Two "Moore" Ways to Help Oklahoma SLP's

You may have already seen this floating around, but I can't not share what's going on in the SLP blogging community!

A whole bunch of us have come together to help SLPs in Moore,OK, and beyond rebuild their speech materials and resources. 2 bundles of downloads have been created from some of your favorite bloggers (myself included) and are available for only $15 a piece! (They each are valued at $140!!) 100% of the proceeds are going directly to SLPs just like you and I who have lost classrooms full and years worth of gathering materials to the horrible devastation.

The good news is that you can be a part of it all! Click on the picture above, or here, to be taken straight to "SLPs Care for OK"'s TPT page where you can download the packets. If you'd like more information, click here to check out their Facebook page.

If you want a complete run-down of which bloggers contributed to the which packets, check out Amy Minor's post here. (Amy writes for Major Speech Pathology Fun with a Side of Gluten Free and is an SLP in OK.)

So far we have raised $5,000 that will go directly to SLPs. I continue to be so proud to belong to such a wonderful community of professionals...and people!

"I Dare You Articulation" App review & GIVEAWAY!

I feel like it's been 900 years since I've done an app giveaway, but I'm so excited to get the ball rolling from yet another fantastic app from Erik X. Raj. Erik has a fresh and unique way of approaching treatment for kiddos with all kinds of needs that will inspire any clinician. Check him out here.

"I Dare You Articulation" is quite similar to Erix's app I reviewed in December, Multiple Choice Articulation,(MCA) which was a huge hit with my 4th grade on up population. I was anxious that the similar set up this app has wouldn't bring the "Wow" factor MCA  had on my kiddos, but I was absolutely wrong. While the articulation targets are the same, the premise is entirely different.

When you being, select your target sound from the later developing sounds group (in the first picture). Select your placement (seen here), or return home.  Once you select a position (one at a time), you  are taken to a list of screen-wide "dares" that contain the target sound you selected. As is true Erik nature, these are not your typical girl's slumber party " I dare you to tell Billy you like him!" kinds of things. 

 I love these questions-they get kids out of their seats. I see my students for 20 minutes (mostly) and while it doesn't seem long, it's a long time to sit! Here are some ways I've used this app in therapy:
-Have each child read the question to themselves. They act out the prompt, and others have 30 seconds to guess what it is. When they are done, the actor reads what their action was supposed to be, using correct articulation.
-A child reads a prompt to the player on their left (or right, whatever) using the reader's target sound.
-If you're using this in 1 on 1 therapy, read the prompt to the child (or they read it, depending on their level), and when they are finished, have them state what they did, using correct sounds.

I'd love to see a data collection feature & more target sounds added in the future. A video recording feature embedded in the app so your shining star actors can watch themselves perform would be great, as well.

Erik's hilarious prompts will have your students moving & laughing, and most importantly using great speech!
You can download I Dare You Articulation (iPad/iPhone) for $4.99 in the app store.

OR

you can enter to win a copy below! I have 2 codes to giveaway-don't miss out! Giveaway ends Tuesday 5/28/13.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Let's Talk Speech Therapy was provided a copy of the app to use for this review from the developer. 

App Review-Articulation PRO from Speech with Milo

From the very day I got my iPad for therapy,  I knew that Milo the Blue Mouse was going to take up permanent residence. You can imagine my excitement then when I was given the chance to review Articulation PRO from Speech with Milo- a game and artic app, all rolled into one!

Milo and his friends join your speech kiddos for a speech session (or, if they're like mine, a few sessions) and sneakily work target sounds into an interactive touch board game.

Setup is simple- each student on your caseload can be added into the app and saved-target sounds and all. When creating a student, simply tap "setup a student" on the home screen (above) , insert their name or initials, and select any target sound and position they're working on. Students can be edited as they make progress. 

When it's time to play, tap "play!" on the home screen and select up to 5 players at a time-perfect for groups!

After that, players choose their "piece" that they drag around the board.

The current player's piece shows up in the left hand corner, which saves a lot of "Is it my turn yet??". Your player taps the spinner in the middle, and a yellow dot appears on the board (not shown). The player places their finger on their character icon and moves them to the yellow dot. Once there, a target word appears. The word appears with data collection options, a picture stimulus, and the written word. 

Students (or the SLP) can keep data by selecting if each production of the word was correct (green check), needed assistance (squiggles) or wrong (black x) When they have met their production limit, I always have my kiddos at word level say the word a handful of times, they simply close the box.( Black x in the top right corner). 

Pleanty of foil spaces, both good and bad, are on the board to make game play actual game play, and not simple moving from start to finish!

Detailed data is collected and stored in the app for later review for each student. 

At $23.99 in the App Store, Articulation PRO is a little more than I would typically spend on an app. However, the game AND articulation app combination makes the price seem a little more reasonable when compared to some other stand-alone articulation apps. 

 What I loved: A game AND artic app all in one, enough board game interaction to engage my kiddos, detailed data collection, great for groups.

What I'd love to see in an update: Larger text on game board squares, more auditory directions for my non-readers, expansion of target words.

All in all, a huge hit with my kiddos that spiced up iPad time, but still made good use of their (and my!) precious speech time.

If you'd like to download a copy of Speech with Milo Articulation PRO-click here

Let's Talk Speech Therapy was provided a copy of the app from the developer to complete the review. 

Bug Out! A rhyming word activity

So many of you downloaded Bug Out! a Multiple Meaning Word Activity that came with the Spring into Speech Bloghop  that the bugs are back, and now they're rhyming!

This packet contains 58 rhyming word cards (29 pairs) and 6 open-ened "BUG OUT!" foil cards, to which you decide their effect! Positive or negative, it's up to you.

Game play is simple

-Cards can be stacked and drawn 1 at a time. When your student draws 1 at a time, they have to spontaneously produce a rhyme. If they produce a correct rhyme, they keep the card. If they are wrong, the card goes back in the stack.

-Cards are laid our in a memory-type game format, and 2 cards are flipped over at once. If the cards that are flipped match, the pair is kept. Replace the taken cards with 2 new. The player with the most correct rhyming pairs wins!

This quick, 10-page document can be picked up in my TPT store here! I'm also giving away a set-leave a blog post comment and I will pick 1 comment at random tomorrow (4/17/13) evening. Good luck-enjoy!

Spring into Speech Blog Hop

Happy Hopping!
If you've made it this far, you know the drill by now. If not, you're not to late to get started! This post is part of the "Spring into Speech Blog Hop"!

The process is pretty simple! You "hop" around the blogs that are participating by using the flowers below ("Next blog" "First blog" "Last blog") and collect 2 things- first, the secret letters( there are 2) hidden on a flower on my page. Can you find them? Also, grab my freebie below! Once you have visited all the blogs, grabbed all the freebies, and all the letters, put them in order to create a phrase.

Once you think you have the phrase, you'll enter it at your very last stop. Got it? Good!

Now how about that freebie?

I whipped up an activity of pesky little multiple-meaning word bugs to come crawl into your speech room, but rest assured, you'll want these bugs to stay!

This packet contains 48 multiple-meaning bug word cards, and 16 "Bug Out" foil cards-and it's entirely up to you what those foils do! Be sure to catch these little creepy-crawlies by downloading them from my TPT store here.

If you're a returning friend, it's good to see you again. If you're new here, be sure to stay up to date on all that's happening here via Twitter, Facebook, TPT, and of course, following the blog on the right-hand column.

Remember, be sure you've visited every blog to get all the letters you'll need for the secret message!

                                         

Blogs that are a part of this great Bloghop are:

I'm throwing a sale!

This little speech intern is on SPRING BREAK and couldn't be more excited! To celebrate, I'm throwing a TPT sale!

From NOW until Sunday at midnight 5 items from my TPT store are only $1.50!

-Spring/Easter Reinforcer

-Makin' More S'mores Reinforcer

-Penguin Prepositions

-Sporting Great Langaue-Expressive Language Pack

-Breaking it down-phonemic awareness packet

If you're just starting spring break, grab some items now and let your planning be DONE for when you return! If you're just coming back next week, grab some items (for that planning-less week you just had!)

Click here to start saving!

Speech Flipbooks app review & GIVEAWAY!

I was SO excited when Tactus Therapy asked me to review their latest app-Speech Flipbooks! This came just in time for my school internship, and let me tell you, I use this one almost every day!

This app has so many customization features and SO many uses....hang on tight!

Set-up:

The above picture is the home screen. Feature # 1 that I love is that this app is very similar to flip books I made in university clinic for my articulation students. You can do almost everything you could with those inside this app-and a little more. The colored tabs help you chose/eliminate sounds you want included in your  flipbook. This feature is great for groups! I specifically love using it with my group of 1st graders who are at syllable level with different sounds...but more on that later.  The "flip by" sliding bar lets you flip by alphabet letters, or IPA transcriptions.

 These are your choices for initial consonants. If you want all of them included, don't do a thing. They come that way! If you only want a specific set, tap the tab again and select the ones you want. Here, I have selected all except for /s/ and /r/.  The set up is the same for all positions. Once you have all positions the way you want them, head back to the green tab (see first picture) and off you go!

 Use:
This is the inside of the flip book. Each sound is recorded and is played when touched. The text below says the entire word when touched. If you would like the word hidden, touch the book icon near the word and the text will disappear. (This can be permanently shut off in Settings.) The red button on the bottom left is a recording feature, which I have come to love in apps, especially when it comes to artic. When the word has been produced, swipe up or down in any of the positions (Initial, medial, or final) to go to the next sound. If tiny fingers sneak in and flip before it's time, simply swipe down to return to where you were.

Blank pages can be added in any position, which is great for my syllable level students I mentioned earlier. Here is what their screen looks like:

I never move the initial /r/ selection, but let them flip through the vowels as we go. Say goodbye to syllable webs!

Settings:

As if getting to completely customize your sound selection wasn't enough, this page (found under the gear icon on the first page) lets you customize everything else. Choose the case the letters are presented in, add in blank pages where you need them (like I do for my syllable level students), include or exclude nonsense words, or show or hide the word on the bottom of the page. "Links" turns off all links to the app store or internet that appear on the home page. I always have this setting to "off", or turn off the links, for safety sake. Flip effects can even be changed for students who may have sound or visual aversions. Finally you can edit the entire word list to include only words that you want to appear.

Sold yet?  Let's recap:
-Uses: Articulation at all levels, emerging readers, appraxia (hello vowel-only books!), phonological awareness (blending and segmentation),dyarthria, literacy.
-highly able to be customized
-PDF and Youtube walk-throughs available from the homescreen under the "i" icon that are extremely helpful
-Simple and effective enough for parents to download and practice on at home
-Affordable for families and therapists

Some features I'd like to see added:
-Increase the ease of use, or add on-screen prompts to walk through set-up. I had to spend a good amount of time with the videos to get the full gist of the app. Once I did, however, I was off and running!
-Individual student feature-the ability to not only keep data, but create and save books under profiles for easy "pick up where we left off"

Whew! If you made it all the way here, you deserve to know that you can pick up a copy of the app in the iTunes store...OR....enter below to win a copy! Giveaway ends April 1st. (no kidding.) Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway