places that begin with /s/.

For medial /s/, you play an associations game with the butterfly.  Find the item that goes with her outfit.

The other medial /s/ game is fun and hands-on.  Trace the different shapes with both hands at the same time! The shape reveals a medial /s/ word.

Next, you travel to the fun house where you work on final /s/.  The final /s/ games are cute carnival ones.  The first is Balloon Pops.  Find the balloon that rhymes with the word given.  Great for practicing rhyming skills as well!

The other is Guess the Goose.  You have to pick the correct goose based on Theo's clues.

There's also a voicing game where you practice turning your /s/ into /z/.  Tap on the characters to hear them say their /z/ sounds.

Moving on to the last adventure: s-blends.  Just add consonants to the blender and make some s-blend cookies for Theo.

 
Practice s-blends/plurals at the ends of words by putting toppings on the cupcakes.

At the end of the game, the characters have a little party to celebrate Theo learning to say his /s/ for show and tell.

Grab this app from iTunes for only $4.99!

What I love about this app:

• It's very unique and story-based, making it engaging for young students.
• There are a variety of activities to provide lots of opportunity for practice.
• The characters and graphics are super cute!
• The mirror model activity is prompted after each game, allowing for lots of self-check.
• The price is very reasonable at only $4.99.

What could make it better:

• The game is not super straightforward.  It took me a little while to figure it all out.
• You can't take data in the app.  Some activities are drill-oriented but not all.  You just have to tell your students when they need to repeat words.  
• Young students would not be able to use this on their own.  They would need specific instructions from you on when they need to speak at the different activities.
• It provides targets at the word level.  However, you could easily adapt some activities for sentences.

I'd love to see more stories for the different sounds, since this one only targets /s/, /z/, and s-blends.  Overall, I think it's super cute and motivating for lots of the kids on my caseload!  What do you think?

Thanksgiving Fun in the Speech Room

Last week was all about Thanksgiving in my speech room.  I thought I'd share a Target dollar spot find with you that my kids had a blast with!

This came in one big roll of Thanksgiving fun.  I separated it out and made a couple rows, since my speech room wasn't big enough to spread the whole thing out!

We used EET stickers and talked about turkeys and other pictures on the sheets.

We did lots of do-a-dots and coloring and practiced our artic words lots and lots of times.

Some even glued pictures of words with their sound in them onto their sheets.

Overall, I'd say this activity was a success.  Their favorite part was probably getting to do speech on the floor!

What do you think?  Did y'all have any Thanksgiving fun in your speech rooms?

Themed Therapy Worksheet Combo

This year has probably been my busiest, craziest, most hectic beginning of the year I've ever experienced in all my 8 years of being an SLP.  I feel like I'm being pulled in five directions and have redone my schedule five thousand times.  The last thing I have time to do is spend a lot of time planning, which is why I am loving this themed therapy thing SO much these days.

Do you use themes in therapy?  I know that several of my sweet bloggy friends do and love it, so I wanted to be on the ball with it this year.  I've already sat down and planned my themes for the entire school year.  Pretty fab, right?  This month I'm covering superheroes, pirates, and football.  The kids are eating it up so far!  

To make my life even easier, I created another worksheet pack that covers these specific themes!  It's a combo pack, so it's a LOT bigger than my other ones (63 pages!).  Check it:

 

This pack includes all of my favorite worksheet activities.  They are geared toward articulation but can usually be adapted for other skills as well.  There are generic worksheets for all 3 themes and including dots, cut and paste, color a picture, syllables, tic-tac-toe, roll and color, draw and describe, and more (i.e. there are pirate, superhero, and football sheets for each of the type of worksheet).  Here are a few examples.

Plus, there are already filled out worksheets for /r/ and /s/ (30 of them!)

What do you think?  You can grab them at my TPT store HERE!  

Want to win a copy of your own??  Just comment below with how this would help you.  I'll pick a random winner on Sunday!  :)  Have a great weekend!

Shark Week in Speech with a {Freebie}

Shark week in the middle of the back-to-school hoo-rah?  I say that's a win!  This week we're celebrating a belated shark week in speech and you HAVE to check out all of our fun!

First, we're tying together our back-to-school theme with sharks by reading Don't Eat the Teacher by Nick Ward.  This book is super cute about a shark who likes to bite everything on his first day of school.  I think it might be out of print but you can still order it on Amazon HERE.
This post contains amazon affiliate links.

Next, I made this super fun shark out of an old tissue box and scrapbook paper.  He loves to eat artic cards and all sorts of therapy materials.  ;)

We also did a shark craftivity that included lots of teeth for target words and opportunities to practice following directions.  It's very similar to my dinosaur craft from a while back except this one has fun eyes and a cute dorsal fin.  Check it!

Grab the template for this for free HERE!

Also included in the freebie pack is this cute Do-A-Dot Shark worksheet.  Mark the bubbles each time you say a word or respond correctly.

What do you think?  How do you celebrate Shark Week?

Appy Weekend ~ Articulation Test

It's the weekend, y'all.  That probably doesn't mean much to those of you who are still enjoying the lazy days of summer.  School is in full swing down in my neck of the woods.  I'm here to tell you a little about a brand new app by Little Bee Speech.  You know, the guys who made the fabulous Articulation Station app?  It's called Articulation Test Center, and get ready to be so excited!

Though I was provided with a copy of this app, all the opinions expressed are my own.

A screening test and a full test comes all in this one app.  The main difference between them is that the screener is shorter and only tests sounds that are appropriate for the age you select.

The full test has lots more areas to customize plus a nice, colorful speech sample probe.

Each item has green tiles at the top to show which sounds are being targeted.  Tapping the picture will give you a verbal prompt to elicit a spontaneous naming of the picture.  You also have the option to record their responses, add notes, and change the settings.

Tap the green tile to indicate that the student produced an error, which causes the tile to turn red.  Tapping it again turns it yellow, which means that the production was approximate.

You can note the type or error produced by tapping the down arrow on the right.  A drop down menu appears for you to note the substitution or phonological process.  Slide the red letter away to note an omission of the sound.



One of my absolute favorite things about this app is the full test has scenes for eliciting a speech sample.

Record the child telling a story about the scene with the microphone tab on the bottom left.  If they need additional prompting, tap any picture to magnify it and read a prompt.

How cool is that?!  After you record the sample you can transcribe it and note intelligibility on the screen provided.  It also has a space for you to calculate specific intelligibility percentage when transcribing.

The screen above is part of the test summary page.  It gives you words tested, errors marked, speech sample information, reported findings, and a recommendation.  This test is not normed, so you will not get standard scores or percentile ranks.

You can watch the full tutorials for the screener here, the full test here, and additional updates here.

Things I dig about this app:

• Administering this test is very easy and straightforward.
• The screener only screens the necessary phonemes relevant for that child's age.
• You can pick and choose the areas you wish to target for the full test or select all of them.
• There are options to notate the type of error the child produced, including phonological processes.
• The phonological process sections have a little definition screen that pops up when you tap one, so that you can make sure you are choosing the correct one.
• You can even record their productions and go back and edit the results later, if you need to quickly make your way through the test.
• The speech sample option is amazing.  I might buy this app just for that!  Being able to elicit a sample, record it, transcribe it, and track indelibility all in one app is a win in my book!
• The report section gives you tons of data!  It'd be great to print and add to any report or to track progress for an IEP.

Things that could make it better:

• The test is not normed.  In many districts you need a normed referenced test to qualify a child for speech.  While this app is great for data, I wouldn't be able to use it by itself on an initial report.
• While most of the screening tests for the different ages are shorter, the 6 and older screener is almost as long as the full test.  I'd probably just go ahead and give him the full one.
• I'd love to be able to code an error as being an interdentalization, lateral airflow, or glottal stop.  You could just note it in the "notes" section, but there is no option for those on the drop down menu that I could see.
• The app is a little pricey at $49.99, even though you do get a lot of bang for your buck.

You can grab this app from Little Bee Speech at iTunes HERE!

And guess what?!  August 12-14 both Articulation Test Center and Articulation Station will be 30% off!  Woohoo!