Reflections

There was no school on Monday of this week in celebration of Veterans' Day. With the three-day weekend, my husband and I left straight from work on the preceding Friday and headed up the coast for a mini-reunion with friends. Our group rented a house somewhat midway between those furthest north in Washington and those furthest south in California. We arrived late at night and settled into an oceanfront rental for our third annual reunion with three other couples. 

We’ve known all but one of these friends for over thirty-years but we lost contact for at least 25 of those years. Our friendships started in Southeast Alaska where we all lived: young, single, and in the beginning stages of new professions. 

One of our friends brought this one, taken the day
my husband and I met! Can you guess which one is me?

During our reunions we’ve caught up on all the major life events, poured over old photographs and shared our stories. I especially enjoyed reminiscing about the ones we have in common, like our hike along Salmon Creek, visits to the Mendenhall Glacier and camping at Denali.

Our trip to Denali 

Phyllis reminded me that during one hike she stepped on a rotting bridge and her leg went right through, landing her in the creek. She started back to work as a classroom teacher with a fat lip and a suspicious principal. 

This may seem like an "off-topic" subject for a speech therapy/kidlit bog, but I don't think it is entirely unrelated. In my work, whether I'm teaching students to articulate sounds, formulate a sentence, learn the fundamentals of social language (pragmatics) or increase their vocabulary, one of my ultimate goals is to help them become better communicators so they can have healthy long-term relationships and so that they can tell their own stories, the stories of their lives.

This past week I haven’t had a chance to read books with the kids. Report cards go home next week (along with IEP progress reports) so I’ve been busy testing and writing reports. It seems somewhat tedious but the time is well spent. I can see tremendous growth in some students and it is obvious, by their smiles and the glint in their eyes, they recognize their growth. A couple of the students, who were almost ready to be dismissed from speech at the end of last year, are now fully ready. 

I have mixed feelings about letting them go, but it is time to do so. I feel good knowing their speech and language skills have grown stronger and my hope is that these new skills will help them form friendships like those I cherish. Perhaps, one day, they’ll enjoy reunions with old friends and be able to share life-enriching stories of their own.

Robots in the Speech Room!

I had a new student in speech this week. When I went to his classroom to pick him up for his first session, I called his name and he shrank. His shoulders rolled forward, he tucked in his chin and tried very hard to disappear into the crowd of kindergartners sitting on the carpet at their teacher’s feet. I gave him what I thought was an encouraging smile but it wasn’t encouraging enough—his eyes widened in apprehension, then melted into a pleading look as he turned toward his teacher, obviously hoping she’d rescue him. She didn’t. But she introduced us and reassured him that a lot of kids love going to speech. After I spoke a few kind words and found a friend to walk with him, he left with his new speech group and trudged along to my classroom.

Fortunately, I had an enticing book on my desk, just waiting for the right moment and a fitting group of kids for its introduction. I’d found both, so I scrapped my original plans and grabbed Robots, Robots Everywhere! by Sue Fliess, illustrated by Bob Staake.

I thought the cheery illustrations and catchy rhymes might help this new student forget his nervousness. I was right; the worry lines on his forehead softened the moment he looked at the cover of the book and they disappeared entirely by the time I’d finished reading a few pages,

On the ground
and in the air,
Robots, robots
everywhere!

Up in space,

Beneath the seas,

Robots make discoveries.

I’d forgotten how appealing robots are to young children. The kids moved in close to examine each illustration. Soon, this reluctant child leaned against my side so he could get a better look at the pages. It wasn’t long before he was pointing and laughing and talking about the kind of robot he wants to own. All of the kids had ideas to share. Jose wants a double-headed robot that climbs trees. Olivya wants a pumpkin-robot that glows. Enrique wants a tiny one “about this big” he circled his hand around a walnut-sized pocket of air. His robot will go on water, land, and in the sky.

My students made a scavenger hunt out of the book and scanned the pages for familiar shapes—squares, circles, rectangles, triangles, ovals, and ice-cream-cone-shapes. Their enthusiasm was contagious. I snatched my box of paper-scraps and quickly cut out a few similar shapes. We made collages, building our own robots as we built vocabulary.

I’ve known for a while, knowledge of shapes is an important foundation for growing math skills, but I was curious about its place in the curriculum so later in the day, I searched the Common Core Standards to find out where it’s listed. Sure enough, the first two kindergarten geometry standards require students to learn the names of various shapes. Our vocabulary lesson and Ms. Fliess’ book was a perfect fit for these kindergarten mathematicians.

The next day, when I went to pick up my new student, he practically bolted from his classroom. He could hardly wait to see if his robot collage was dry. He didn’t trudge to my room; he scurried along on imaginary robot feet, smiling all the way. It was no surprise to me. Over and over, I’ve seen what an appealing book can do to reach a reluctant child, whether it is a reluctance to leave a familiar environment, face a challenge or learn a new skill; books often ease the way into comfort and open minds to learning just as Robots, Robots Everywhere! did for this student.

Figurative Fun with Animal Idioms

When I asked a group of first graders what they thought a person might mean by saying, “you eat like a bird,” all four heads dipped down to the table. With hands in their laps, they bobbed and “pecked” at imaginary seeds on imaginary ground. They were a bit surprised when I opened Sandy Donovan’s book, Until the Cows Come Home, illustrated by Aaron Blecha, and read page 26 where they learned this idiom means to eat a small amount of food. 

They were even more surprised when they discovered how much a bird typically eats; a one-pound bird is likely to eat about a pound of food each day. If my students actually ate like birds, they would eat about 45 pounds before turning in tonight!

These facts may not be new to you, but some of the information in the book was new to me. For example, did you know the phrase “don’t let the cat out of the bag” began back in the Middle Ages? I didn’t. According to Ms. Donovan, since cats were cheap and pigs were expensive,

“Sellers at marketplaces used cats wrapped up in fabric bags to try to trick buyers. The buyers thought they were buying a pig. The sellers would take their money and give them a bag with an animal squirming around inside.”

If they let the cat out of the bag before they returned home, they would discover the secret.

Ms. Donovan’s book defines idioms as “phrases that mean something different from what you might think they mean.” After reading several examples, I turned to a page with an illustration of a monkey clinging to a frustrated, freckle-faced boy and said, “The phrase, monkey on your back” is an____?” I paused to let the kids finish the sentence and Hailey called out, “Idiot!” The others agreed before I had a chance to correct her mistake.

Landen was so intrigued by the illustration he decided to demonstrate how you might get a monkey off your back. First he wrapped his arms around his body, then changed positions to spread the fingers of one hand on his cheek and used his other hand to peel off the fingers, one by one. He explained how he’d peel the toes off too, and then twirl so the monkey would fly off.  He used excellent descriptive language as he expounded on the process and by the time he finished, it was easy for the other students to understand the origins of this idiom. I tuned back to the book and read,

“What does a monkey have to do with an ongoing problem? Well, let’s think about it. If you had a monkey on your back, it would be really hard to get it off, right? Monkeys have those long arms. They could wrap their arms around your neck. You might try to shake them off, but they’d cling on. . . That’s why people use the phrase “monkey on your back” to refer to problems that won’t go away.”

Idioms are confusing to many of my students and they are especially baffling to kids on the autism spectrum who are very literal in their thinking. I remember one precocious sixth grade student who had autism. After a few lessons on idioms, Alex came into my speech room and said, “Did you notice, it’s raining cats and dogs outside. I hope we can have lunch soon because, I’m as hungry as a horse.” He was very pleased with himself and I was happy as a clam to hear him using the idioms appropriately. Alex would have enjoyed Until the Cows Come Home. It is packed with information and he loved collecting facts.

With the Common Core Standards’ new emphasis on nonfiction, this book would make a nice addition to any elementary school library. And, though I’ve been reading it to first and second grade students, it is laying the foundations for a fourth grade language standard (L.4.5) where students are expected to “Recognize and explain the meaning of common idioms, adages, and proverbs.” My younger students can already explain a few, thanks to Ms. Donovan’s book. If you’d like to introduce your children or students to idioms, there is no need to hold your horses, just trot over to your local bookstore or library and pick this one up.

Fall Break!

We’ve been on vacation this week so I have no stories to share from the speech room. Instead, I’ll share a few photos from our trip to Taylorsville, California.

I hope you are enjoying the fall season! 

Creepy Carrots Tackle the Common Core

Creepy Carrots crept into my speech room this week. Actually, it practically bounded into my classroom due to several pleading students who remembered the book from last year and couldn’t imagine moving into the fall season without it. They started requesting the story about the third week of school and asked each day until I secured a copy from our local library.

 

Last year, the kids begged for Halloween stories beginning early in September. This year, they were more specific. Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds, illustrated by Peter Brown, was their number one request. It may not be a traditional Halloween tale, but it’s fitting for fall and those carrots, with their jack-o-lantern faces, make it a perfect match for the occasion.

The students decided to create their own creepy carrots—take a look:

Emanuel expanded to another vegetable and sketched a cranky cabbage:

With the Common Core Standards on my mind (and in numerous conversations around our school campus) I’ve been looking for ways to incorporate them into speech and language sessions. I didn’t have to look far when I pulled Creepy Carrots from the shelf. The fifth Common Core Language Standard asks kindergarten students to “sort common objects into categories.” If you follow this standard, you’ll find by first grade students are expected to “sort words into categories” and by second grade they need to “identify real-life connections between words and their use (e.g. describe foods that are spicy or juicy).” After reading this story, my students sorted objects and words into categories (fruits and vegetables,) suggested some delicious describing words, put them together, threw in a few alliterations and came up with Crazy Cucumbers, Leggy lemons, Lazy lettuce, and Bumpy-bunny bananas.

Joden got especially creative and suggested a “Tow-truck tomato.” He didn’t stop with the name but added a few descriptions to go with it. “It has a slice of tomato for a door and four-hundred slices to make the back. It uses hay for fuel – no gas. A tomato drives the truck. He has a green Mohawk made of leaves. He drives around in circles catching rabbits.”

Joden seems to be working his way up this standard. In no time at all, he’ll hit the sixth grade level where students are expected to understand personification.

I realize there are pros and cons to the Common Core Standards, but I like the way one grade-level standard paves the way for the next, building skill upon skill until at last (as stated on the CCSS website,) the students “develop the skills in reading, writing, speaking, and listening that are the foundation for any creative and purposeful expression in language.”

If we are successful in helping our students reach that goal, this creative expression just might lead to some captivating stories for future generations. And perhaps some of them will be as delightful as Creepy Carrots!