I serve approximately 60 students in Southwest Missouri as a speech and language teacher. My students are working on the reduction of language deficits and the remediation of articulation skills. Both require great amounts of repetition which can become mundane.
My challenge is to keep students engaged, motivated, and connected during repetitive instruction.
By playing games, my students become more motivated to learn, pay attention and participate in routine tasks. Students must take turns which yields opportunities for students to increase their pragmatic skills. Games provide a perfect set structure for therapy. By applying a range of strategies required in a game, students expand their working memory to solve problems and make connections to prior learning.
My Project
My students require extensive repetitions to successfully meet each goal in their IEP. If therapy sessions are mundane, students are not motivated to participate and do not make necessary connections to meet their goals.
Games spice up those ordinary sessions because they are interactive, incorporate basic communication skills, require turn taking, and provide a child with a language model.
Resources like the Count Your Chickens by Peaceable Kingdom gives opportunity to work through social etiquette while providing repetitions for their specific skill. Cooperative games like Race to the Treasure by Peaceable Kingdom teaches decision making skills along with problem solving while fostering healthy competition. Legos lend that same motivational context while fostering imagination and ingenuity. Board games will make a home connection to therapy with some students and bring a new aspect to therapy for others.
My students are ready to master their goals by building, imagining, cooperating, exploring, and expanding their possibilities with games.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Miller and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
