A Peek at My Speech Room!

I love decorating and making things pretty.  Everyone who knows me knows that I'm pretty much a professional shower-giver.  If you are getting married or having a baby, I'm your girl to give you a cutesie party.  :)

I try to put this to good use in my speech room too.  Every couple of years I like to change up my classroom theme.  This year I went with a chalkboard theme with aqua accents!  And I even made most of my decorations myself.

I have a super long bulletin board in the back of my room.  It's important to me to make my space functional, so I've got a calendar on one side and my speech rules on the other.  The pockets are where my students keep their speech dollars for following the rules.

I made the calendar out of a thick poster board and velcro.  I just switch out the month and rearrange the numbers when it's time to change it up.  All of the numbers and months I designed and printed then laminated with thick laminating paper.

School/therapy organization with sterilite drawers (^) and a "cup"cake tower!

These dots are those dry erase wall stickers.  I popped them on my kidney table.  Now everyone has their own "space" plus a place to do work with dry erase markers.

Here's my behavior clip chart!  All chalkboard themed and ready.  I number the circles on my table, so the kids know that their clip number correspond with where they sit.  

Book nook for my reading center!

These little chalkboard easels from Hobby Lobby gave the room such a fun finishing touch!

I hope some of these pics inspire you a little to cutesie up your speech room!  It's been so fun seeing some of your rooms on Facebook, so I just wanted to share mine as well.  :)

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!