I've been there.
You have 30 minutes with a group of students with completely varying needs, skill sets, and backgrounds. How are you supposed to address every student’s unique needs? (Oh, and don’t forget to collect that data!)
Our therapy groups are fast-paced, and they’re critical.
You already know your students are struggling with speech and language, and that often means they’re struggling with literacy skills as well.
Almost half of preschool children with language impairments develop significant literacy learning difficulties (Aram & Nation, 1980) even if their delays appear to be resolved by age 5 (Scarborough, 1980;2002).
No pressure. 😅
We all want to see each student’s data trending upward, but how do we make the biggest difference with our limited time? (All while keeping our sanity!)
Just this week you've probably been:
➔ Drowning in paperwork and goal-tracking
➔ Prepping for multiple therapy groups
➔ Making copies, laminating visual supports, and trying to pull together resources.
➔ Searching on Pinterest for the most engaging resources (something has to work, right?)
I know it’s hard. But there’s a reason you were called to this career.
You’re committed to trying the most effective ways to support students.
And one of the best ways to make the biggest gains in the smallest amount of time (while staying organized with your rock-star routine) is through literacy-based therapy.
Spend less time sourcing materials, figuring out data collection methods, and coming up with new ideas for your therapy groups.
Spend more time in your zone-of-genius by putting a solid literacy-based therapy routine into place.
It's actually a lot easier than you think - here’s how a literacy-based therapy routine saved my 30-minute sessions:
Repeatable Routine
It gave me a repeatable routine for essential skill practice along with individual goal practice
Quick & Effective
You can hit on vocabulary practice, specific skill practice, and strengthening foundational literacy skills… fast.
Students Love it!
Repeat readings and small group skill-building mean excited and confident kiddos who can bring these learnings back to the classroom after each session.
Easy Data Collection
It made data-collection simple. When you build a routine around literacy-based therapy, you also build a routine for collecting data. (win/win!)
Maybe you’ve already tried literacy-based therapy and have seen the incredible benefits of an organized, simplified, enhanced, engaging therapy session… but you still have questions, like:
You might be wondering about this:
➔ How do I choose the right text that is engaging, targets the right skills, and is also age and developmentally appropriate for my mixed group?
(It feels like I’m taking a shot in the dark when I pick a book from a random list on Pinterest!)
➔ What does this actually look like in practice?
➔ How do I structure my group to hit on the essential literacy and language skills?
Or you're wondering about this:
➔ Do we just read the book together? What does literacy-based therapy actually mean?
➔ How do I collect the data I need?
➔ What routine can I use to get the timing right for my short sessions?
➔ Is all the buzz about literacy-based therapy TRUE?
There’s a reason you’ve heard so much buzz about literacy-based therapy. (It actually works!)
Did you know if a child is read to for just 20 minutes a day, by the time they are in 6th grade they will have been exposed to 1,800,000 words a year?
A student who is read to just one minute a day is exposed to 8,000 words a year.
Which student do you think will have a more developed vocabulary? Better critical thinking skills?
We have the opportunity to give our students that boost of exposure they may be missing.
My strategy isn't complicated.
It's practical and easy to implement for a busy SLP.
You won't question how to do this.
I'll give you all the answers about how to set it up, which books to choose, or which data to collect.
You can get straight to supporting students.
Don't steal precious minutes from your lunch period for more prep. Let me do the prep for you!
You’ll feel PROUD sending your student off from your small group with:
- Skills they can carry with them to the classroom
- Vocabulary exposure and repeated practice
- Skill-based concepts (characters, setting, character emotion, etc.)
- Interactive reading experiences
- Choose specific books
- Intentional reading and skill practice
- Teach the language and content while you read
- Monitor student comprehension throughout
- Scaffold and break down text
- Practice individual goals (labeling, wh questions, following directions, comprehension)
Here's what SLPs are saying...
"I really like how the content was organized and began with a refresher on literacy components. I also appreciated how the course was structured to give the overview of each segment of the therapy along with a model of how you do it with your groups at the end. I always feel like that practical application is missing from other trainings I have been too. I am looking forward to implementing this in more of my groups with students who have language disorders."
"The handouts were amazing! My favorite part was the mock therapies. It tied the information presented to real life and answered many potential questions. Thank you so much!"
Here’s what literacy-based therapy looks like (And no, you’re not just reading the book together! One interactive reading session can hit on many foundational skills that cross speech room goals with classroom goals in one swoop):
-
Step One: Choose a book
- Don’t worry! I’ll help with this. We’ll choose texts that are:
- Age appropriate
- Developmentally appropriate
- Hit the specific goals & objectives you need to hit (and collect data on)
- Do-able for your short sessions
-
Step Two: Take your time with intentional reading and skill practice
- I’ll give you the step-by-step routine, so you can teach language and content while you read, monitor student comprehension throughout, scaffold the text, and practice individual goals (like labeling, wh questions, following directions, comprehension… just to name a few!)
- Step Three: Repeat!
- We are going to break that text way down and do repeat readings with different interactive experiences for each segment. One book can be your theme across several group sessions! (How simple and refreshing is that?!)
The Level-Up with Literacy Based Therapy will be here to guide you through.
I designed this program to help you get started with literacy-based therapy right away, without having to wade through hours of research, searching for resources, and figuring out a practical way to apply these strategies to create a repeatable routine for your literacy-based sessions.
With this program you'll get:
- 5 self-paced video modules that cover The Level Up Framework:
- The background you need on literacy-based therapy
- Foundational skills for planning literacy-based sessions
- The session-by-session framework to set up therapy sessions
- Additional session supports like data, engagement, adaption etc.
- Ideas and examples for targeting specific skills & goals
- Tools and resources to support student success
- Mock therapy sessions
- Lifetime access to the program and materials included
- A Facebook community with other SLPs
- 3.5 CMH certificate
Hey there!
I'm Maureen Wilson!
I'm a school-based SLP for over a decade and someone who has questioned her skills, doubted her knowledge, and felt the confusion and overwhelm of trying to find a way to make speech therapy work for all my kids. Years of experience have given me the opportunity to work with students with many different strengths and needs and see just how powerful of tool literature can be.
The data nerd in me would light up when I saw a student's trend line ticking up. I would see students make the linguistic connections from skill to text. Even better, was seeing kids who previously would shy away from anything to do with a book get a confident smile on their face when it was their turn to participate. Those were the moments I felt like a good SLP who knew what they were doing and that I wanted to be able to have SLPs feel that way too.
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