25: Vocabulary Stategies with Stacy Crouse
Stacy and I discuss vocabulary strategies and activities you can use with students of all ages on your caseload!
Resources Mentioned:
This podcast is brought to you by:
transcript episode 25: vocabulary strategies with stacy Crouse
D: Hello and welcome to the TOD POD, a podcast to support Itinerant Teachers of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, SLPs, and other Deaf Education Professionals. I'm Deanna Barlow from Listening Fun and today we're talking about vocabulary with our special guest Stacy Crouse. Hi Stacy thanks for being here!
S: Hello!
D: Can you tell everyone a little about yourself?
S: Sure I am an SLP and I have been about 15 years now. I also received my Listening and Spoken Language Certification about six and a half years ago. Right out of grad school I started in an outpatient therapy clinic for birth to 21 year old children and then in 2014...
D: Wow!
S: I know, I know, I've always seen treated like the gamut.
Both: [LAUGH]
D: I mean same, it's a lot...
S: Yeah, yeah, same with yeah TODs totally get that. I started transitioning to teletherapy in about 2014 and that was with a K through 12 caseload. So again, like you know quite the range but I kind of I like it that way. So, it keeps it interesting.
D: For sure.
S: And then I currently just manage my business, which is a blog and creating resources, full time at the moment. Yes.
D: Wonderful! Thanks so much. So one of the reasons I wanted to have you come on to talk about vocabulary is that you're an SLP, you have a huge age range, and then also you have your LSLs so you could even speak to it from like the hearing loss side of things.
S: Yes, for sure.
D: So just to jump right in, what would you say are the most important factors when thinking about supporting vocabulary, like what's like the high level view?
S: Well, as Teachers of the Deaf know that kids with hearing loss just don't acquire vocabulary at the same rate as their hearing peers because of usually lack of incidental learning or not lack of but decreased incidental learning. So we're kids with typical hearing you know they pick up words from their parents, their peers, their siblings, whether direct or indirect conversations and you know all the talking that goes into learning about our routines and daily events and shared reading. But kids with hearing loss just don't quite pick up as many of those words. So in a way the cards are kind of stacked against them from day one, where they are you know showing a lot of vocabulary deficits from the beginning and so it's kind of like a game of catch up ah from day one. Not to mention like delay in amplification and identification can cause you know that to be even a bigger issue. Poor listing environments or decreased wear time of their devices can all affect language and and especially vocabulary development. Vocab intervention just isn't as cut and dry as a lot of our other language goals that we work on, you might agree as ah, as a TOD.
D: Mhmm, I do.
S: It's just like not concrete. It's not straightforward. It's kind of hard to measure. It's not like working on like a possessive -s. Ya know? It's more gray area all around it.
D: Yeah, it's frustrating that the thing, not the thing that's the most important, but one of the most important things to work on is also one of like the hardest things to work on...
S: Yes.
D: ...the thing that requires the most nuance. It's like, ugh okay.
S: Yes, yes, and then the stakes just kind of keep getting higher. Like what's typical for our kids you know it like just keeps getting more and more because kids with typical hearing their vocabularies are growing too. So it's just such a key part of intervention but it is not always so concrete.
D: Yeah, and thinking about it not being concrete if you're looking at a child and you they have a vocabulary goal or you identify that they need support with vocabulary, how do you decide what vocabulary is important to focus on?
S: Um, well I always as a school based SLP looked at their um academic words and their academic curricula. Um, and what they're needing there. When I was you know more clinic based and it was like the little bitties with hearing loss, that would be more relevant words would be like the ones in their environment, um the ones that they are related to their routines, and their you know family, their customs, their cultures, their all of that. But really I don't make a goal for a specific words, rather than as much as you know, strategies and utilizing strategies. Which of course for the the little bitties especially, super important to include the parents to be able to you know, understand those strategies and use those strategies in a variety of different environments. As well as like their general education teachers. So it's a lot I think of just kind of focusing on the strategies and and using those to help develop vocabulary and less as much on me picking words. So it's kind of, it's kind of nice in that way.
D: Yeah, yeah, I even remember when I first started teaching I inherited some IEP goals that were more like, they didn't give me specific words but they would say like 10 vocab, 10 content words or like they were kind of weird and I, they were hard to implement like 10 words over the whole year? Like 10 words every quarter? Like it wasn't really specific. It was kind of confusing and then I would also inherit goals that were strategy based and I could just tell that those they worked better. The kids made progress that like carried over a lot easier. And then for me it was just so much easier to to teach strategies than to teach a list of words because there's so many words [LAUGH].
S: Yes, oh yes, right? You you can't, that's a that's a losing battle for any anyone any kid like you just can't keep tell the words not in 30 minutes a week.
Both: [LAUGH]
D: You just can't teach all the words. That's why I mean right? And like that's kind of like the side note that's why we work on listening skills so much is so that way like to hopefully like help them catch up like naturally, not naturally, but like through incidental learning as much as possible.
S: Yes.
D: Because it's like you got to attack it from both sides but when it's a big fact of like we do sometimes just have to do direct vocabulary instruction or intervention and I definitely agree I'm glad you said that about strategies because I feel like, I feel like I say that all the time I'm like a broken record I'm like here's this strategy and that strategy. [LAUGH]
S: I know, I know. I mean I see that a lot in like the the speech therapy Facebook groups too, people are like what what words are you picking and it's like, I don't even try like I don't. That's so individual and impossible to just pull words out of thin air that are going to transfer and so.
D: Yeah, when I think of like vocabulary strategies I tend to think of like context clues, um things like that. Are there other strategies that you tend to teach a lot that are helpful?
S: Um, yeah I mean like semantic mapping and just expanding on the vocabulary that they do have um, a lot of kids with hearing loss have not only a deficit in how many words they know, like the breadth of their vocabulary, but the depth of that vocabulary. So maybe maybe they know what a fish is but they don't know that it has scales, ah that it's cold blooded, that it's called a fishing pole that you use. So you know just kind of expanding on that, those words that they do have and making connections between the words to kind of fill in those gaps.
D: Yeah, I Really like to work on that like word nuance stuff I feel like that's like, I feel like it's also more interesting because you get you get to talk about words that you never thought you would be teaching.
S: Yes, yes I know and it's just so fun how they just kind of come up naturally and that's the best way to learn anyway, you know is just through actual experiences with those those words and those concepts.
D: Yeah I always try when I'm talking to a student to use vocabulary maybe a step higher than what they currently have. So like if they have if I know they know the word fish then maybe I'm going to say salmon or whatever it is like I always try to see if I can be like more specific.
S: Yes. Yeah, yes.
D: Just to see if I can like push them a little further in the vocabulary but it'll be like meaningful because like they know fish already and we're looking at a fish but it's not just a fish. It's also a salmon like.
S: Yes, right right? Because I think a lot of people in general are are guilty of kind of using the simplified language which isn't really doing the child a favor in the end. It's just kind of....
D: Yeah, and that's especially with deaf kids, like they they tend to oversimplify, teachers, parents, um and I try to express to people like they can do it like, give them the benefit of the doubt talk a little bit higher like be more specific in your language and it's kind of fun to challenge yourself to be like talking a little bit higher.
S: Yes yes, and I've seen research that shows, that says that children with hearing loss tend to not like inquire about words that they hear as much as kids with typical hearing. You know they don't say wait a minute what is that? You know they don't kind of self advocate in that way and so teaching them the strategy, strategy of self advocacy to kind of you know, stop and say I don't know that word or can you show me a picture of that or something is another good strategy. Um, just not only for right now, but for the rest of their lives being able to recognize that they don't know a word and speak up and ask about it.
D: Yeah! I like to sometimes if I'm reading like a chapter book with the student because like one of my favorite things to do which I've talked like so much about is like using an independent reading book as like material for your lesson. Whether you're working on like a listening goal or a vocabulary goal like. Just take their independent reading book that they're already reading because like every kid every kid has an independent reading book like you know for the most part if they're an elementary school they have an independent reading book and most middle schoolers do too. But I will, we'll like read a page or whatever every once a while I'll stop and I'll I'll ask them like find 2 words on this page you're not sure what they mean. And then that eventually leads to them naturally asking me what words mean because we're just in the habit of talking about it but like just pausing and being like okay just like look at this page any words you're not sure about even just like a little bit. Not sure about um, just to get them in the habit of asking about words has been really helpful because then they get, they actually will start asking and that's so much easier than me trying to guess [LAUGH].
S: Yes, yes, that is a great idea because it's like just acknowledging that we don't all know all the words. So let's talk about the ones we don't know and just make that be open and acceptable and I love that, that's a great activity.
D: And I like it because I don't have to prep anything but they already have they already have their book with them and it's the same book every, it's the same book for weeks. So like it's you know it just, it's like work smarter not harder [LAUGH].
S: Yes, and you get to hear little snippets of different random books I guess.
Both: [LAUGH]
D: Yeah times, tons of snippets.
S: Ah, it's kind of good then you're like you don't have to like quote unquote play dumb.
D: No I was like I really don't know.
S: I don't know what's going on explain it to me [LAUGH] and that's that's a great activity, I love it.
D: Exactly. So you said a couple of strategies, were there are any other ones? Because I kind of jumped in there.
S: Um, let's see I mean just repetition. You know they don't with the lower incidental learning abilities like they it's it's simply because they're not getting as many exposures to words a lot of times so just using a lot of repetition. For older kids more of like I'll probably do more of the like metacognitive strategies where it's like well we don't know this word, let's use a dictionary and look it up or you know within word analysis with morphemes like you know the prefix and the suffix and you can do some more of that kind of analyzing the words.
D: Do you have like ah a certain way that you like to teach that or like an order you go about teaching it like do you teach prefixes first, suffixes first?
S: Um I, I don't. I just kind of do them simultaneously probably a lot of them know of kind of what that is and and I should say like a lot, most all of my deaf and hard of hearing experiences with the little bitties so I'm kind of talking about vocabulary with like just language impaired older students on this one.
D: That's fine. Yeah it all applies I think.
S: Yeah, totally um, but a lot of them kind of know those concepts loosely from like ELA um, but I don't think I have like a hierarchy I'm curious to know if there is because that would be very valuable.
D: Yeah I'd be curious to know if there's a list of ones that occur like at a very high rate like what are the ones that like if you learn a top 10 that would make the biggest impact because one of the things I feel like I struggle with the most is that I don't have a ton of time and I don't have ah like a high frequency. So I'm seeing most of my kids like once maybe twice a week and that's a lot. Yeah, a lot of TODs I know see them even less than that. Um, and I guess that's something you can lean on speech to like collaborate with maybe so that you're working on the same things so that you get that higher frequency. But if, it's like I can't teach all of them, obviously I can't even teach half of them like I can maybe only teach ten of them. So like what what would make the biggest impact you know that would be an interesting thing to like look into.
S: Yes yes, that would be... I saw one time I have Speechy Musings I think has a vocabulary resource I saw one time that's got kind of broken down prefixes and suffixes in a real structured way. I don't have it so I can't speak much to it. But I bet it's amazing.
D: Yeah I'm sure I love all her language resources. They're really, they really break stuff down.
S: Yes, yes, especially for the upper elementary middle school ages. Yeah, so that might be a good start.
D: Yeah, do you have any um specific strategies for like older students like high school if they're working on like higher like tier 3 vocabulary?
S: Um, yeah, um, a lot of it is the the academic like curriculum vocabulary again and you know explaining um or like kind of working through not just the definitions. But how they go together.
D: Mhmmm.
S: Like math, it seems like a lot of my older students like working on sum and operation and what are other ways to say those that are like kind of like synonyms. But for that academic vocabulary, and then a lot of metacognitive strategies probably. Um, a lot of other strategies I I use the same with the little bitties but it looks totally different with older kids, the activities looks look different, at the context of the prompts, it all looks different, but it's a pretty similar you know strategy when you when you boil it down.
D: Yeah, could you give an example of like what and what that would look like for an older child?
S: For like the...?
D: The metacognitive strategy.
S: Like kind of like what you're saying within ah in a book or a reading, I do a lot of like read works passages and things like that with words we don't know. Sometimes doing teletherapy like look up on Dictionary.com or something like that and one of them actually has like a kid ah definition I can't remember which one it is maybe it's dictionary.com or miriamwebster or whatever it is like there's definition for, that's more like for kids but it's still like you know, appropriate for high school. So we'll just use those tools. Um, right there in the session on screen share. Or like break it down by prefix and suffixes or like the the root word different morphemes like that.
D: Yeah, when I'm in person a lot of times I'll have them ask Siri what it means like I'll just hold it on my phone and I'll just say like...
S: Oh that's awesome.
D: What is that word mean or whatever, what's the definition of the word. I do that one because they think it's fun so they're more likely to ask me what a word means if they know they get to ask Siri so like it's just like an engaging way to get them to ask about words. But also it's faster than typing it in so like it wastes less time for me. [LAUGH] Um, and I like I said I think it I like to just like foster curiosity. So anytime they ask me a question I don't know I always ask theory like all most of my kids know that that's like a thing that I'm willing to do. So yeah.
S: Yes, yeah. Yes, that is awesome and it's so like twenty first century too like I mean nobody has a big actual dictionary anymore. You know so like mine will use what what they have available which is a lot of them the older ones especially. Siri with phone or Alexa... I better not say that too loud.
D: Yeah, and for some of my younger ones too. It actually gives them like yeah they have to say it clearly so like it's um, if if they are working on any particular sounds like in speech that I'm supporting or a lot of my kids they talk too fast like that's their main issue so like having them slow down so Siri can understand them. It just like it, it ticks a lot of boxes for me having having them ask Siri about a word or about a question.
S: Ah, I love that, that is awesome idea.
D: It was on my mind because I was doing um like a puzzle and it was like a states but like United States puzzle and they were asking me what the biggest state was and on the puzzle it looked like it was Texas but I know it's Alaska so I was like let's ask Siri and they were like, they ask Siri and they're like Alaska it's like not big enough! So like it was like a good you know, learning opportunity.
S: Yes, and then it's like well why don't, you could ask them like why don't you think you know infercing, why didn't they put Alaska the size it should have been? No room [LAUGH].
D: Yeah and then also why is Alaska next to Hawaii and I was like well it's a puzzle [LAUGH]
S: Logistics... [LAUGH]
D: I was like let me show you the real map and then I'm like it's up here like off the puzzle and they were probably a little young for me to be doing this. They're like um ok.
S: Whatever you say.
D: I like sometimes I shoot too high I'm like yeah I'm going to go high I'm going to like talk a little above them I went a little too high above them that time.
S: I find myself going down those like rabbit holes kind of like ah all is lost because you just kind of follow. But it's it's not bad either to follow that lead so.
D: All the time. Now I think he'll remember that you know like because we went down that rabbit hole together of Alaska.
S: You talking about that at dinner like the night that night.
D: Yeah, well, it's funny because my next question is like what vocabulary gaps do you see frequently and how do we fill those gaps? And the reason I brought up the puzzle, at least with kids with hearing loss a lot of times things like states, unfamiliar places, unfamiliar names anything that's not like in context of their daily life like gets missed quickly. Do you have any other gaps that you tend to see?
S: Receptive vocab I mean I think a lot of people think expressive vocab is like the biggest gap but really studies have shown that receptive vocab is like they just aren't getting enough of those exposures to words to like truly get them to enter their lexicon.
D: Interesting.
S: So You know sometimes I think we might focus too quickly on the expressive when like we might need to back up and do some receptive tasks using a lot of repetition. Like we said earlier using the actual word in a syntactically correct sentence and not simplifying it. Or using like the broader term. And let's see I kind of talked about it earlier but like the vocabulary depth you know making sure that they have all that semantic knowledge and the language flexibility to talk about words and their connections to each other and between those words.
D: Yeah, that reminds me I have this like game from you. It's like a compare and contrast game like a bunch of like hexagons and you have to like connect the the things by something they have in common or something that they don't have in common I think I only play it with things they have in common.
S: And yes, yeah, me too.
D: Um, but I like to use that for vocabulary specifically because it forces us to talk about like things like like texture and like um like function and category and it's not just teapot. It's like appliance and metal and all of these other words that like I just necessarily wouldn't I wouldn't think to target and I wouldn't necessarily think that they wouldn't know. But we've all had that experience of working with a kid and all of a sudden they don't know a word like metal and you're like how do you not know this word, you're in like fourth grade. But they just missed it somehow. So I really liked that activity things that like that it's not even like higher level vocabulary. It's just like random little pockets.
S: Yes, right? Yeah, all those attributes I mean we kind of forget about that when we think it's not just labels when we're talking about vocabulary. There's so much behind it. It is such a big part of language.
D: Yeah. Yeah I feel like I I remember to do categorizing like I remember to talk about like category names like I'm always making sure that not only do they know cow, pig, chicken, they also know animal. Like those I remember about but some of the more like, like attributes like you were saying like of things that are like a little higher like because I guess when you get past preschool. You think that they're just going to pick up those words like we teach those things to preschoolers like we teach soft and hard and big and small. But then it's like in you're when you're in fourth grade, and they need to know things like I don't know appliances. I know that's ah, not a attribute but you I mean like it comes up. It's not like it's not going to be a vocabulary word in school. They just assume you would have picked it up by now. Um, so I really like that anything like compare and contrast games like I mentioned that you have or like things that bring up that attribute vocabulary if you're if you know you need to support vocabulary but you're not sure how I think that can be a really good way to go for like that functional vocabulary.
S: Yeah, and I think a lot of us go like when we go categories we go like 1 step up and I think I've seen research on this too like instead of step down like the what is it like subordinate categories where it's like, um, like a couch is furniture but couches could be like a sectional, a love seat, like even more specific.
D: Oh interesting.
S: Is also an area that I think we don't even really think about a lot of times.
D: Yeah. Yeah I wouldn't have thought I wouldn't have thought to go lower than couch. But that's totally right, that like sectional is like a very normal word for people to use and loveseat all like super like relevant you know like if so if someone in their family says go sit on the love seat and they're like what?
S: Yeah, or the sofa I don't we've all had a grandparent or something that calls it that.
Both: [LAUGH]
D: That's really helpful to think about because I do think, I will go up, you're right, but not down in my thinking.
S: Yeah, yes, so do I. So do I. So you're not the only one.
Both: [LAUGH]
D: Yeah, okay so. One of the things I hear from ah like teachers and stuff is that like sometimes vocabulary intervention can be like kind of boring because it's like a lot, not that reading is boring. But if you're just reading like passages or you're doing like task cards, it can be a little boring. And there's always the option of like doing a game and taking a turn and like...
S: Yeah.
D: But if we want to move beyond that and actually make the vocabulary intervention itself fun or interesting. Do you have any like activities you really like or strategies for making it more fun?
S: Yeah, well I don't know if this is the SLP in me. But I'm like all about the themes instead of just you know, kind of pulling from thin air. Um, and the research does, does support that using themes can help provide like the semantic map. Like you know all the connections between the words so that students aren't having to make like that that leap on their own. There's kind of like that network there for them to kind of make sense of it all.
D: Yeah. Yeah I'm doing an episode on themes for like TODs.
S: Ah yay!
D: Because we because when you have such a big age range, sometimes you can't, like it's hard to do themes when only like 3 of your students are in preschool and like four in elementary school or you know it's all spread out like that I think it'll be out by the time this is out or like right around there so look for it or look for it soon [LAUGH]. But um, but I agree that's so like that's people are like why like it's just they people just do it because they think it's cute but like it's not just cute. It's really like I feel like it just helps me hit words I wouldn't have otherwise thought about.
S: Yes.
D: Because like am I really going to talk about like random insects on my own like no I'm going to need the spring theme to bring that up for me, you know?
S: Right. Right. It kind of puts it all together.
D: So it's nice to hear that's research supported because that was just my gut instinct.
S: Yes it is yep, you're right. And I just have wrote blog posts um earlier this week about um themes with older kids I have a couple of them out like why why use themes with high schoolers and it's not what you think you know it's not like fire firetrucks. It's you know, finding the topics they're interested in or that are being used in their school or in their curriculum and really digging into some of those kinds of topics. I call them more like topics with older kids I don't know even though it's like a same concept themes.
D: Yeah, are are there any that come to mind that are particularly good?
S: Um video games. Um a lot of science topics like natural disasters or like um, astronomy like a lot of the kids, the older kids seem to be into those kinds of things, food themes of course just like the geography kind of like you're talking about travel and the way people live differently in different parts of the world. And being in teletherapy for so long I do a lot of like Youtube videos or live webcams. I love live webcams like the national parks will have them and my kids and I got really into watching like this one in Alaska this summer that was like bears like fishing for salmon and this waterfall thing. It was so cool. So I love that.
D: Yeah! I feel like science is such an underrated theme like so many kids, old older kids are so into like science topics.
S: Yes, yes!
D: And it's like and there's so much vocabulary like almost too much.
Both: [LAUGH]
S: Oh yeah. Yeah yeah.
D: but no, but that's such a good tip I'll have to remember that when I'm doing some stuff with the older kids that like if you're going to introduce something like science can definitely be the way to go because like I know I know we have to support the curriculum vocabulary and like we do, we do.
Both: [LAUGH]
S: Right? right.
D: But like sometimes you just want to shake it up a little bit. You know it's a little... I always like to have a couple like standalone lessons like in my back pocket, like and by in my back pocket I mean like on my ipad [LAUGH] Just like always there like. Um, either like and like a Google sides thing or like an interactive PDF thing just so that way like when the day comes when I have nothing to support which does happen now and then like a weird day and they just like they can't tell me anything they need and I can just have like a standalone lesson that can cover vocabulary because I feel like every single child I work with is working on vocabulary in some capacity like even if they don't have a explicit vocabulary goal like I feel like almost all language and listening goals can be tied back to vocabulary.
S: Yes, yeah, and some days they're just not into it. They don't want to talk about what they talked about in school like you know we all have those days so it's not like you're doing any harm to talk about something totally random because you know it's going to come up in their day to day at some point. So.
D: Yeah I agree and that's why I like like the digital resources because I don't have to I feel like I'm spoiling my themes episode but I was gonna I like I like I like digital stuff for themes because I, I don't have to prep it like if only going to use it with a handful of students, because it's only appropriate for a handful of students and I'm not going to go crazy like velcroing stuff. I'm just going to download it on my ipad and call it a day.
S: Yeah, well my gosh yes a hundred percent.
D: I feel like we kind of answered this a little bit but what are some of your go to activities to work on vocabulary?
S: Um, well since I've been in tele therapy for like ah almost a decade. It's like all digital at this point. Um, but Boom Cards, I love Boom Cards, so dynamic, so interactive, so much great feedback for kids. Google slides for older kids which has you know also got a lot of those same features as Boom cards.
D: Yeah I like Google sides for itinerants for older kids specifically because a lot of the places I go because I don't work for the district I don't have access to internet.
S: Ohhhh....
D: Fun, I know [LAUGH] but, but almost all schools are one to one so like the the student has a computer. So if I can either like share it with them ahead of time or make a folder where I drop stuff in for them. Usually I can get stuff that way. Um, and then they can open it on their computer and then I do have like Google slides.
S: Yes.
D: Available I just have to like think a little bit ahead about having it on their computer if I can't access my internet.
S: Right?
D: On the um, the school. Sometimes they let you on. Sometimes they don't. Like everyone changed it after Covid they were like they let they let us on during the pandemic. They're like okay, do whatever you want and then and everyone came back. They're like just kidding and they took it all down.
Both: [LAUGH]
D: Yeah so I feel like Google slides for older kids is really helpful and then interactive PDFs for younger kids on the ipad are like the two ways that get around that.
S: Oh yeah, yeah, yep, yep because you don't need any internet after you downloaded that one so that is awesome. I like a lot of like like with teletherapy I do a lot of scavenger hunts which sounds like how do you do that. But like the kids I mostly saw kids in their homes. Well they'll like go get stuff or I'll tell their parents ahead of time like hey we're gonna be ah talking about fall stuff and they'll you know, bring a leaf and we can get so much language out of a scavenger hunt.
D: Yeah.
S: They love it and I'll show what I have and they love to see that compare and contrast them and tons of language. That's probably my favorite.
D: Yeah I've done that too like in person where we like go outside like and we just like find stuff or also sometimes we're in like random rooms like I don't always have like the same, I just call it a therapy room as a stretch, I don't always have the same space [LAUGH] to do work. It's oftentimes a closet, a large closet with a table in it and I'm more than happy to do that. But sometimes I do just like use what's around me as like, like do you see anything in here that reminds you of this and then like go that way. Um, because you got to take advantage of the things around you.
S: Yep, I haven't worked in a school setting that's not virtual. So but I hear I hear all the horror stories of the closets. The janitorial closets that SLPs are put in.
D: Ah, yeah I put my foot down at working in the hallway I refuse to work in the hallway. Unless I have a table if they have a little table in a quiet hallway I will accept that because some speech rooms, like they don't even have enough room for the speech therapist so they put a little table in the hallway and sometimes they let me borrow their little table
Both: [LAUGH]
D: and that's like a great day for me I have a table. Ah.
S: Oh my gosh, Well yeah, and the hearing loss that's another layer of like just needing a conducive environment for learning.
D: Yeah, yeah, and I know this is not what the episode is about but I feel like a tip that's been super helpful for me for finding space is if you go to the office and ask like who's not in their room right now? Like who's on prep, who's uh music, who is at a special, who's at lunch?
S: Uh huh!
D: And then use their room so you have to get permission from the office and the office will tell that teacher hey this person's using your room for 30 minutes and they might be sitting at their desk which is like a little awkward but I just kind of got past that, I was like I need the space. Um, because there's really no extra space but not everyone's in their room all of the time.
S: Yes, that is a good idea.
D: So like that's kind of how I've gone, that's been my most successful strategy is asking the office like who's not in their room and can I use a desk in their room and most of the time they're happy that you're not bothering them for a separate room so they're like yeah sure, whatever yeah.
S: Yeah, sure. Yeah you can use our our leftovers.
Both: [LAUGH]
D: That's kind of like what's worked but, sorry not about vocabulary.
S: That's okay, that's okay, it's all the struggle is real. Yes.
D: Is there anything else about like vocabulary or any tips or anything that we haven't touched on today that you think would be helpful for people who are working on vocabulary goals with their kids?
S: Gosh I don't know I mean just keeping it fun, keeping it lots of different like learning modalities. So of course listening incorporating sounds, audio recordings, coloring, movement, videos. I think that's kind of just like the the best place, is a combination of all different modalities which can be a little more work on the front end. But if you're doing a theme, you can usually stretch that across several grade levels with some tweaks here and there. So yeah I guess that's about all I can think of.
Both: [LAUGH]
D: That's yeah, sounds good I feel like it's a lot to it's ah it's good to think about all the different ways that we can work with what we have and like connect it to other things and then make it all like gel together in a way that's like functional and helpfulful for the students.
S: Yeah, yes.
D: Is really when it comes back to as long as it like connects to something else in some way then that's what makes it like stick in their brain I think, you know.
S: Yeah, agree they have a place to put that little nuggets that you work on.
D: I always say it's like they got to put it in like a folder like in their in their brain. So like what file cabinet is it going in like it has to you can't just have a random full file folder flying around. It's not going to, you never will find it again. So like if you're going to teach them about this random, if ELA teacher gives you a list of words like you got to connect those words to something because otherwise they're just floating around.
S: Yes. Right.
D: I got lots of papers in my environment that are floating around and they're not being found.
Both: [LAUGH]
D: So I think I like that file folder analogy for making connections in kids' brains because I feel like it's like oh yeah, okay I see where you're, and then tell them where they're putting it so that they remember.
S: Yeah, yes, multiple times making those connections. Yeah. Multiple times.
D: Absolutely. Alright, Stacy thank you so much for being here today. Could you tell everyone if they have any questions or anything where they can find you online?
S: Sure. I have a website and a blog and that is stacycrouse.com that's stacycrouse. I am on Instagram at stacycrouse.slp and then I have a TPT store that's also my name Stacey Crouse. So you know real creative over here.
D: Yeah. Nice and easy for everybody I'll also link all of the stuff we talked about and all Stacy's links in the show notes. So if you want to check it out you can. And that's it for the show today like I said all the links and the transcript can be found below in the show notes or at listentotodpod.com If you have any questions or have any of your own fun vocabulary ideas to share feel free to post them in our TOD Community Facebook group or DM me on Instagram at Listening Fun. Have a fantastic day and I'll see you next week bye!
S: Bye!