With RTI and the rise of classroom teachers understanding they can ask SLPs to provide interventions, the need for a quick way to provide more interventions to more students has grown. If you are like me, you may be hesitant to stray away from the 30-45 minute sessions. There has been several authors/companies that are creating materials for an intensive program in a smaller amount of time. This will allow SLPs to get lots of data, make better use of less time, and get to see more students.
I was fortunate to be provided with a copy of the Speedy Speech School Edition Program (/r/ and /s/). Note, the opinions are all mine! Keep reading to learn more!
The Speedy Speech program was created by JoAnn Tuttle & Tamara Truax, an SLP & TSHH. Each book contains an entire program for treating that particular phoneme in all positions and clusters. This program was designed to help students correct speech errors quickly and efficiently in short 5-10 minutes one-on-one drill sessions. By utilizing the SLPs expertise and this programs multi-sensory approach, this program uses a hierarchical model (auditory bombardment and discrimination, then word, phrase, and sentence level drills with co-articulation practice).
There are 8 stages of this program. Students are expected to receive a mastery level of 90% in order to move onto the next stage:
- Sound in isolation
- Sound in syllables and consonant-vowel combinations
- Sound in the initial position of one and two syllable words
- Sound in the final position of one and two syllable words
- Sound in the medial position of one and two syllable words
- Sound in phrases
- Sound in sentences
- Sound in conversational speech
- Program guide
- auditory bombardment in words
- auditory discrimination pair sets
- sound bridge
- drill words, phrases, and sentences
- conversational prompts
- record forms
- homework calendars
- parent and teacher letters
motivational charts and certificates
- Very comprehensive. Has all of the letters, charts, forms, and materials you would need in one book.
- Doesn't take up that much space. Tons of artic cards and materials can clutter an already small speech room. This program is small and easy to store.
- Love the use of the hierarchy to target each phoneme. They provide materials for each stage which makes it easy to treat at any level.
- They provide step-by-step what you need to be successful.
- Tons of suggestions for using the program in a school setting. They understand the challenges and needs of a school SLP.
- Detailed description of each component of the program. No need to guess how this program should work.
- Great for RTI data/approach
- This program will work best if you have a student with only one or few articulation errors. May not work well with those with oral motor issues and phonological processes.
- Administrators/teachers may not be open with change. They may not want you to take students for that short of time, may be too distracting to the classroom.
- 5-10 minutes may not be enough time to work on phonemic placement. This may work best for students in the carryover phase or are stimulable to those sounds.
- However, this program may help determine which students will require a more intensive, pull-out approach and those that can benefit from these “quick drills” aka who needs to receive a full, comprehensive speech-language evaluation/IEP.
