Let's Use Language: Basic Language Development by Everyday Speech is an app that was just released on June 2, 2014.  This app was developed as a literacy based approach to teach Common Core Language concepts, particularly Knowledge of Language and Vocabulary Acquisition and Use.  It uses stories to teach the language concepts of: Vocabulary Sequencing Categories Opposites This app comes with 10 stories, each with an accompanying lesson for the four target concepts.  The stories are engaging, an cover a variety of topics. There is also a feature in this app that allows you to create your own stories and lessons, complete with questions and answers.  You can even use your own pictures. To begin this app, you can simply press the Start a Lesson button.  If you press the settings button, you can change the Text-to-Speech option, and find out more about Everyday Speech.   Next, you will chose the lesson type you want to work on (Vocabulary, Sequencing, Categories, Opp...

I have a confession to make.  I finished my year without a bang.  I didn't make any elaborate crafts with my students to work on language or speech skills.  I didn't have any fun pizza, popcorn, or candy parties like my students always dream up.  We didn't go on scavenger hunts, or even do any therapy outside.  Nope!  I was BORING!!!! I was able to see all of my students for one last time last week.  We played a game during each session, and I handed out my summer calendars to them.  It was very anti-climactic.  I almost felt bad because I could see myself 10 years ago doing all (or at least some) of the things listed above. I started thinking, why was I able to do all of those fun things 10 years ago, and couldn't seem to get it together now?  I actually have a couple of answers to that question. First, I have two boys of my own now, ages 6 and 7.  They are both heavily involved in multiple sports and activities, so my nights are pretty shot after I have them d...

Are you looking to work on requesting and describing by attributes? Maybe your students need some visual supports when expanding their utterances? Maybe they are using PECS in their classrooms and at home?  I have worked with so many students who need a little support in requesting using attributes.  Two of the easiest ones that I like to start with are color and size. These two are easy to provide visual supports with and can also be a lot of fun to work on! C o l o r Color is a great place to start when requesting using attributes.  Almost every great reinforcer has a color, and if it doesn't, you can put it into something that is colored! I had some chocolate for one of my little people the other day.  Most chocolate is brown, so I didn't really want her to request using only "brown".  I wanted her to differentiate colors.  I had some left over plastic Easter eggs, and figured that I could put the chocolate in the different colored eggs and have her reque...