Service Learning In Speech Therapy - Project Recap #3
If you’re interested in service learning in speech therapy and haven’t read my introduction article, check it out here. It tells you everything you need to know about service learning and how to implement it into your speech room this year!
For an in-depth look at more traditional projects, be sure to check out my Project Recap #1 and Project Recap #2.
Our Third Service Learning Project — Pen Pals!
This service learning project was completed in 2022 and was much more teacher-driven than our prior two projects. There were several reasons for our shift in structure.
I constantly have to make things more difficult than they need to be to keep myself entertained.
Our students, especially our freshmen, need a lot more support than our students have required in the past and I wasn’t sure they’d really grasp the concept of a service project.
I nearly lost my marbles earlier in the year when we did a short paragraph activity. Despite explicit instruction and numerous examples, the students continuously did not use basic writing conventions (i.e., subject AND verb, capitalizations, and periods). These students are quite capable of writing a simple, coherent sentence. There are a few in the class who do struggle with this skill, and I accommodate accordingly. But, I was on a mission to see their written expression improve.
Students/Teachers Involved For this project, I worked with a large group of 9th graders (see number 3 above) and a small group of much more independent 12th graders. I once again worked with the Resource Room English teacher. Because every school, district, and state have different “labels” for students, let me elaborate a bit further about the students we selected. The students for this project have learning disabilities that make learning in a general education classroom difficult. However, they can participate in the general education curriculum when it is taught in a smaller class and with a slower pace. About 75% of the students have speech therapy as a related service. We did most of the activities during my weekly push-in to their English class. We targeted many of their ELA Extended Standards and their speech goals throughout the project.
Choose a topic In the past, the topic had been student-driven. Not this year. I chose our project and structured it from start to finish. I had a lightbulb moment while on an inservice with my heroes from Partnerships for Authentic Learning and Leadership. I thought it would be a really fun and worthwhile activity to become pen pals with younger students in our school district.
I had a few reasons why I thought pen pals would be a great activity.
Our older students are rarely role models, and I thought it would be empowering to be looked up to by younger students.
I wanted their written expression to improve if it was the last thing I did on this Earth.
My son is in 2nd grade at a nearby elementary school, and I thought it’d be fun to do something positive for his school.
I wrote a proposal about the project and sent it to some teachers I know at my son’s school. Much to my excitement, my son’s teacher was really into the project and wanted to be our partner class.
You can see my whole proposal here. I have a lot of ideas for projects that you may want to try out.
The premise of the proposal is:
High school and elementary school students take turns writing letters to one another.
High school and elementary students do a project to benefit one another.
Celebration meet and greet.
Introduction To introduce the project and project expectations, I made this Pear Deck (my first and only one ever). I was also being observed this day, so I worked extra hard on it! I introduced the topic and we talked about what we remembered from 2nd grade. We talked about expectations for engaging with the younger students and what it meant to be a role model. The kids were engaged and insightful, and our project was off to a great start.
Letter writing We wrote all of our letters on Google Slides. This made it easy for the students to customize their letters. Since everything was on one slide deck, it was also easy for me to print the letters and send them off. Note: we only sent paper letters. We did not want students communicating outside of the school-sponsored activity, so we didn’t want email addresses to be shared.
I gave the students some ideas of things to write and instructions to change their background, fonts, and to add a few pictures of things they liked. We also added real photos which I took out for this blog for obvious reasons! The English teacher, paraprofessional, and myself helped revise the paragraphs and answered questions about formatting.
I should note that none of this sounds very speech-y until you think about the grammar, conversational skills, and following directions it takes to put one of these letters together. Students also had to ask questions when needed and take constructive feedback to improve their paragraphs.
The students asked daily when we would get our letters back, and were thrilled when we finally got our responses! Here’s my son’s response to his pen pal.
Too cute, right?
Project While discussing my project with Partnerships for Authentic Learning and Leadership, someone suggested we could do book reviews for the second grade students. I loved the idea and got started figuring out the “how” now that I had the “what.”
First, I reached out to the elementary librarian. She loved the idea and agreed to lend us about 25 books from the school library.
Next, I talked to our instructional technology coach. I wanted to do a QR code inside of the books that linked to a video book review. He suggested that we make a website instead that housed all of the reviews, so students would have a one-stop-shop website to watch reviews and find new books. I (obviously) loved the idea, and we met a few times to go over the easiest way to record reviews. I didn’t get around to it last year, but next year I hope to get a QR code into each of the books that links to our website.
Now here comes my absolute favorite part of this project (and it may be one of my top 10 things I’ve done as an SLP). We got the books from the elementary library, and each student picked one out. Then, they read their book. Let me say that again because you may not have caught the significance. They read their book. That’s right each and every one of my students who would rather eat toenails than read, READ THEIR BOOK. It was magical. I have never seen such a quiet, focused classroom. I think that for once, school wasn’t too hard. And they weren’t reading such an easy book because they wanted to or because it was all they could read, they were reading it to help someone else. It really was fantastic.
After reading, they filled out a short graphic organizer where they introduced the book, briefly introduced the plot with a hook, defined a word 2nd graders may not know, and rated the book out of 5 stars. They also wrote three words to describe the book (a la Netflix’s descriptions - explosive, action, dramatic). You can see the graphic organizer here.
As you can see on the organizer, each task they completed was on a different page. That was to make recording the video less confusing. To record videos, we used WeVideo. We did a different “take” for each page/sentence, so the students didn’t have to remember or say too much at a time.
I am absolutely heartbroken that I can’t share the website with you because it features student faces. It is so great! The kids did a wonderful job recording. I went on screen with the students who were struggling readers or camera shy to help them feel confident during their review. I do have one review to share that was done by yours truly so you can see the general format. But trust me when I say, the kids’ reviews were 10000% better!
We shared the website with the cooperating teacher and the students had a chance to check out the website and read the books.
Each book cover linked to the video review. We used many books that are available on Storyline Online (a great YouTube channel where celebrities read books). If the book was read aloud on Storyline, we also linked to that video.
Celebrate My co-teacher is an absolute pro at getting busses approved, so we were able to go visit with our 2nd grade pen pals during the last week of school. We introduced the students to their pals and split them up into groups of 8ish. Each group had an adult who led a name game to break the ice a bit.
We wanted to play a game that was inclusive to all of our students. Some have difficulty with mobility, so I reached out to the adaptive physical education teacher. She taught me a HILARIOUS game that the kids loved. It is called Toilet Tag! 10 second graders were “it” and raced around to tag the rest of the 2nd graders (we had almost 50 because a second class joined us). If a 2nd grader got tagged, they had to go down on one knee and put one arm up. The high schoolers “flushed” their raised arm, and they were free to run again. Every 60 seconds we made 10 new 2nd graders “it.” It was so much fun and everyone had a great time!
Before we left, everyone got a popsicle! The students mingled, and one of our more athletic kids organized a foot race between him and some self-proclaimed fast second graders (hilarious!)
Because I can’t share a picture of our students, here is a picture of my son enjoying a popsicle and me!
Looking back It really takes a village to do a service learning project. I worked with my co-teacher, the partner teacher, the librarians, the instructional tech coach, and the adaptive physical education teacher to pull this off. Once they knew what we were doing, they were so excited to be included and went above and beyond to make this project even more than I had ever imagined.
This activity was such a great opportunity for our students to be role models, and they really stepped up to the task. I am so proud of them!
I think we will continue the book reviews as a yearly activity and just keep adding to the website. The elementary students for years to come can use the website to find fun books.
Overall, I really loved this project, and our collaborating teachers loved it too! They showed interest in doing it again next year, so maybe this is something that we just do from now on…we’ll see!
Ready to get started? I hope you’re inspired to complete a service learning project after reading this. Don’t forget to check out my full breakdown about service learning. I also learned a lot of what I know from an organization that our district partners with called Partnerships for Authentic Learning and Leadership. They have a much more detailed framework for service and project based learning. Your district may have a similar partnership, or check out their amazing programming. You can also leave a comment or email me kelly@highschoolslp.com!
