Teaching Ingredients Linky Party

Today I’m joining my friend Christina over at Sugar and Spice for her Teaching Ingredients Linky. Her blog is so cute and I know from personal experience her teaching skills can give you a lot of ideas so hop on over! She even has products focused on Oral Language which is what we SLPs love!

I love to bake. Let me repeat-I LOVE to bake! I don’t so much like cooking but I thinking baking is pretty magical. You pop something into the oven and voila! in a few minutes it is puffed up and delicious! This last week I baked cinnamon rolls-yum!

  Teaching is a lot like baking. You must carefully look at each recipe and assess its needs. The amount of yeast for pizza crust will not be the same as the amount for cinnamon rolls. Similarly, student needs must be carefully assessed and then addressed. What works for one student may not work for another. As speech therapists, we often have the same students year after year. We can easily make the mistake of assuming our students are the same after summer break. We simply pick off where we left off last year. We don’t want to start from scratch. We want to whip out that Pillsbury dough and use the “one size fits everyone” mentality. I’m guilty of it. But students are people, and people change. Just like baking, it is important to “start from scratch” and assess student needs again at the beginning of each year, using that data as a base to build upon.

My three special teaching ingredients I want to emphasize this year are: engagement, positive thinking and individuality.

1. Engagement. I believe students learn best when it interests them and is relevant to them. I will make a point this year of gauging student interests and then incorporating them into my lessons.

2. Positive thinking. This is soooo important in my little therapy room. Two students-same goals. One will excel because of their positive attitude while the other stays stagnant in their progress. I too, must maintain a positive thinking because students observe me and gauge my attitude. If I’m excited about their progress (no matter how small), they will be too!

3. Individuality. Like recipes, each student is unique and has different needs. These areas must be monitored and addressed consistently to ensure progress. To see out how I assess students’ language needs at the beginning of each school year, check out my Curriculum Based Language Assessments.

What are your staple teaching ingredients? I would love to hear in the comments! Make sure to head back to Sugar and Spice and see what others are adding to the mixing bowl!