First Week of Speech Goals

Everyone does speech a little different on that first day. And that’s OKAY. You are the one that needs to get to know your students and they need to get to know you. Sometimes my only goal that first week is for them to become comfortable with me and see me as someone they can begin to have a conversation with. If that’s all that gets accomplished that first week with certain students, I am a happy girl.

For other students, I have certain goals that I like to accomplish that first week. I thought really hard to come up with an acrostic and it pretty much sums up my first week in speech.

1. Set the tone.

This is extremely important to establish that first time you hold speech with your students. Whether this is your first year or your 50th, that first speech session often sets the tone for the way speech will be run the rest of the year so think long and hard about it. Things to ponder:

• Practice walking quietly down the hall to speech a few times. Show them how to whisper in the hall and how to sit at your table. For my little kindergartners, these seemingly unnecessary activities are important.
• Once they arrive at your door, what are they expected to do? For my students last year, they were expected to place their clip on the behavior chart and grab an “I Can” Common Core Statement that they were working on. Establish these routines early and you’ll have a much smoother year.
• Have a system in place for handling behavior, both for positive and negative behaviors. Do you use a clip chart, stick chart, prize box or nothing at all? Regardless of what you use, your system will need to be in place long before students walk through your door because this is something that’s difficult to change once in place.
• Review your rules and expectations-and don’t be surprised when they may need reviewed multiple times per year. Establish early on what you will accept and what you will not. For me, I was tired of always hearing “Can we play a game?” One of my rules I established early on is “No asking to play games. If you ask, the answer will be “no.” Sometimes, however, I might surprise you with a game.” 🙂

2. Test Skills

I need to establish baselines as early in the year as possible. I use my Curriculum-Based Language Assessments to do this quickly and easily.

3. Activity

I always plan a “Get to Know Me” activity for my students. This helps me understand and be aware of likes, strengths, and interests right off the bat. This year, I did two activities.

• First, we drew conversation cards from my packet “My First Week in Speech.”

• Second, I found this fun M&M writing activity on Pinterest. I changed it to fit my needs and we had fun coming up with statements for each color. (Check food allergies first though!)

4. Review and 5. Time for Fun

I grouped these together because I usually combine them at the end of the session. For this specific session, since I hadn’t seen her all summer, we reviewed saying /l/ and /j/ sounds while playing Jenga (yes, on my sunroom floor!)

You’ll need to catch up on how well your students remembered their goals over the summer AND you can fun doing it.

I wish the best possible year for you and I hope these activities will get you off to a great “START!”