Rock Chalk Speech Talk

Sharing Speech & Language Therapy Ideas!

  • Rock Chalk Speech Talk
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Shop
  • Free Resource Library

Method To The (pre-k screening) Madness

Madhouse.  That’s the word that comes to mind when I think of many of our preschool screening days.  We move VERY quickly, and get information on speech/language, cognitive, social, fine motor, and gross motor skills for about 5-6 kids in the span of around 1hr/1hr 30 min just depending on the group.  In my district, we hold preschool screenings on the first Friday of every month.  Any parents with children 2:10 to 5 years old (and not yet in kindergarten) who have concerns about their child’s development can call and sign them up for a screening.

Here’s a rundown of how our screenings look:

  • Kids start out at the train table, playing –> We see if there’s any interaction/social skills.  SLPs start the simultaneous language samples!
  • Kids sit on the carpet and listen to a story –> Psych gets data on their ability to attend to the story and any inappropriate vocalizations/movements (i.e. if they get up and run towards the door crying for their parents.. or scream “I don’t like you!!” to a member of the team.. neither of which is out of the ordinary! One of those two things will happen at least once on a screening day!) 
    • I get some info on answering questions, making predictions, and usually a little bit of vocab, depending on the book
  • Teachers split up– 1 at gross motor, OT at fine motor, 2 at cognitive, 1 doing social skills with the psych.  Myself and the other SLP pretty much just hop from table to table taking language samples and sometimes pulling them aside to do some quick language tasks with them!

This is what my language screener form looks like:

You can grab it here.

The teachers check concepts & do vocab pictures for me during their cognitive screening, which is why there’s nothing listed for it on my form.  The ECSE teachers do the Get It, Got It, Go! (G3) testing 3x a year, and picture naming is part of it, so they pick 10 pictures from that set to use. If you’re doing it yourself, just pick 10 pictures of common items and keep them together on a key ring!

For concepts, the teachers have some blocks and a bowl and ask them to put the block in the bowl, take it out, put it on top, take it off, put it under, etc…  The number of concepts is just dependent on age.  For the 3 year olds, we do the basic in/out/on/off/under, and use pictures of early opposite concepts (Which item would be hot? Which 1 is big? etc..  Hot/cold, big/little, wet/dry, clean/dirty are all good early concepts!).  For 4 year olds, we do a little more (like front/back, rough/smooth, etc..).

At the end, if there’s any kids with speech concerns, I do a quick artic screener.  I was initially using one from my district that was there when I got there, but it wasn’t very visually appealing so I wasn’t in love with it. BUT, I recently found this articulation screener from Let’s Talk Speech Language Pathology and I LOVE it.  Easy to assemble, easy to read/interpret, and just all around simple.  Love it.  Seriously.  The only thing I wish it had were s-blend pictures/boxes.. but I just went ahead and made those myself for my own personal use!

What are the different tools you use for prek screenings?  Do you think my form would be helpful for you?

«
»

Filed Under: Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe Via Email

Categories

Search

Latest on Instagram

3rd time’s a charm trying to post this 😆😅 3rd time’s a charm trying to post this 😆😅 Loving 10 Lucky Leprechauns for a St Patrick’s Day book for the littles— my own 2 year old has loved it and so did a lot of my preschoolers last week! 

Super similar in style to “10 Fat Turkeys” — each page adds a leprechaun doing a different action (great for -ing verb practice!) and has a fun repetitive line (“Fiddle de fizz, tis magic it is”) 

Use this book for /l/ and /f/ sound practice too, with your speech sound kids! 

For an easy no prep activity, have a character swing from a vine (pipe cleaner, ruler, string, etc) to a target card like one of the leprechauns in the book! We worked in s-blends too with “swing” and telling the leprechaun to “stop” 💚🍀
❄️ It’s the most wonderful time… of the ye ❄️ It’s the most wonderful time… of the year! ❄️ 
“Turkey Claus” is the best way to transition from Thanksgiving to a Christmas theme and no one will ever prove to me otherwise 😂 🦃 🎅 

And not to get ahead of ourselves, but… Did you know there’s a Valentine’s version coming out in a couple weeks, too?!
Turn your @learningresources sorting houses into s Turn your @learningresources sorting houses into spooky houses for trick or treating!

1️⃣ Decorate them with Halloween stickers (turn it into a speech sound trial reinforcer or following directions activity!)

2️⃣ Put candy mini erasers in the houses (or, make it a silly game and do categories! Put different categories of mini erasers or mini objects in the houses and have them give the trick or treater something from a named category)

3️⃣ Put a person in the house 

4️⃣ Pull up Knock Knock Trick or Treat from @supersimpleofficial on YT

5️⃣ Use Super Simple’s free character printables and use them to go trick or treating at each door! Practice things like predicting who comes next based on the shadow, WH questions, “he/she/they are….” and imitate actions from the characters on the video (steer the ship like a pirate, dance like a ballerina, etc!) 

So easy and minimal prep! Tag an SLP friend below who could use this idea! ⬇️
Who else loves Room on the Broom?! I love it for t Who else loves Room on the Broom?! I love it for the core vocabulary modeling opportunities, rhyming text, repetitive lines, and the great vocabulary used throughout the story! 

ROTB unit with all kinds of story printables is now available on TPT… grab it for your next 2 weeks of Halloween therapy! 🧙‍♀️🎃
🍎🍎 Therapy materials don’t have to have to 🍎🍎 Therapy materials don’t have to have to be fancy!

Grab a cup, stick some apples on, and you have yourself an apple tree for “10 Red Apples” (or any other apple book!)

Some of my kids just aren’t into paper materials so I needed something that would add a “3D”/tangible aspect to the tree besides just sticking paper apples on a paper tree.  This did the trick!

What other books would you use this apple tree with? 
🍎 🍏 🍎
Dressing up book characters is always a fave in pr Dressing up book characters is always a fave in prek! 

“Pirate Jack Gets Dressed” is short and sweet with rhyming text and a focus on clothing and body part vocabulary and colors! All great for the beginning of the year themes like colors, pirates (Talk Like a Pirate Day is on Monday!), and All About Me!

I sent these free story pieces to my email list last week but if you missed them, grab them with the link in my profile! ➡️ @rockchalkspeechtalk
Is this book in your ocean themed collection yet? Is this book in your ocean themed collection yet? I *finally* checked it out this summer and I’ve been using it with almost everyone!

This book works great for…

⭐️sp and sw blends (repeated lines “I spy” and “Swim away”)

⭐️long a sound (“way” is repeated on every page) and I used “hey!” instead of “hello!” on each page

⭐️ Bilabials: I seem to always have 1-2 kids these last few years working on bilabials! “Me” is on every page, and you can use “bye” instead of “see ya later” on each page, too. The last page has tons of bilabials! (up up up, deep, mama (x3), me)

⭐️initial /d/ if you have a backer (down and deep are repeated on each page)

⭐️CV words “hi” and “me” (and “bye” if you use that instead of see ya later

⭐️Core words: down, in, I, see, look, me, go (when I pair with a sensory bin, I also use “like” “get” and “out”

⭐️Repetitive Lines: Makes it more engaging when the kids can chime in and “read” it with you!

⭐️Verbs: I love a book that has actions to act out on each page! Movement always helps keep my kids’ attention in sessions and especially at circle time in a bigger group!

⭐️Describing the ocean animals

⭐️Comparing and Contrasting ocean animals

Literacy based therapy is the easiest way to structure therapy sessions- centering it around a book always sparks ideas for play activities to use with and after the book to work on goals, too!
A Camping Spree with Mr Magee is always one of my A Camping Spree with Mr Magee is always one of my go-to books for a camping theme! 

⭐️ Full of s-blends and initial /k/ opportunities, it’s a great choice for when you have to have mixed speech and language groups (and who doesn’t have kids working on those sounds?!)

⭐️ Lots of opportunities for pronoun + be verb + -ing verb structure sentences, and regular past tense verbs, too!

⭐️ Lots of AAC core word modeling opportunities

⭐️ Multiple opportunities for “why” questions which aren’t always easy to come by!

⭐️ Rhyming text that has a great flow to it— especially love this during whole group!

⭐️ annnnd they make s’mores in the book, which is *obviously* a necessity in any camping theme 😂

Take a look at the mini unit with printables you can use for circle time and small group therapy- I just updated it so redownload from TPT if you already own it! I added ingredient icons and sequencing/retell pictures for the science experiment, 3 sets of Cariboo cards, and basic concept play dough mats for this unit to help you have even more of your goals covered with super easy planning!

We “packed the camper” at circle time this week and it was a hit! Easily adaptable for different language skills, too— Target receptive id or identifying based on descriptors like function, appearance, location, etc! 

Find it on TPT with the link in profile ➡️ @rockchalkspeechtalk

Copyright © 2023 · Website Design By Jumping Jax Designs