As most special education teachers are, I’m a bit of a data geek. I mean, I love data. I love tracking my students’ progress. I love seeing growth over time. I love looking for behavior patterns and I love standing back and asking “what does this tell us?”
So sometimes I can get too caught up in the data. Joey’s words exploded in September. He went from an average of 17 words per ten minute language probe to almost 26 words per ten minute language sample. Then suddenly, for two sessions, it was as though he hit the brakes. [Read more…]
“Love. Love. Love,” Joey said to me after we read the book 
When I arrived at Joey’s house on Friday afternoon he was in a great mood. He was giggling and excited to read, and his personality shone throughout our whole session. We were reading The Gruffalo, which is about a mouse and an imaginary yet real scary monster. As we read about the scary Gruffalo with his terrible teeth in his terrible jaws, I tried to use it as an opportunity to model using body part words like teeth, tongue, knee, leg, back, etc. 
Have you ever heard the expression “As
Love reading. Love silly,” Joey said to me as I sat down with him on Monday. Love was a new word on his device, and as our session continued it became clear that it was one he was going to utilize often. At one point he dropped a toy and he looked at the toy, pointed at it, then said “love”. Then he pointed at the toy again. “Love.” I’d rather he be a bit more specific with his words, asking me to get the toy he loves, but his message was clear. His beloved toy was on the ground and he wanted it back. 
