Planning Speech Therapy Sessions for Middle and High Schoolers
Despite the fact that I’ve been working with middle and high schoolers for years now, I still find planning therapy sessions to be a bit overwhelming! Middle schoolers are especially difficult to engage consistently. Our goals are getting progressively academic and too advanced for most of the fun board games and Bingo games and things that we typically associate with funning up our therapy sessions. So, how do we plan session that are both engaging and effective?
The method I’m leaning into right now is chunking. Essentially, I’m dividing my sessions into three chunks. I can rearrange the order and timing of those chunks based on therapy minutes and student need, but the premise is similar and it means that I can plan less each week.
Explicit Instruction and Discrete Trials
The first chunk is teaching, discrete trials, and progress monitoring. This is where we really get to the heart of our therapy goals, provide the explicit instruction that is needed, and get data. For each student, I choose 1-2 goals to focus on at a time (regardless of how many are on the IEP). I bring in the whiteboard, worksheets, task cards, etc… and we talk about strategies, why the skills are important, what the skills are, and then practice! I find that students are usually more willing to give you their attention if you can tell them in advance that they’re going to do a certain number of things that day. So, this chunk of the session might look like this:
Review the student’s goal to use context clues to figure out what unknown words mean.
Remind the student that using context clues is important for understanding what they read or hear.
Review strategies for using context clues with an example.
Tell the student that they are going to read five sentences and practicing using the strategies to figure out what one word in each sentence means.
And that’s it! If the student is moving toward indpedence, I’ll let them answer their five questions on their own, offering support as needed. If they’re still learning the skill, we’ll work through them together.
Student-led, Contextualized Conversation
The second chunk is dedicated to fun, contextualized language. What do I mean by that? This chunk is an opportunity to get students talking and using language in a more natural, engaging way. You can choose one activity to use with every group or personalize the activities to each individual group—it’s up to you! But this chunk of the session is generally more student led. I’m not taking data or trying to facilitate anything specific, I’m just following the student’s lead to model successful language use, ask questions, and get students talking and thinking. This chunk of the session might look like this:
Knowing the student is really into reptiles, I load a video about snakes for us to watch together.
If the student wants to talk during the video, we’ll pause and restart while we watch. If they want to watch the whole way through, we do that.
When the video is over, we chat! Instead of pelting them with comprehension questions, I’ll ask questions along the lines of “What did you think about…?”, “Did you know that…”, or “What was the most interesting thing you learned?”
If there’s time and the student is still interested, we’ll use Google to search additional information, look at photos, etc…
Games and Gear Up/Wind Down
The third chunk is typically the smallest part of the session, but I think it’s important! With the last 3-5 minutes of the session, I let the student(s) pick a quick game to round out the day. If they know it’s coming at the end of each session, I find they’re more motivated to get through the first two chunks of the session, but some students may need to start off with a game before they settle in. It’s all up to your kiddos! For this chunk, I choose simple games like Connect 4 or Uno. It’s amazing to me how much my middle schoolers still love Connect 4! For groups, I usually let them play each other and listen to how they plan, think aloud, disagree, etc… If it’s a 1-on-1 student, I play against them and model thinking aloud and other metalinguistic skills.
I will note here: some students don’t want to play games… and that’s okay! For those students, I make the first two chunks last a little longer. And if we happen to finish up a little early and a game doesn’t appeal to them, I give them the option to go back to class early. For some students, that’s just as motivating as getting to play a game!
As my Yoga mentor, Adriene Mishler would say, it’s all about finding freedom within the form. Having this basic framework in place when I sit down to think about my sessions makes planning for them easier and running them more fun. I know I’m hitting both engagement and effectiveness, which makes me feel better and benefits the students I work with.
So tell me, how do you plan sessions for older students? I’d love to hear your ideas!
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