In the month of September 2024, the Be Podcast Network partnered with Reading Is Fundamental for a campaign designed to spread awareness of effective literacy practices. As part of this effort I hosted a series of guests on De Facto Leaders to speak on topics relating to language, literacy, and advocacy. Reading Is Fundamental is…
Category: Written Language Strategies
One of the biggest challenges for SLPs working with school age children is figuring out what to do to boost our students’ writing skills. In this section, I show you how to do that.
What’s working now: For building spelling skills
Building spelling skills can have a huge impact on overall language processing and vocabulary growth, which falls perfectly in line with your expertise. Vocabulary is one of the biggest predictors of success or failure in school because of it’s impact on overall comprehension and language processing (Nagy & Scott, 2000; Nippold, 2017). But most people…
Are SLPs qualified to treat dyslexia?
Speech-language pathologists play an important role in language and literacy intervention for individuals with language processing disorders and dyslexia. But if you’re an SLP, you may be struggling to get a clear answer as far as where exactly you fit in to the process. That’s why I wanted to record this quick video for you…
Syntax: What’s age appropriate and what skills are high priority?
One of the biggest challenges for speech pathologists treating kids with language disorders is knowing how “normal” language development looks over the school-age years. We have a lot of language developmental milestones charts out there, but most of them end around age 6. After that, you’ll be hard pressed to find a neat little chart…
Sentence structure: The counter intuitive solution to better language processing
If you struggle to find an effective way to boost language processing, you’re going to want to check out the video below I used to feel like I was jumping around from skill to skill in therapy. Wh questions… Following directions… Verb tenses… Grammar worksheets… Stating the main idea… The list went on and on….
Should SLPs be working on parts of speech in language therapy?
There’s a lot of debate as to whether or not SLPs should even be addressing parts of speech in language therapy. Some say we shouldn’t do it because it’s not functional. Some say it’s the teacher’s job and we don’t have time for it. Other say it’s super important because no one’s taking the time…
Language Therapy and Spelling: Here’s why they go together
Should SLPs be working on spelling? Short answer: YES! But not in the way you’d think. If you’ve ever thought spelling was the teachers’ job… Outside of our scope… Unimportant to language and it’s overall meaning… Too time-consuming to incorporate in to language therapy… Then you’re going to realize as you watch this video that…
How to target syntax in speech therapy.
Many of us know we should address syntax in speech therapy sessions for kids with language disorders; but many of us aren’t really sure where to start. I’ve made the mistake of skimming over syntax and going right to comprehension strategies; like with my student John I talked about in this article. John wasn’t making…
How do you address written language during speech therapy?
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone through my students’ writing samples and wanted to pull my hair out. Sometimes it’s such a disaster I don’t even know where to start. The grammar is a mess. Spelling errors are everywhere. And their writing is filled with words like “stuff”, “things”, or my personal…