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Intro
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Episode
Kate Grandbois: Hello, everyone. Welcome to SLP Nerdcast. We are here with a fellow speech nerd, Ali Sherman. Welcome, Hallie. We're so excited to talk to you today about Tier 2 vocabulary. Thank you so much for
Amy Wonkka: having me. Now, Hallie, before we get started, can you please tell us just a little bit about yourself?
Hallie Sherman: Sure. So, my name is Hallie Sherman, and I'm a licensed speech language pathologist from New York.
If you cannot tell by my thick Long Island accent, I will probably be hitting myself in my head with my hands because I talk with my hands. But, I worked in the schools for 16, 17 years, working primarily with 5th, And upper grades and early on in my career, I realized I had no idea what I was doing. Um, I'm five foot tall.
These students were taller than me. I received goals that I did [00:03:00] not understand and had to figure it out all on my own. And first school placement jobs that I had, it was almost like you were pledging a sorority. Like you can't ask questions like that's just like not, you're not, You can't appear like you don't know what you're doing.
So I had to figure it out all on my own and there was nothing out there. There was no resources for older students. And I made a lot of mistakes. Um, I just pulled any ELA worksheet to work on some of these comprehension goals. And I realized early on in my career that I'm going to either get burnt out, or I'm going to need to get out of working with this age group if I'm going to survive.
Um, and then I had a kind of aha moment, and realized, wow, if I teach these kids, um, a little bit differently, Then I get different results and we're actually having fun here and we're actually making progress and they're actually excited to come to speech and that was when 12 years ago, I started my [00:04:00] blog speech time fun because I wanted to be able to.
ShareIt was working with my speech students, with others, because it's what I needed. I wish I had someone to go to. I once had a student who finally got the R sound, and I ran into the hallway to share it with someone, and I had no one to share it with. And I ran back into my room. So, I wanted to be able to create a space for SLPs working with older students to not feel alone.
And people, sure enough, found my blog and read it and was sharing it on Pinterest and things like that. And that's when I realized I needed to create the resources that I needed. So, more than just sharing what was working, strategies, what I was finding. I wasn't finding enough, so I started creating my own resources, putting them on Teachers Pay Teachers, and it was really resources for students that were older, but reading at lower reading levels.
And it was embedding the different aspects of how to teach it differently so they can grasp it. They're already getting access to main idea in the [00:05:00] classroom. They're already taught how to summarize. It's not sticking. And here I am, the SLP, pulling them out of art and music and all the fun things, working on it again, that's not fun.
But I can teach it in a different spin, incorporating their interests, using their reading levels. And that's when I started creating my own resources, and that's when I wanted to be able to do more than just that. Give someone a PDF that they can use. I wanted to be able to share how I was doing it. And so I started doing professional development.
That's when I started my podcast, SLP Coffee Talk, so that I can just help inspire other SLPs as much as possible, working with older speech students and getting the access to the materials and support and training that they warrant and deserve. And that's when I started in 2021, I believe, um, my membership SLP Elevate, because I wanted, again, just to.
Combine the resources and support for SLPs working with older speech students because I call us the weird, crazy stepchild [00:06:00] sometimes. We're not the ones working with the little itty bitties. We're not the ones working with the geriatrics. We're the ones in that crazy middle that no one understands and I want SLPs to not feel alone.
So that's a little bit about me.
Kate Grandbois: Well, thank you for sharing. Uh, I know that one of the things that we're going to be talking about today is resources for SLPs. And that's one of the things that we're very passionate about is open access information, clinicians being able to get what they need when they need it, because we already have enough barriers working against us in our workplace settings.
Um, before we jump into everything, I do need to read our learning objectives and financial and non financial disclosures. I will get through that as quickly as possible. Todd. Here we go.
Learning objective number one, describe the benefits of working on vocabulary with your older speech students.
Learning objective number two, list at least two resources available to SLPs for quick vocabulary activities. And learning objective number three, describe how to make vocabulary activities meaningful and fun for your older speech students. [00:07:00] Disclosures. Hallie's Financial Disclosures. Haley is the owner of Speech Time Fund Incorporated and the SLP Elevate membership where she provides materials and support for SLPs working with grades 4 through 12.
Haley also received an honorarium for participating in this course. Hallie's non financial disclosures. Hallie has no non financial relationships to disclose. Kate, that's me. I am the owner and founder of Grand Bois Therapy and Consulting LLC and co founder of SLP Nerdcast. My non financial disclosures.
I'm a member of ASHA SIG 12 and I serve on the AAC Advisory Group for Massachusetts Advocates for Children. I'm also a member of the Berkshire Association for Behavior Analysis and Therapy.
Amy Wonkka: Amy's financial disclosures. Uh, I am an employee of a public school system and co founder of SLP Nerdcast and my non financial disclosures are that I'm a member of ASHA Special Interest Group 12 and I also participate in the AAC Advisory Group for Massachusetts Advocates for Children.
Kate Grandbois: So one of the things we talked about before we hit the record button is kind of the general [00:08:00] backdrop of this conversation is tier two vocabulary. And while Amy and I were prepping for this episode, I very honestly said that I didn't know what that was. And I, I feel like I, I shouldn't be ashamed or I should be ashamed to say it, but the fact is I've never worked in a school for some reason that piece of graduate school from 20 years ago is just no longer in my brain.
So maybe you could start off by telling us a little bit about what tier two vocabulary is and why we should care about it.
Hallie Sherman: Sure, so there are three tiers of vocabulary. Don't worry, I didn't learn about it in graduate school either. I learned it from a book, Bringing Words to Life, the Robust Vocabulary Instruction by Isabel Beck, Margaret McGowan, and Linda Kukan.
It's a really great resource if you want to dive deeper in what is Tier 2 vocabulary and the different tiers. So basically Tier 1 is that common vocabulary words that students are developing naturally. Dog, house, cat, sky, Rainbow, all those fun things that might not need to be explicitly [00:09:00] taught. Now granted, we do know some of our students that do need that.
But let's think about students in general. Those students, those words are typically just developed. I'm going to skip to Tier 3. Tier 3 is those curriculum based vocabulary words, words that your students are learning about in science, in social studies. They're studying them for a test, and then we forget them.
Do you remember every single cranial nerve? Because I don't. Disclosure. So, those are Tier 3 vocabulary words. We study them once. We recall them, we need to know them when we need to know them, but then we forget them. So, a lot of times SLP is like, I want to help my students with curriculum, I'm going to focus on mitochondria and the parts of the cell, those three branches of government.
But guess what? We often have times students working in different classrooms at different times. We can't always know what subjects they're working on and that's not really helping them when they get to that next chapter, right? There are strategies and we can discuss that, like there are frameworks that we can teach them on what consists of a good definition.[00:10:00]
But is it really benefiting them is how to define? When are we ever really defining words in our life? Unless you're working for a dictionary, you're not really. You might need to just know how to use it and understand it when you're coming across it. But those tier two vocabulary words are those words found across various curriculum and subject areas.
Those words like increase, predict, convey, um, oh my goodness, I can't even think off the top of my head, um, convince, persuade. All those things that could be found in a social studies textbook or an essay could be found in an ELA something, but it can be found anywhere. And we need to teach our students what to do when they come across those words that they might not be familiar with, that can be helping them in any subject area, versus just an arbitrary subject area.
Thank you. vocabulary list given by a science teacher for unit three.
Amy Wonkka: And I think that's super, that's a super helpful framework for us to think about going into this conversation [00:11:00] because we're, those of us who are working in schools are working with students who may have varying language needs, um, and it can be hard to think about where your starting point is, right? So should, and I think one thing to think about is do you have one of those students where that tier one vocabulary does seem pretty essential?
Um, and knowing that you can drill down into that tier two vocabulary, whether that, um, I think the big piece of a tier two vocabulary is also that it's higher frequency use, right? So maybe that student does need to know mitochondria and they do need to know all of those parts of the cell and maybe you help them a little bit with some of that.
Um, But your bigger bang for the buck is going to be those two or two words that they're going to be able to use across their day and across their school career
Hallie Sherman: and having those academic conversations throughout their school day is going to impact them. They're going to be hearing these from the teachers when they're readings, and they need to know what to do when those words come across that they don't know.
So one question I get asked often is. How do you know what words, even tier two words, to pick from? [00:12:00] Like, I, I named you like ten of them. That was going to be my question. There's
Kate Grandbois: just so many.
Hallie Sherman: And just like anything, we can't just pick arbitrary word lists because we don't know what words our students are going to come across.
Now you can Google, and I'm going to give you a site so you don't even have to Google it, but Vocabulary does have tier two vocabulary word lists by grade. It's a great starting point if you're not familiar with. What's your two vocabularies words are and how they might get more complex as the grade level goes up now I'm going to put a disclaimer just because your student is in third grade Doesn't mean you should only be looking at that third grade word list because that doesn't mean that they have that Grade one grade two words mastered and they might still come across a fifth grade word And they need to know what to do when that word comes up Across their way, so it's a good starting point of I don't know what your 2 words are.
I don't know what's your 2 words. My students [00:13:00] might be exposed to, but another good place. If you're not familiar with this site or whatever, but you can also look at your students curriculum apps. A lot of times the scope and sequences that the teachers are utilizing has those tier two words embedded that they're expected to utilize in their classroom instruction, that they're expected to ask their students questions.
And that can give you a starting point of, I know my students are being exposed to the word compare and contrast because that's part of the scope and sequence of ELA in the third marking period. So, again, it's doing a little detective work. It's not a exact science. That's the downfall. Sometimes of being an SLP is we don't have a curriculum, but almost the fun of it is we get to use anything that can benefit our students.
So using a site like vocabulary, it's a great starting point gives you a whole bunch of words, but. It's a matter of teaching our students how to identify these words and what to do when they come across them and they don't know [00:14:00] what to do with it.
Amy Wonkka: Well, and Hallie, I feel like you bring up such a good point too in terms of talking to the resources in your building.
We talk a lot on this podcast about the importance of collaboration and how it's so much better when you're able to work with other people and sort of meld your expertise. Um, I don't know if you have any tips for Perhaps classroom teachers working with classroom teachers, or if you're in a district that has like a curriculum specialist, um, and sort of how SLPs might be able to utilize those resources within their school building.
Hallie Sherman: It goes also the flip side of many school resources don't know how to utilize us. Because often we are referred to as the speech teacher and they think we're working on the R sound or we're stuttering all day. And they are shocked to find out that we are actually working on language. And I'm like, well, we are the speech language pathologists and sometimes just having your door open sometimes so people can hear what's going on in your speech room, that it's more than just saying sounds can go a long way.
I actually happened to one time, um, [00:15:00] borrow a, the literacy, like specialist office because someone needed to use my office and he was shocked to hear. He was like, wait a minute, you're teaching summarizing? I'm like, yes. Anyway, but we can also advocate for our students that in order to be a successful reader.
They need to have adequate language comprehension skills and vocabulary is one of those aspects. So we can share with teachers, Hey, I am a resource. If your students are struggling with reading and this and that, because I can help provide you with strategies to help improve on their vocabulary. So not only can we provide the teachers with strategies, but we can also show them that we are available and then asking them, Hey, where are my students struggling?
What are some things you're working on in your classroom? How can I help? Support you. And more that we open ourselves up for asking those questions, the more people, you know, not everyone's going to jump and say, Hey, help me, but some, some might. So we're all in it together to help our students. [00:16:00]
Kate Grandbois: I also have to assume that and forgive me if this is a stupid question being so very new to the concept of tier two vocabulary, but.
Because these words are so high frequency, I would also have to assume that one of the benefits of working on them in your sessions is generalization versus some other like tier three vocabulary where you're gonna see the word mitochondria in this context and then presumably that's why your long term memory is not capturing that, capturing that, but I have to assume that it.
Focusing on generalization when tier two vocabulary is in play is a key component.
Hallie Sherman: Yes, we want to make sure that our sessions are relevant. We're pulling students out of class. Yes, it's least restrictive environment, but we want to make sure our students are getting exactly what they need in the time frame that we're giving them.
And by using arbitrary words, mitochondria is not arbitrary, but it's not necessarily helping them every single day of their life. I don't know. I'm not using mitochondria all the time. [00:17:00] So, They're not using it in math, unless maybe that math teacher is like a science person. I don't know, but the chances are not as great.
And we want to always show our students how what we're doing in our speech closets are going to help them in whatever subject they're in. And by using these vocabulary words and saying, Hey, you might've heard your teacher utilize this. And even, and if you have that opportunity of knowing how they are using it, Hey, when so and so said, please compare and contrast these two characters that you're reading in whatever novel you're working in.
Oh, I did hear that. That was hard for me because I didn't really know what she was asking me to do. Oh, let me think about the context of how it was asked. Oh, okay. These two characters have a lot of things that are similar and different. Oh, that's how we're, um, that's what she's asking me to do. So we can help them show them how what we're doing and practicing in our speech room can be beneficial outside of the speech room when it is more obvious of what it's, when they are seeing it more often.
Amy Wonkka: Well, I think you're really getting at sort of that first learning [00:18:00] objective about the benefits of working on vocabulary with our older students, right? I think we want to make sure that everybody has a solid foundation in their vocabulary and then you're building on that foundation. But I think something that you're able to do probably more often with older students compared to very, very young students is have more of those explicit conversations about how the work that you're doing together is going to benefit them outside of the therapy room.
Um, I didn't know if you, if you could share with us just a little bit more about some of those benefits on explicitly working on vocabulary with that age group of students.
Hallie Sherman: Sure. So there is actually tons of evidence that shows that working explicitly on vocabulary can impact their academic success.
There's research that shows that working on top, uh, working, that working on vocabulary knowledge will help with academic attainment. That also, um, there's also evidence that children with lower levels of vocabulary are more likely to, [00:19:00] are less likely to acquire vocabulary successfully. On their own. So they need to be explicitly taught it, and that's why they're coming to us, right?
We have to assume they've been exposed to these words in the classroom, just like those tier one words they've been exposed to. There's evidence that our students with language difficulties need more exposures. They need to be explicitly taught how to figure it out and more often, and get more practice.
And they need those meaningful exposures on how to, on how to learn these vocabulary words. So showing them one, how, how they're utilizing it, where they might have heard it. And how it's going to benefit them and then also having those meaningful exposures to it and just more repetition by using a word once is not going to be enough.
Kate Grandbois: I also have to assume because these students are older, in some cases, they likely have some metacognitive skills, right? They can reflect on themselves, their own experiences, and facilitate some of that generalization and maybe reflect on how it is helping them or making class feel a [00:20:00] little bit easier or more accessible.
Do you find that that's the case? Totally. Our
Hallie Sherman: older students, the K 2 students, they're still learning to read. And yes, they still need vocabulary. In order to decode a word, they need to have that schema of that word. You can't decode a word that you've never seen before. It's like if I was thrown into a different language, it would be much harder for me to decode a word that I've never heard in that language.
If I was like an alien or whatever. But our three, grades three and up, they're not learning to read anymore. They're expected to read to learn. Now, we do know that some of our speech and language students are still working on those decoding skills and phonological awareness skills, so they're still boosting and working on that, but they're also expected to read, to develop for an article and write a document based question essay and, and refer back and especially with like Bloom's taxonomy, they're expected to like, create and illustrate and do all these fancy things.
But if they don't have a general, if they can't, they're not gonna be able to recall, they're [00:21:00] not gonna be able to understand if they don't have the vocabulary. And that's where we come in, is that we can help impact their overall comprehension. If we can help get that foundation and what to do when they come across those words that they don't know.
Amy Wonkka: Okay. I think we're sold. Vocabulary intervention is important for students. I wonder if you can talk to us a little bit just about, like, what does that look like? What does that look like when you are in your speech office? You're having a session with a one on one with a student or in a small group. How are you doing things differently?
And in your example, when you first started in your career, right? How does that, how do your sessions look different? differently now that you have this focus on vocabulary intervention.
Hallie Sherman: So, like I said, I don't like using arbitrary word lists. I like to teach my vocabulary in a contextual manner, and there's tons of evidence that shows that students learn better when words are in a context.
So, how do I do that? I like to start with words that they do know, and I like to make them [00:22:00] nonsense words. So, I like to do tier one words to teach how to use context clues to figure out meanings of unknown words. So, I like to use the word blah. So, I'll say, The boy sharpened his blah. And started working on his homework, writing his homework.
Okay, the students were like, I know it's a pencil, Mr. Sherman, I know it's a pencil. I'm like, okay, I know, but how did you know? Let's look at the sentence. I see writing. I see sharpened. I see homework. The only, I can tell that it's a noun in there. We can talk about parts of speech, how it is used. And it shows them, okay, these are the different clues I can use when a word I don't know.
I can try to predict the parts of speech by understanding the sentence structure. I can guess what the sentence is about even without understanding what that word is. By understanding the gist, the main idea of the sentence, I can get an idea. Maybe I might not know that exact word. Maybe I know a synonym to that word.
Maybe I know an antonym to that word. That's those word [00:23:00] relationships we can pull back in. Now that we know you might have mastered those in, you know, the younger grades. But these later grades, we might not need to utilize that to kind of figure it out. So I start with the words that they do know to show them, one, to build, it builds them that confidence, like, oh, wait, I got this.
This is easy. Two, shows them, how do you know? And then we work up from there. Then I'll do some more, maybe emotions, more, more challenging vocabulary words. And again, how did you know, teaching them to look for examples in the sentence, maybe abbreviations that will give them a clue. Maybe there's some illustrations on the page that will help them.
And I model my thinking about my thinking. One of the hardest things that was, that I realized was so essential when working with older students was teaching them how I did things, things that we do innately. We don't even realize the self talk that we are doing when we come across something challenging.
Or it might not even be that challenging for us, but we're just naturally doing it. [00:24:00] And by that self talk, it's actually language. So we can give them a conversational script. Oh, I don't know what this word is. I think it could mean this. Let me plug that in. Oh, what's going on here. Okay. I see this word. It could be.
I think it's a noun. It's right next to a verb and modeling that and then having giving them that script and then doing it together and tons and tons of practice. Our students need that explicit instruction, tons of modeling and those scripts, make it visual, give them that step by step on how to do it and show them them one, they can be successful and to how this is also going to help them will also when things get challenging, they're not going to give up.
Kate Grandbois: I also love the suggestion of using language in the framework of problem solving and self talk, because that can be utilized across all of life. Right? You know, identifying what you do know, it's, it's making me think of when you were like, um, Looking at the SAT in [00:25:00] your future or whatever standardized test and like, okay, when you have a multiple choice, you know, you had to learn how to problem solve through, um, through a difficult moment and you're right.
We do so much internal self talk for self regulation for problem solving. And I love the idea of modeling that explicitly and slowly. To only because it creates a foundation that can be replicated over and over and over again.
Hallie Sherman: And I also model for my students, like what would happen if you just skipped over that word?
So I'll even take like a song lyric and black out some words. And like, are we going to get the same effect if we don't know every single word in that song? Like, can Taylor Swift be as successful if we like, Just skip over half of her songs. We might not know what she's referring to. You might, you might guess wrong.
And that's what can, our students can, what can happen to our students if they just, a lot of times they'll just skip over [00:26:00] it.
Amy Wonkka: What other types of, you've given some really nice examples of using strategies to attack the A lack of comprehension within a sentence. Are there other things similar to that? Whether it's like activities, you mentioned vocabulary. Are there other resources if you're a speech language pathologist who's thinking about, okay, I would like to do more with tier two vocabulary, sort of where can I get started?
Where can I get some examples of how it might look in my session?
Hallie Sherman: Sure. So one of my favorite tools and it is free is vocab grabber. There is, if you go to this, if you type in vocab grabber by visual thesaurus, it may say to log in. You don't need to log into anything. You can enter in any text. So say you go to Readworks, News ELA, any of these sites where has free articles, Wanderopolis.
You can, a lot of those sites have vocabulary words bolded, but it might not always be the words you might think of. If you [00:27:00] copy and paste any text, or if you want to be wild and crazy and type in the novel that your students are reading, and you click vocabulary, you click go, whatever the word is, there's a whole bunch of different buttons.
If you unclick all and you click the vocabulary one only, those are two, two vocabulary words that they pull out for you. And they also show you by a visual. view, which word was used more often in that text. And then if you click any of those words, it shows you where it was in the text, the sentence it was in, the definition, the parts of speech.
All that fun stuff. So if you're, okay, my student is reading this in class, I want to help them prepare for when they come across words they don't know. We might not have that time to maybe pre read it ourselves, or have that time to self analyze, we're busy. So if you can just. Put it into this site, it will pull out the words for you, and this way you can prepare ahead of time those words that your students might not know.
So you could do some [00:28:00] pre reading strategies with them, like hey, I like to call it, um, Acquaintance Stranger, Stranger Acquaintance Friend. So it's a little like, like a KWL, what do you know, what do you want to know chart, like, what, like a background knowledge assessment. So I'll read, read the words out that might be in that text that they might not be familiar with, or I'm not sure if they are.
Are you, are you a stranger? Have you never heard it before? Are you an acquaintance? I've kind of heard it, but I have no idea what it means. I couldn't buy it a birthday gift. I wouldn't know what to do with that. Or are they your friend? Like, I can use this, I use it all the time. I'm texting my best friend using that word.
That kind of thing. And this way you can go ahead, like, why waste your time with those friend words? And I like to start with those acquaintance words first. Let's build their confidence up. Let's go. Okay. So you've heard this word before. Now we're going to give it to you in a context. Let's look at it.
What parts of speech is it? What does that tell us? Maybe think of another word that can be utilized in the place of that. And then we can teach them what to do with Senate with the unknown [00:29:00] words. And it might need to be a building up their background knowledge, a little bit of it, and maybe explicitly teaching it, but it's giving you ahead of time.
That prep of. Hmm, I don't need to teach every single word, but what word to focus on? And just because that article might have told me four words to focus on, those might not have been the best four words. Or maybe those are too challenging words for our students, and we need to take it a little bit easier for them.
Amy Wonkka: The other thing I love about that example you just gave is also that you're still helping the students to develop those self assessment skills. as well. So hopefully if that's a strategy that you're using often in your session where they're identifying, okay, is this a stranger? Is this an acquaintance?
Is this my friend word? Um, then hopefully they can then start to internalize that. So perhaps when they're in a class and they're facing a word that they're not so sure about, instead of just skipping it and being like, ah, I I'll deal with that later. Maybe they ask themselves and go through that little inventory.
Um, and, and that helps them better attack the situation as well. [00:30:00] Are there any other suggestions? I love that suggestion. Any other suggestions that we could use, um, as we're trying to incorporate more of this tier two vocabulary instruction?
Hallie Sherman: Oh my goodness. I have so many. Um, I love utilizing YouTube videos to teach, um, using context without reading.
I'm all about taking the reading piece out and changing things up when my students don't know what is coming of me. So taking any Pixar short, like for example, snack attack. I don't even think it's a picture. It's a YouTube video. And it's a three to four minute video of this woman who buys snacks.
Someone else tries to take it. I don't want to like give, um, this, uh, the, uh, spoiler alert. You can pause at many different points and embed a sentence that you create. The man is sitting adjacent to the lady. They can use what they see in front of them, they don't have to read, they can read the sentence you're providing, and try to guess what those unknown words are.
And there's more opportunities to [00:31:00] practice in a fun and engaging way, where they don't realize they're learning, but the more opportunities to practice, the more opportunities they get to, the more confident they will feel when they come across those words that they don't know. And again, always modeling, again, how you are thinking about your thinking, what you are doing, and showing them like you, us too, have to do thinking to be successful.
We don't know every single word. And that's okay. And I even, I even use like vocabulary of Fortnite. Like, I'm like, I don't know what a skin is, and a, and a, I don't, and I, I'm like, tell me, tell me everything you know about Fortnite. And like, these words are foreign to me. I'm gonna use my context of what you're telling me to figure out what these words mean.
And they're like, and they're like, they wanna just tell me the answer. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm gonna figure it out by what you're telling me. And showing them that we, too, have to use these same strategies when we come across something we're not familiar with. So, I've had students make me Fortnite dictionaries [00:32:00] so that they can, like, teach me vocabulary words.
Um, anything that allows our students to teach us is a teachable moment for them. And it shows, it builds their confidence and shows them how they can use the same strategies on something they do already know.
Kate Grandbois: I love that. I love anything that is approaching therapy with humility and bringing humanity into the room and the reason I say that is because you're showing in modeling a student how you deal with problems because all humans have problems.
We all, we all approach things that we don't know. Nobody knows everything. I think that's like the second time today I've said that. Um, I, I really just love that. What other, what other bags of tricks you got up your sleeve over there?
Hallie Sherman: Just like I like using Pixar shorts and wordless videos, you can do the same thing with wordless picture books.
The best part about wordless picture books is there's no words, so we can pretend there are words there. So whether you're reading Pancakes for Breakfast and the lady is distraught [00:33:00] that the Animals destroyed her kitchen, the word distraught is not there, but we can put it there, you can take a sticky note and put there so pretend it's like a word, and they have to use the picture, they have to use what they see what's happening in the text, what they see in the, and it's not just so text based, and it allows them to be a little bit more successful and we can, and we can show them like, again, What are some other words that can fit into that blank?
What words that don't fit into this blank? Is she, like, let's look at her body language. There's a lot of social inferencing also that can be, uh, incorporated. There's other skills that all, that all are intertwined in order to be successful. So we can tap into our students strengths if they are visual learners.
If there was, we can use what they are strong with to help, um, build a vocabulary in a fun and meaningful way.
Kate Grandbois: That was going to be my next question was about fun. I know like two teenagers. And their idea of fun is not my idea of fun. Well, my idea of fun is not many [00:34:00] people's idea of fun, but, but in, but in reality, I mean, what in your experience, what is the approach when you're working with an older student who doesn't want to be in your therapy room?
I mean, how do you, how do you make that fun?
Hallie Sherman: One, you have to get them those quick wins by showing them that they can be successful. By starting with those. Acquaintance words by starting with those tier one words like duh, mr. Sherman. What do you what? I know that it's a pencil I'm okay throw rocks me. Yes a duh, but how did you know?
And showing them, look, you can do this and building up from there and not starting at the hardest level. Let's start, let's start where they're at and show them, look, you got this and building that confidence and also building that safe, comfortable environment. It is so essential, especially the older students that you take the time to build rapport, get to know them.
Let them get to know you, like before, I make mistakes too, [00:35:00] I need, I, I cannot draw to save my life, you give me a soccer ball, I'm going to hit my head with the ball, like I don't know what to do. And oftentimes my students are like, I can teach you how to play soccer, I'm like, see, you can teach me something, I'm going to teach you something, and by the end of this year, we're both going to be good at something new.
And showing them everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has different learning styles and taking those times to have those conversations. There's free sites online where you can have students take some learning style quizzes so they can see for themselves, Oh, I do need frequent breaks.
Oh, I do need things broken up into smaller pieces. Oh, I do like things read to me versus when it's whatever. For them to see for themselves, like there's nothing wrong with you. We just all learn differently and that's okay. And also having those conversations about what do you, what do you want to get out of coming to speech?
What do you want to get out of coming to school? What do you want to be when you grow up? Maybe their goal for the year is to make the soccer team, to ask a girl out on a date, to get a job at the movie theater, whatever the, whatever it might [00:36:00] be. We can incorporate that while working on these various goals.
So if a student told me soccer, I will find some YouTube videos on soccer. I'll find some articles on soccer that have some tier two words embedded. And if not, I will create them and work on these skills while incorporating their personal goals and their interests. And also. Showing them, in my speech room, it's not a matter of getting things right or wrong.
You're always going to get it right. It's a matter of when. And it's okay.
Amy Wonkka: I think incorporating student interests is just so important and being able to identify that they're an active participant in this whole process. Do you find that you often talk to students about their IEP goals explicitly?
Hallie Sherman: Definitely, definitely as they get older, even more, I know many often, especially in the high school age, students are expected to go to the IEP meeting and be a part of the conversation. And you don't [00:37:00] want that meeting to be the first time they're hearing, I have a language disability. Oh, that's why I'm here.
Like, we don't want to have those conversations. So a lot of times in the beginning of the year, I like to go through like, what are their goals? Even their accommodations and modifications. Let them be self, like, how can they advocate for themselves that I need more time? My test should be read. Why?
Sometimes these, the other teachers that they might be working with don't have that time to go through it all. We can, and the more we can take the time to be like, okay, everyone's here for a different reason. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, but this is what we're going to get out of coming to school, this is what we're going to get out of coming to speech.
And if you want to graduate from speech, this is what you have to do as well. And that's okay, but having those conversations. Obviously, when they're a little younger, you want, might want to get parent permission if it needed, but often like they might not know they have an autism diagnosis or whatever it might, they might not be aware of certain things and you might want the permission from a parent, but as [00:38:00] they get older, you can still have those conversations about just learning is different and that's okay.
Kate Grandbois: I also think that ties really closely to some social emotional concepts like self acceptance and, uh, self esteem and empowerment. So, making sure that there is that close relationship between their confidence and competence to advocate for themselves in accepting who they are and what accommodations they need.
And I, I think that's something that I know adults that struggle with that. I mean, it's a really, you know, it's hard emotional work to, to get there. And I love the idea of wrapping language around that for empowerment purposes. I think that's awesome.
Hallie Sherman: Yeah, definitely. Especially students that need things read, you know, repetition.
I need to hear it again. They should not be in fear of asking for that. And I always say to them, if anyone gives you a hard time, you tell me, you come straight to me.
Kate Grandbois: So knowing how strapped SLPs are, how we are constantly [00:39:00] fighting for resources and time, what are some quick tips that you have for getting some of these resources at our fingertips?
Hallie Sherman: There are so many free resources out there that you don't need to reinvent the wheel such as one of my favorite sites is Bamboozle all you need is a free login and if you type in Context clues or tier 2 vocabulary a bunch of activities will show up. So for example, I typed in context clues and I'm gonna click one of these here And it pops up different passages with pictures and it gives you four choices.
So I looked at the plans for your new house. This is earthquake county. You need to fortify the frame or you'll have a disaster with the first tremor. The word fortify means, and it has a picture of a house shaking. So I, okay, what do I see? I see a house shaking. I see things moving. I see, I know, I see the word earthquake.
Okay. What do I know about an [00:40:00] earthquake? Okay, well, things shake. So my choices here are destroy, shake, strengthen, or build. Okay, this earthquake, this earthquake county, you need to fortify the frame, or you'll, okay, we have to use our clues to figure out, it's just an example here, what to do with that word.
And there's a lot, this is not the best choice because there's a lot of words here that might be difficult, but that's why sometimes you need to like preview it. I'm going to give you another example, Pam and Gia are sisters, and they're very different. They just look at how they are, uh, Just look at how they are dressed.
Pam doesn't care what she wears or how outdated her clothes are. Gia, on the other hand, is quite chic. And it's a picture of the two, uh, Olsen twin sisters and one's not, it's more trendier than the other. Poor Pam. I feel bad
Kate Grandbois: for her. That was,
Hallie Sherman: I know, I know. Or whatever her name was. And then you can work on any other goals.
Like what, what would you say to Pam? But here's just an example of how you can take [00:41:00] pictures and have some passages, and you can find things at different levels, whether it's a sentence level, at the paragraph level, with pictures, without pictures, and using whatever level your students are at to practice the skill over and over and over again.
And this site is great for its quick, easy data, because your students are each taking turns picking a card from the, whether it's a, this one is, this cards. So that's, if you have a group of two, you get 12 opportunities each. Um, so, and if it's an odd number, I like to do teams and things like that.
But Bamboozle is a great tool that you can find a plethora of games. At different levels, um, work on vocabulary and isolation, and it could be that you might want to work on reviewing synonyms and antonyms, looking at teaching parts of speech, working on, uh, root words and prefixes and suffixes, all those things you can do right on Bamboozle by just typing in the search bar.
Um, so that's just [00:42:00] one tool that I love to utilize. Just as similarly, another fan favorite in my speech room is Bluket. If you're familiar with Kahoot, it's a similar tool that, like, the students do need their own devices, where Bamboozle, you, uh, it's the only, you're the only one who needs a device, but you can, every, you have, you're the host, and there's tons of games right on there, so you can search, and I'm going to give you, I created one with GIFs, you the link so that you can access the GIFs and the sentences ready to go with the tier two words that I made, um, to utilize with my students, um, But you can find if you just type in context, there's a whole in the search in the discover tab, a bunch of games show up.
The best part is there's different game modes. So a lot of the students like gold quest. Which is when, when they get their word right, when they get the answer correct, they get three different treasure chests to pick from, they don't know what's inside of it, it could be gold, it can be stealing gold, it can be [00:43:00] losing gold, and us as the SLP, as the host, we can decide is it gonna be a five minute game, a seven minute game.
We're going to play a certain amount of rounds. The negative of this one is because they're all on their devices and they're all doing different words at the exact same time. It's not great for like data and teaching, teachable moments, but it's a great way to practice once they're finally grasping the concept.
So Kahoot is a little better because it allows you to have like pausing after each question to like, let's discuss how we know. Dambouzle the same way like let's discuss it once they're ready to do it more on their own and practice and just to have fun. Look, it is a great fun tool. All you need is a free log in Gmail account or any email account to log in.
And the best part is students are familiar with these sites, especially your older ones. The classroom teachers are using the blue. They might not be using bamboozled, but they're using blue kit and Kahoot. And [00:44:00] there, those are 2 easy ways, and I'm going to show you, I have a tier 2 word game on Kahoot as well.
I'll give you the link to that one as well that I created, which has pictures. I have one with non sent words, so they can like, like the block, um, right in there, so they can play that with their students to practice that using, using picture clues as well. Um, so. Look at Bamboozle Kahoot. If you go to, um, like some sites like readworks.org that you can search certain articles based on skill.
So you can search by vocabulary and context clue. So it's other opportunities to just practice even further. Um, but like I said earlier, I do love using YouTube videos. So I love the site ed puzzle, which allows you to embed some of these sentences already into the videos where if the video pauses, a sentence pops up.
And it allows you to go through what's going on in the video. Um, so I have already ones, and I will give you the, if you type [00:45:00] in, if you type into Ed puzzle again, all you need is a. Login information, I type in just context clues, a whole bunch of videos already made by other educators might not be speech pathologists show up with teaching either teaching you how to use context clues or different videos on using context clues.
I literally am seeing a whole bunch here. Um, a bunch of Simon's cat videos. Storybooks that are on YouTube, you're incorporating context, clues, and you can preview it. I recommend previewing everything ahead of time. And the best part about Edpuzzle is you can edit someone else's work. So either you can create your own video with embedding the Tier 2 words.
Go into Flocabulary, get some inspiration over there of what tier 2 vocabulary words, you know, your students should, should not know, and then pause at various points, create your own sentences as if you were the narrator, or take something that's already done, and say you don't agree with what that person made ahead of time, [00:46:00] you can edit their work, and they won't know, it's really okay, so that's the best part, you're not offending anyone that the whole gist of Edpuzzle is educators supporting educators there and creating different videos with quizzes embedded.
Teachers are using it for like a homework assignment, especially during COVID times. They're like assigning it via Google Classroom. I don't have students write anything in because I don't know how to delete it. I just had them verbally tell me out loud what their answers are. And the best part is The video pauses, you don't have to remember, 2 minutes 38 seconds, I need to remember to pause here, give them this sentence, you can set it once and have it for life, and the best part is, you get to choose when you go on to the next, the next clip.
So say they need more assistance, there is actually a rewatch button, so it teaches our students those self advocacy skills, like, I need to see that again. And it's right there embedded. Let's click. Let's click rewatch and we can [00:47:00] watch it again. What model, what I'm going to do this time. You can give it, you can make it a multiple choice.
You can give them picture symbols. You can throw in some board makers or whatever symbol systems are in there that they're utilizing. You can embed pictures into the questions and the answer choices into Edpuzzle. So whatever your students need, it might take a little bit of work up front. Not if you find one that's already made, but if you find if you need to make your own, you have it then for life and videos are so motivating.
We can find ones on their interest. You can find something on video games. You can find I have glued is a great YouTube video. If you if your students are obsessed with video games. Um, there's if your students are into science, this preheated where the boy gets access to his dad's science experiments.
There's there's snack attack. I said, that is a really great 1 coin operated is a boy who wants to go to the moon. There are so many things already out [00:48:00] there that you don't need to reinvent the wheel. It's motivating and you can embed all those strategies built in. So that's a puzzle is a great, great tool.
It is free. Um, and you don't even need to save it to your account. You can just stream it. Um, and it's super easy. You can share it with each other, create them with a colleague, and there's a share button so you can share it with them. You can share it with, if you want to send it for home practice, you can do that as well.
Um, there's so many possibilities. It is a great tool if you like using YouTube videos in your speech room. Having Edpuzzle is a great, um, a great tool to use. Do that in a more organized manner and if there are any YouTube videos that you find that are not on Edpuzzle There is actually a Chrome extension for Edpuzzle that you can go into YouTube If you have the Chrome extension downloaded, there will be a button on that YouTube video.
Just click it And it opens up Edpuzzle and brings it in there.
Kate Grandbois: That is awesome. [00:49:00] That sounds like such a great resource. And to anybody who's listening and driving or folding laundry or whatever, we're, Hallie's going to send us all of these links. They will be in the show notes, um, for just to have at your fingertips when you need them so you don't have to write anything down.
Hallie, thank you so much for sharing all of this with us. In our last couple of minutes, do you have anything else that you would like to share with our audience?
Hallie Sherman: If you got anything out of this episode, I hope it is that we can make learning fun, that we can make learning meaningful. And one way to do that is utilizing tier two vocabulary words and doing it in a contextual way.
And it doesn't always have to be a paper and pencil activity. So if you have fun, they will too. And I, hopefully you got a bunch of ideas here that you can change things up, keep students on their toes and always keep learning fun.
Kate Grandbois: This was great. Thank you so much.
Amy Wonkka: You're so welcome. Thank you so much for having me.
Yes. Thank you so much for sharing your time.
Sponsor 2
Thank you again to our [00:50:00] corporate sponsor Ventris Learning, publisher of the Assessment of Literacy and Language, or ALL, and the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation, or the DELV. SLPs, school psychologists, and reading specialists use the ALL to diagnose developmental language disorder and to assess for emergent literacy skills, including dyslexia, for children ages 4 through 6.
The DELV is appropriate for students ages 4 through 9 who speak all varieties of English. To learn more, visit www. ventresslearning. com.
Outro
Kate Grandbois: Thank you so much for joining us in today's episode, as always, you can use this episode for ASHA CEUs. You can also potentially use this episode for other credits, depending on the regulations of your governing body. To determine if this episode will count towards professional development in your area of study.
Please check in with your governing bodies or you can go to our website, www.slpnerdcast.com all of the references and information listed throughout the course of the [00:51:00] episode will be listed in the show notes. And as always, if you have any questions, please email us at info@slpnerdcast.com
thank you so much for joining us and we hope to welcome you back here again soon.
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