271: Content vs. Skills in Speech Therapy: Striking the Perfect Balance for Secondary Students
Show Notes:
This week on SLP Coffee Talk, Hallie is tackling the age-old debate—should we focus on teaching classroom content or the underlying skills our students need? Hallie dives into the sweet spot of blending content learning with skill building, ensuring your students not only grasp their classroom material but also develop the skills to tackle new challenges. With strategies and relatable examples, you’ll leave equipped to create engaging sessions that resonate with your students. Tune in and discover how to empower your students for long-term success!
Here's what we learned:
- Focus on both content and skills to empower students.
- Avoid teaching every vocabulary word; instead, teach strategies for comprehension.
- Make therapy relevant to students' real-world experiences to boost engagement.
- Use creative and adaptive strategies to connect therapy to classroom content.
RESOURCES
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JOKE OF THE WEEK:
Q: Why can't your nose be 12 inches long?
A: Because then it would be a foot!
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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 Hallie: Hey there, SLP working with grades 4 through 12. New school year, new you. Let's not go into this school year feeling overwhelmed and behind on paperwork. Let's not worry about students asking why they are coming to speech. Let's not have students shrunk in their shoulders and looking at you saying, “Why am I here? I don't want to be here.” Let's instead have your students excited to come to speech, ready to take on the challenges you provide, and make massive progress towards their goals.
00:00:30 Hallie: If you are ready to make this school year the year that you leave work promptly at the end of the day, plan in an hour or less a week, and go into every session confident that your students will grasp the session objectives, then SLP Elevate is just what you need to make this school year a successful one. Either go to slpelevate.com or send me a DM on Instagram with the word “culb”, C-U-L-B, and we can discuss if SLP Elevate is right for you and your students. Now is the time to get your time back, and now is the time to get your students excited to come to speech. SLP Elevate is perfect for you.
00:01:14 Hallie: Welcome to SLP Coffee Talk, the podcast designed exclusively for speech language pathologists who work with older students, grades 4 through 12. I am your host, Hallie Sherman, your SLP behind Speech Time Fun, the Speech Retreat Conference, and the SLP Elevate Membership. And I'm thrilled to bring you conversations, strategies, and insights that will give you the jolt of inspiration that you need. Whether you're tuning in during your morning commute, on a break in between sessions, or even during a well deserved relaxation time, I am here for you each and every week. Let's do this, SLPs.
00:01:55 Hallie: Hey, and welcome to another episode of SLP Coffee Talk, where we serve up actionable strategies for you middle and high school SLPs with a side of humor and plenty of caffeine. I'm Hallie Sherman here, here to help you navigate your therapy challenges, keep your students engaged, and maybe squeeze in a laugh or two.
00:02:13 Hallie: Today, we're going to be diving into one of the most debated questions among secondary SLPs. Are we teaching students the classroom content that they're struggling with, the underlying skills they need to access that content, or both? Spoiler alert—it is both. But figuring out how to balance content and skill building without turning into a tutor or losing sight of your role as the language expert can feel really tricky. It feels tricky as juggling IEP meetings, therapy prep, and a lukewarm cup of coffee. So, let's break it down on what are we really working.
00:02:51 Hallie: So, the core dilemma—content versus skill building. Let's start with that big question. How do we navigate this balance between helping students understand specific content and teaching them the skills so that they can succeed across the board? We need to teach the content. Sometimes, students just need help grasping classroom material. Maybe, it's decoding key vocabulary in vocabulary, key vocabulary in biology, or making sense of Shakespeare's metaphors, right? We love using those and those are challenging for most students.
00:03:26 Hallie: But here's the catch—if we're only working on content, we risk becoming glorified tutors. And that's not why we earned our CCCs, right? We didn't go to grad school to become a ELA tutor. Let's be real. So, we need to build the skills. Okay, the dilemma.
00:03:42 Hallie: On the other hand, if we're only working exclusively on the how, without connecting it to the real world content, our students are going to feel lost when they face new material. They're also not going to see how what we are doing is relevant to their world. So, it could be like teaching someone how to stir but not giving them the spoon or the ingredients to do so. We need to show them the how, but also connect it to their world.
00:04:10 Hallie: So, the sweet spot is doing both. The magic happens when we blend skill building with content learning. Think of it like sneaking veggies into mac and cheese. It's still comfort food, but it's packed with nutrients. So for example, while exploring the causes of World War I, we can teach students how to organize information using graphic organizers. In a lesson on ecosystems, we can emphasize how to define academic vocabulary by teaching them roots, prefixes, and suffixes.
00:04:42 Hallie: This way, we're teaching a strategy that they can actually transfer to new material, not just the material in the here and now. Any new thing they come across, they can use the strategy we taught them while reinforcing their classroom content. Because let's be real, also, our students are coming to us from different classrooms and their teachers might be working on something different. So, it can be a challenge to sometimes incorporate that so easily.
00:05:10 Hallie: What are some of the mistakes we tend to make? To hit that sweet spot, it is essential to avoid these common pitfalls, and I've done it as well. Feeling like a tutor, becoming a tutor. By just slowly focusing on reteaching classroom content leaves no time to build skills, those goals that they have. They have speech and language goals. It's not just to work on science vocabulary. They have also other subjects, too. We need to teach them the skills so they can use it across all the curriculum.
00:05:40 Hallie: We tend to teach every vocabulary word. With thousands of academic vocabulary terms, you'll never cover it all. We see them once a week, twice a week. Some of you see your students once a month. So instead, teaching them strategies like context clues, prefixes, suffixes, root words, or using parts of speech—all those things can help them comprehend new vocabulary words that come their way.
00:06:06 Hallie: Teaching them a framework of how to define. Mitochondria is a type of- a part of a… What category does it fit in? Describing and giving them a framework so they know how to define it in their own words. They're not just memorizing words. And when it's worded a little differently, they don't know which one is their definition. You know what I'm talking about, right?
00:06:28 Hallie: And another mistake we tend to make is skipping relevance. When our therapy activities feel disconnected from the students' real-world experiences, engagement limits. Okay? Again, it can be a challenge to know what your students are working on. And I'm not saying you need to do your entire session around social studies or science. It could be literally a second at the end. “Hey, so we've worked on this. This is how you can apply it here.” It doesn't have to be fancy. It does not have to be elaborate to be effective.
00:07:01 Hallie: So, why do we need to focus on skills? We focus on the skills, we're equipping our students for the long haul. We're helping them access the curriculum by working on skills like summarizing, making inferences, organizing information, can open the door to access all subjects. They need those skills for all subject areas.
00:07:22 Hallie: By focusing on skills, it gives our students independence. Students can learn to rely on strategies, not us. Right? We don't want them to need us forever. And also, when we rely on skills, when we focus on skills, we get more engagement. By tying their therapy to their classes and interests helps students feel more invested and more motivated to participate. You see how it's going to help them.
00:07:46 Hallie: Okay. So, inside of SLP Elevate, I like to teach the four ingredients, my go-to recipe, for a successful speech session. No matter what goal you're working on, no matter how big the group, here's how you can use this for working on content versus skills.
00:08:04 Hallie: Understanding is one of the ingredients. Having a deep understanding of what you are working on and why you are working on it is going to make a world of a difference. So, identify the root of the problem. Why are they struggling? Is it the vocabulary? Is it their critical thinking? Where is it? Syntax? Why are they struggling?
00:08:21 Hallie: Having a little creativity. How can you incorporate their interests while also tying it to the curriculum? They might not be motivated by preparing for the social studies test. Maybe, it might be more relevant to them by utilizing sports articles or memes or YouTube videos. By incorporating their interests, you can make even the dullest content a little bit more relatable.
00:08:44 Hallie: And having adaptability. How can you use one activity for working on a variety of goals that is all in your room at one time? You don't want 10 different lessons going on in the same time. You're going to feel like you're a juggling act and your students are going to be all over the place just like you. How can you use one YouTube video or a sports article to address all the needs of your students no matter where they are in all their different content areas?
00:09:09 Hallie: And again, compassion, recognizing how overwhelming school can be for your students. Celebrate every win, no matter how big or small. The more you do that, your students will know that you care. When you're working on some of these hard skills, these things are really hard for them, they are aware of their difficulties, we need to remind them that we're here to help.
00:09:31 Hallie: All right. Here are some therapy ideas you can use today, tomorrow, whenever. Let's dive in some actionable strategies and ideas that balance content and skill building.
00:09:41 Hallie: You can do like a context clues detective. You can use a short passage like something from readworks.org or an article from SLP Elevate, and you can highlight challenging words and have students uncover their meanings using context clues. You can teach each context clues type: synonym, antonym, definition, example, and show them how you identify and utilize context clues to figure out unknown words. Model the process, model your thinking about your thinking, and you can solve these detective problems together.
00:10:16 Hallie: And why does this work? Turning it into a game can build engagement while your students are working on essential vocabulary skills. And then you can tie it to the curriculum. Show them how they can use this skill when they're reading a article in their science textbook or history lesson.
00:10:32 Hallie: Okay. You can do a summary activity. You can guide students in telling a summary using various things. So, start with a paragraph level. I have tons of task card games inside of SLP Elevate that you can utilize, and also, use something on Bamboozle or even a YouTube video. And you can use somebody-wanted-to-but-so-then. Give them a framework of how to summarize a fictional passage, and then go to a whole story, and go a little bit more challenging as they are becoming more and more successful.
00:11:01 Hallie: I even like to start with utilizing Pixar movies like Shrek or Finding Nemo and starting there. Things that they know. And then go to the paragraph level or video, and then go into an article. And by breaking it down and doing it in chunks like that, it makes it feel manageable and builds that confidence and gets those quick wins for your students. And tie it to the curriculum. Show them, “Hey, when you have to retell a story on a novel you're reading in class, this is how you can use somebody-wanted-but-so-then to know how to do.”
00:11:32 Hallie: Okay. You can do a curriculum driven Connect 4 game. It's Connect 4 where students can answer questions to earn their turn. Though you can customize it to focus on vocabulary, summarizing, main idea, whatever, WH questions, whatever you were working on.
00:11:48 Hallie: So, if your students are working on utilizing a word in a sentence or main idea, having them do that before taking a turn in Connect 4, you can also do this with Jenga, Crocodile Dentist, any of the games you have in your therapy room. And by gamifying it, this makes it a little bit more interesting, motivating, and more opportunities to practice that skill. And then you can tie it to the curriculum. Show them, “Hey, when you are answering this question, this is how you would do this in the classroom.” Again, you do this for any possible goal.
00:12:19 Hallie: And then, making sure you can have real-world connections. Help your students relate what they're doing in the classroom to their own lives or in a broader world. You could ask reflective questions like “How does this relate to your life?” Use current events to make abstract concepts more concrete, okay? Just make things relevant to them, but then again, tie it to whatever goal they're working on, with current events or whatever you're doing, whether it's working on job interviews or this and that, add into how they can use this elsewhere, okay?
00:12:51 Hallie: And again, always a little help from SLP Elevate, if you're feeling overwhelmed by how to juggle it all, in SLP Elevate, we have articles, task card games, YouTube cheat sheets, all those things to work on any possible goal. And I'm there to support you to answer any questions if you're wondering how to teach the different skills and how to tie in with the creative. Okay?
00:13:11 Hallie: So, that's the most important piece. We need to focus on teaching the skills that are going to empower our students to access the content independently. If we're only accessing the content and teaching them for science, history, working on that novel in class, they're going to not know how to tailor that strategy to something new when it comes their way. We need to blend skill building into the content lessons, so that they can see how what we're doing in the therapy room is relevant and meaningful, and they will be more engaged as well.
00:13:43 Hallie: Use creative and adaptive strategies that connect therapy to students' real world. You don't need to plan your entire session around their science test. Just show it at the end. I like to do it like an introduction and conclusion. “Hey…” This is how you can introduce it and show them. “We're doing this because…” “We did this. How can you use this? Let's refer back.”
00:14:04 Hallie: It takes seconds. Doesn't need to be elaborate. You don't need to be an expert in the science curriculum or the social studies curriculum. You can easily just do little tweaks. By having a glance at what the students are doing in the classroom, you can know. “Okay, they're working on DBQs and [inaudible]. Oh, they're working on comparing and contrasting animal and plant cells,” whatever. By knowing a little bit, you can easily tie it in. Okay?
00:14:28 Hallie: So remember, we are doing both. It's not one or the other. It's that magic sweet spot where the more that you understand your role, it is going be easier for you to present it to your students and see the results that you are anticipating and hoping for.
00:14:46 Hallie: All right. Before we wrap up, I have your joke of the week. Why can't your nose be 12 inches long? Because then it would be a foot. Baddum, ching!
00:14:57 Hallie: SLPs, you're not just teaching words or concepts. You're building bridges to independence. Keep rocking those sessions, inspiring your students, and as always, until next week, stay out of trouble.
00:15:16 Hallie: Thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of SLP Coffee Talk. It means the world to me that you're tuning in each and every week and getting the jolt of inspiration you need. You can find all of the links and information mentioned in this episode at my website, speechtimefun.com.
00:15:36 Hallie: Don't forget to follow the show so you don't miss any future episodes. And while you're there, it would mean the world to me if you would take a few seconds and leave me an honest review. See you next week with another episode full of fun and inspiration from one SLP to another. Have fun, guys!
