Happy Halloween

Many of Mrs. DeYoung's students played Spooky Bingo this week to practice their articulation and vocabulary skills. They had fun defining words like jack-o-lantern and masquerade. Some third graders were explaining similarities between common objects to develop expressive reasoning and vocabulary. Other students played articulation baseball or continued discussing stories that they had read last week. Fourth grade children used context clues to infer meanings of unknown words from the passage. Jr. high groups have begun to work on answering essay questions using supporting details from the text. All of the groups focus on improving vocabulary and thinking skills in oral and written language activities.

This Week's Highlights

Speech and language therapy students at Prairieview have been practicing their speech sounds and completing activities to develop vocabulary. Some of the fifth graders made a list of spooky verbs and adjectives to use writing a scary story. Next week many third, fourth, and fifth graders will play Halloween Bingo and monitor their speech while thinking of sentences with Halloween words.

Language therapy students at Lakeview are beginning to use the "Think Aloud" strategy to understand and discuss what they read. They are encouraged to ask questions about the text and increase abstract thinking skills. Next week they will write a response to Casey At The Bat,
which we read this week in group. Students working on articulation skills have been focused on monitoring their speech during conversation and small group activities.

This Week's Strategies

Using Context Cues, Forming Sentences, and Questioning

This week many of the speech and language groups at Prairieview reviewed target vocabulary from a story they had read. They used context cues to infer meaning of unfamiliar verbs and adverbs and then made up their own sentences with the new vocabulary. Mrs. DeYoung gave examples to help students think of original sentences. For homework the children will be thinking of other descriptive words to use to write scary stories.

Students at Lakeview continued to practice the questioning strategy while reading from a novel. They thought of questions to anticipate characters' feelings and predict events. The sixth and seventh graders were encouraged to think about themes in the story as well as the plot. An author may use a narrative to teach a lesson while telling the story.

This Week's Strategy

Asking Questions



This week Mrs. DeYoung's language groups have focused on asking questions while they read to check comprehension. We read a ghost story and used the questioning strategy to predict outcomes and learn meanings of unfamiliar words. Students practicing articulation skills read orally to self-monitor their speech. Many of the students received a word search to review new vocabulary from the story. Next week we will review the vocabulary and brainstorm other descriptive words to write scary sentences.

This Week's Language Strategy

Paraphrasing

This week students in language groups have been practicing paraphrasing as a strategy to check comprehension. When we paraphrase we retell the story or information in our own words. It is a great way to make sure that we remember what we read or understand directions. When students aren't able to recall information, they can reread or ask the teacher to repeat what was said. Speech/language groups have been challenged to paraphrase silly directions or explain social studies text in their own words. Try it at home!