I put up a previously planned blog post earlier today, but this morning is a double as I found the Carryover Linky from
Crazy Speech World and got very excited.
Carry over is HUGE. If my students don't use their speech sounds outside the room, we are really not making good use of their time at school.
I start talking about carry over at the initial IEP meeting. I show parents blank copies of speech homework and talk about what it is and what it is for. I did a previous post for my homework sheets in
words,
sentences and a
homework sheet tied to Rory's Story Cubes (links are to Google Docs). For first grade students I usually do modified homework sheets where they only have to practice 2 times, or say their words 5 times. It depends on the student.
My general spiel for parents about home work is:
"Homework is about giving your child more chances to practice the correct way to say (their sound). When I send homework it is for something your child can do 90 to 100 percent of the time at home. The homework gives your child a chance to practice their speech sounds in somewhere other than in the speech room. It makes your child think that you are listening to their speech sounds. If you notice on the sheet, the homework takes about 5 minutes and you should do it 3 times. Speech homework is about doing a quick practice and then you can move on to the other things your family needs to do."
As students move through therapy I make the homework more complex. I'll even photocopy some pages out of some of my non-fiction books to highlight all the S, R or TH (or whichever) sounds that is on the page. I'll draw a line on the page and write signed by it. I try to make homework relevant to the student's level in therapy.
If you clicked the links, you notice that my homework sheets are blank, and each word needs to be written in. This allows for my students to pick different words every week for their homework. When we first start picking words, I encourage my students to pick words that are meaningful and they need to be able to say. I've had names of brothers and sisters, friends, pets, favorite toys - talk about words we need to say!
Once I get to a point where I'm expecting students to be using their sounds in the classroom, I put a reminder on their desk. I usually put superman symbols on the desks of my S students and bought some really cute robot clip art for my R students. The first use of the reminders is a visual for students to see and remember their sounds. I cannot be in classrooms as much as I want to - I'm in a huge building with 6-8 classrooms in every grade level, and students in all but 2 classrooms in 1st-5th grade. My second use of the reminders is related to this. I have the classroom teachers, silently, touch the desk symbol when they notice error sounds. This teaches my students that their sounds are also important to their teachers and not just to me.
Make sure you check out
Crazy Speech World for the rest of the blog posts about carry over. I'm really excited to read them and see what works for other people!
