TEACHERS:
VOOKS is an animated storybook site and they currently have some cool promotions. They are offering teachers one year free. You can use three personal devices and up to 30 classroom devices used for in-school purposes. There is no purchase necessary and no credit card required- it is actually really FREE! They said to give them up to three days to process your application.




PARENTS:
Also, we can let our parents know that they are offering parents three months free. You get 90 days free for home use and after that it costs 4.99/month.



I signed up for my free year and I am excited to get the access information in my email in the next few days. Vooks' goal is to provide better screen time with read-along highlighted text to promote reading and reading comprehension. I will be adding this to my "Language Through Literacy" interactive sites list. 




Ms. Coyle MS CCC/SLP


      I have re-discovered an old favorite that I used to use a lot in therapy and forgot about. I first found this tool in 2011. I used it for a variety of purposes. It is designed to facilitate writing and it certainly can be used for that, but I found a lot of different ways to use this tool.

Scholastic Story Starters, http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/story-starters/index.html, will generate a writing prompt with 4 themes and various grade levels that you get to choose.

Some ideas for using this online tool in speech and language therapy:

  1. Generate a prompt, brainstorm, and write together as a group with your students orally saying the sentences. 
  2. Have speech students write a sound loaded story with their target sound. 
  3. Write a single sentence that includes who + did what + where + when + why. Then write 5 WH questions about the sentence. 
  4. Have students write a past tense story/paragraph and include past tense verb forms. 

Here is an example of number 3 above: Using this to generate WH questions/answers. 


I chose scrambler theme with K/1 grade level. I spun the lever and got: Write a question about a yellow fox who rides zebras. You can keep spinning the larger lever or push the small buttons to just change parts of the prompt until you get something you like and want to write about. I chose to change the second part "a yellow" because that seemed like a strange color for a fox. 

I got this: 

When you are happy with the prompt, hit next and choose a format for your story: notebook, letter, newspaper, or postcard. I chose notebook and I wrote a sentence and 5 questions. Then you can either draw a picture for your story or leave it blank. After you are finished you can print it out and let the students draw their own pictures after they write the answers to the questions. 

I also like to pull up "how to draw" step by step instructions and let the students read the steps to me as I do a quick draw or for them to draw if I print it out. Then I can ask all kinds of great sequencing questions like what did I draw first. What do/did I draw after the.... etc. It really depends on your goals! Here is what I came up with for this prompt: The old fox rides zebras to the store everyday because he is too old to walk. 



You can then print it out and/or download it as a PDF to save it. This particular activity could help with these language goals: 
  • Writing more detailed sentences
  • Formulating/asking questions
  • Answering WH questions

You can use this tool prior to therapy time and print it out or use it during therapy and have the students help you write. 

I hope you find some creative ways to write sentences, paragraphs, and stories using this fun interactive story starter tool!

Ms. Coyle MS CCC/SLP

I have found a new website that I am really excited about! Wordwall.net

You can search for other user created content that they have made public and you get to make 5 free activities of your own. After that you have to pay for the program on this website. It is 6 or 9 dollars a month and you can create unlimited resources with both plans. Basically it allows you to create really fun interactive games with just a few words, click create, and ta da! It took me literally a minute to create my first activity, subordinating conjunction category sort.


I made my first (of my 5 free) activities here:

 



You can see more about the categories or relationships for Subordinating conjunctions in these quizlet card sets that I made:
https://quizlet.com/164997347/subordinating-conjunction-categories-flash-cards/
https://quizlet.com/433587105/subordinating-conjunction-category-chart-diagram/
https://quizlet.com/439359250/time-subordinating-conjunctions-4th-6th-grade-flash-cards/
https://quizlet.com/439781563/cause-and-effect-subordinating-conjunctions-flash-cards/
https://quizlet.com/439832994/contrast-subordinating-conjunctions-flash-cards/
https://quizlet.com/439852710/condition-subordinating-conjunctions-flash-cards/

I really love the group sort and the unjumble game. I can see using group sort to sort categories, phonics sounds, and any number of speech or language targets! Doing sorts is a research based learning strategy and this webpage makes it so easy! Unjumble is where you put mixed up sentences in order- wonderful for syntax goals in language therapy.


I made another word sort. This time sort types of answers to WH questions. As you play and sort tell whether the answer is a person, thing or thing you do, place, time, or reason answer. (hit the 4 arrows on the bottom right to go full screen so you can read all the cards.





Look at all these interactive games you can make:

I am definitely going to be exploring this website more and seriously considering upgrading for 6 dollars a month too. 

Are any of you using wordwall for speech and language therapy?

Michelle Coyle MS CCC/SLP