How A Speech and Language Pathologist Changed My Son’s Life
Speech and language pathologists (SLPs) are especially effective when they collaborate with the classroom teacher and team up to maximize their effectiveness, and you can hear me talk much more about how to do that in a new podcast with Char Boshart. If you’ve spent time on my site or in my programs, you know how highly I regard SLPs and their work in the classroom. As a teacher, I believe an SLP can change your life. If you try this, you and your student’s lives will never be the same. You’ll look at language differently — and language is everything.
The way that an SLP approaches teaching language is very different from most classroom teacher’s approach but, with a little planning, both approaches are complementary. An SLP tends to be much more technical, helping students learn and reinforce language skills, while an English/ELA teacher will focus more on ideas, the bigger picture, and how these relate to the curriculum. Working together helps the SLP hone specific skills that are more relevant to the curriculum when working with students who require one-on-one sessions.
I’ve seen so many benefits of having an SLP in the classroom. It reduces the stigma of being pulled out of the classroom for one-on-one teaching. It can increase individualized instruction and reduce transition time for the student between the classroom and the SLP’s room. It also helps to build stronger peer relationships with the students when the SLP works with the students along with their peers. And it helps to contextualize learning, so the student better understands the concepts being taught. As a co-teacher and as a co-teaching coach, I saw real success in the classroom with this approach.
Char’s podcast allowed me to share my own personal story of how a speech and language pathologist helped my son. And I got to speak at length about the many ways SLPs and classroom teachers can work together, and the benefits of doing so.
There’s a lot more to the art of building a solid co-teaching relationship between SLPs and classroom teachers. I go into detail on this, and the clear benefits of such a relationship, in Char’s podcast.
Char Boshart is an SLP specializing in myofunctional therapy, articulation therapy and language therapy. She hosts The Speech Link podcast, and she has two websites: speechdynamics.com, which has excellent resources on speech therapy, and myswallowworks.com, an online myofunctional evaluation and therapy program.
At just under an hour in length, this podcast episode is perfect for listening during your commute. Check it out here.
Explore even more tips, tools, and resources for collaboration at TheHowofCo-teaching.com!