Expanding your Language

I have recently purchased a program entitled Expanding Expressive Language Skills.  This program helps students increase there expressive language skills as well as writing skills.  You start by introducing a rope with 7 beads on it, each bead stands for a question for example, the green bead asks what group does it belong to the blue bead asks what does it do or what can you do with it, the third bead is white with an image of a human eye on it it asks what does it look like, the fourth bead is wooden, it asks what is it made of, the pink bead asks what are the parts, a plain white bead asks were do you find it, the final orange bead has a question mark on it and asks what else do you know.  These beads with there questions help students learn to identify categories, describe objects, and  ask questions.  As students progress the method assists them in writing paragraphs, stories, and organizing reports.  I have found that my students have liked this approach and find it very useful in organizing there thoughts.

Training for SLT'S

This year the Tooele School District Special Ed department has adopted a new program for all required paperwork.  The program is entitled IEP Pro.  It has been an interesting processing learning this new program.  As a supervisor of 4 speech techs, I decided to have an in service to help figure out the IEP Pro.  One Wednesday afternoon we all got together with each of us bringing a file of a student.  Each person went page by page through the program putting data of the student on the forms.  We asked each other questions and tried to answer them.  It seemed like there was someone in the group who new the answers to the different questions  we were very successful with this process and we are all up and running.
Have a great day
Pat Parkinson