I have recently come across a website that makes creating your own materials much faster and easier. You can make customized dice, crossword puzzles, game boards, dominoes, and more in just a few simple steps. Check it out!

http://www.toolsforeducators.com/

(The materials you make are only to be given to your students and cannot be sold or distributed.)

Becky Wanca

Making the cards

Grab some index cards and some stickers, making sure most of the stickers have an identical match.  Cut the index cards in half.  Place one sticker on each index card half.  It is helpful if the stickers are varied in theme and/or style (e.g., not all underwater animals). 

Using the cards

When working receptively with the cards, start with matching ones and ask, “Are these the same?”  If the child answers correctly, give positive feedback.  If the child answers incorrectly or not at all, model, “Yes, these are the same.” Then say what the pictures are while pointing to them.  For example, say, “Fish.  Fish.  They are the same.”  After a few matching pairs, hold up two cards that do not match and ask, “Are these the same?”  If the child answers incorrectly, model, “No.  These are not the same.”  Then you can label the pictures while pointing them and say something like, “Fish.  Car.  These are not the same.  These are different.” 

Once the child has the concept of “same” vs. “different” (or “not the same”), you can work on having the child expressively tell you if two pictures are the same or different.  Hold up two cards and give an open ended sentence such as, “These pictures are ___.”

After the child has mastered this concept, teaching other basic language concepts such as color, shape, size, or quantity will be much easier.

While word problems can be intimidating to any typical student, they can seem downright impossible to figure out for the student with language disorders.  But what can we do about it?  Is math really something we should address in our language sessions?  Absolutely!  And here’s why… it’s about decoding the language of math.

I teach students how to decode the question and figure out what it is asking them to do.  The calculating is up to them and their teachers to work on.  Once students know what to do with the numbers, the battle is half won.  To work on the specific vocabulary, you can make flash cards with the students, make reference sheets for their desks, make posters to hang on your walls, or play math word bingo.  Do whatever you need for them to learn the following words and what they mean.  Then, do example word problems from their math books to help them practice decoding the questions.  Have them look for the “key words” in the question and figure out what to do.

I recently printed out business cards with these words on them for my language students in third-fifth grades to have on their desks.  All of their teachers asked me if they could have some for the rest of the class too.  Of course!  You can have them too!  Print them out on standard perforated business card paper or on plain paper and cut them apart.