Today we started with a r-rabbit pictures pocket. We reviewed the r pictures. We also looked up rabbits on the Internet. We discussed features in the pictures like where they were, how many, and if they have floppy or pointed ears. We wrote facts on our rabbit for ongoing discussion.
We watched "The Big Pig Song" video from yesterday which is full of -ig words repeating in s funny tune. We then did a worksheet in which Becca needed to decide if she heard the -ig sound in the word or not (big, wig, pig, dig, vs. hip, zip, lip, or dip). She only had to say if she heard it or not. She did get one correct on first response. This is a teaching activity, so the expectation is just active response to exposure. We then looked at some rhyming picture cards. We compared 4 -at and 4 -ock words. We looked at some more "r" pictures and traced upper and lowercase r. We finished our making our -at books with rat today. We sounded out each sound and then said "rat". We reviewed all of the pages and sent an extra copy home for practice. We completed a worksheet in which Becca had to identify things that do or do not go on a farm. We've done several activities on Starfall that involve a memory/concentration game. We will work on developing this skill of looking for items and I used the phrase "you/we made a match" to provide a prompt for the task. We finished our letter lacing task from yesterday. I used this time to assess her knowledge of language sounds. She produced 21 of 26 sounds clearly. For the other five sounds, she produced four close approximations in which it may have not been a clear production and/or it is an articulation deficit. Finally, she provided /s/ for "c" which is correct in some words. In looking at naming the letters, she named all but 3 of the wooden block uppercase letters correctly. She is really preferring the Starfall letter videos over RAZ Kids at this point.
Behavioral report: She started the morning with some defiant "no" responses. I told her we aren't going to say "no" like that all day and that seemed to curb the behavior quite a bit. She did a great job sitting at the table for snack and enjoyed some play outside. She was very socially appropriate, saying "hi" to other children and teachers in both of these activities.
Potty status: Becca asked to go at 10:45, and produced. She just wanted to play with play-doh as her treat and she chose not to pick an item from the treasure box.

Today we started with a p-pig pictures pocket. We reviewed the p pictures. We also looked up pigs on the Internet, discussed features, and wrote facts on our pigs for ongoing discussion. We also went back and looked at our c-cat pocket and explored some facts about cats. We did our paper work and pincer grasp hand activities. Becca did some active cutting with the closing action of the scissors. We looked at pictures of things that go with the beach. Becca had to choose which pictures did and which didn't belong. She said "yes" for all of them but once we discussed the ones that didn't, she would say "no". Becca did a picture sort of jungle animals and vegetables. She sorted all six pictures correctly without help. We watched the story "Summer" on RAZ Kids. After three viewings, Becca was able to name four details (items) she saw about the main idea of summer. We completed an emergent reader about "Cars". It reads "See the (color) car" and goes through different colors.
During snack we watched a few short videos about rhyming. One was "The Big Pig Song" featuring words in the -ig word family. We read a book called "My v Book", focusing on a little girl named "Little V" and all of the "v" items in her world. We made counting carrots today. We made five orange carrots and progressively added the green leaves to each one (1-5) and counted them. Becca participated more in the counting today, but did not count all. We repeated part of the wooden block letter lacing activity today and began an assessment of letter sounds. We'll hopefully finish this tomorrow.
Becca has really gotten in to using the timer for her work breaks (she requests it... She says 10 minutes, I say two!). She has done a great job in the early morning with extending time and attention to activities. However, around 10:45, she is becoming less tolerant. By 11:45 today, she started just throwing herself on the floor, even during activity transitions when she wasnt' being asked to do anything. She was offered a break at that time. After a two minute break, she collected herself and got back to work.
Potty status: Becca started holding off and on around 10:40, asked to go at 11:05, produced and picked a Frozen mirror and received some play-doh time.

Today we started with the o-octopus pictures pocket. Becca really seemed to enjoy coloring today. We reviewed the o pictures. We also looked up octopus on the Internet, discussed features, and wrote facts on our octopus for ongoing discussion. Today we practiced cutting with scissors. We also colored a Cinderella picture focusing on target areas with different colors. We are working towards getting the color in more controlled, smaller areas. Becca worked with wooden letters for a thick-string lacing activity. It was a lot of work to string the letters. We named each letter, said its sound, and said some words that go with each letter. Becca then worked very hard using her motor and problem solving skills to pull all of the letters back off. Becca did her second m-a-t card today. She put the t in the middle and self corrected by moving it to the final spot when she went to put the "a" on. However, she ended up putting the "a" in the first spot. I absolutely don't have the expectation that she'll spell the words correctly, however I'm really seeing that she is thinking during the process. She works hard to get the letters straight in the squares. When she is moving letters, she is thinking about what she's seen before and what she knows about the sounds.
We also completed a matching activity in which she had to find the two identical pictures on the line of 5 or 6 pictures that match. She needed a lot of verbal instruction and focus to find them, and she did on 3 of 5 of them.
Becca watched a children's video about numbers and counting during her snack. I counted items and repeated lines in the video and encouraged Becca to as well. I have heard her rote count 1-10, but counting of active items has been very limited and inconsistent in our activities.
We were treated to a story from a 3rd grade student today. She read us a Cookie Monster shapes book. Becca enjoyed it so much, she asked to hear it again. We also enjoyed the "Mickey's Birthday" book again and a non-fiction book "Little Elephants". Becca and I used our arms like a trunk and made elephant sounds. We also read an emergent reader "Hansel and Gretel" to add to her collection and reviewed "See the Animals".
Behavioral report: Becca had a very strong morning. She was attentive for long periods for the first half of the morning. She was engaged with the letter block lacing activity for about 25 minutes. Around 10:45, she started to become less tolerant for work activities. She would randomly yell (yes, yell) out "I want to go home". This was even during more favored activities and was very sporadic. She did use her hands today instead of words at one point. I was looking down and writing her name on a paper and she hit me in the face to yell that she wanted to go home. It wasn't as if she had tried to get my attention and was ignored, she had't said anything before that. I clearly saw this as an attempt just to get my attention and she forgot to use her words, not an attempt to inflict pain. I just reminded her to use her words and that it's not nice to hit.
Potty status: I took her without her request at 9:00 and she went. She asked to go again about 11:00 and received treasure box! She got a monster finger puppet and watched the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme song as a treat. I confirmed with Becca's mom this morning, that yes, it is good to allow Becca to hold herself and see if she will ask to use the bathroom.

Today we started with a m-mouse pictures pocket. Becca did a better job with the crayons today, however she needed reminders to make her crayon selection (playing with the crayons). We reviewed the m pictures. We also looked up mice on the Internet, discussed features, and wrote facts on our mouse for ongoing discussion.
We performed a receptive / interpretive task today in which Becca listened to a sentence and found the illustration to match. She did better with the concrete sentences which had the object name in the sentence.
We watched a RAZ Kids story entitled "Counting Bugs". We then sorted animals by numbers in the pictures 1 - 4. We looked at the pictures and I modeled singular vs. plural with saying the items (for ex. one dog, three bugs) and I put emphasis on the /s/ on the end of the plurals. Becca repeated me. We assembled and colored an emergent reader called "I Can". An extra copy was sent home. We reviewed our "Horses" book. Becca recalls "mane", but has difficulty recalling mare and foal. She definitely shows familiarity with those words when I remind her. We read a story on RAZ Kids entitled "Five". I counted the objects on each page. Becca remained attentive, but did not help count. We then followed up with a worksheet in which Becca had to decide if the picture (word) started with f or not. We then traced Ff on those words that did start with f. We looked through and labeled items in the "Richard Scarry's Best Word Book". Becca enjoyed a short video about shapes during her snack. We performed a "sort by color" activity today using colored foam shapes. Becca did a great job sorting in a field of six colors and we labeled each one by color and shape (red heart, etc.). For our -at word family, Becca did "mat". I asked her "what goes first for mat?" and she replied "m". She glued the letters in the correct order. She had difficulty properly orienting the m, but let me help her. We are working on more efficient hand usage in these tasks. She'll try to stick the letters on while still holding the glue stick and/or the cap, therefore we are working on putting those items down, then putting the letter on, etc to make things easier for her. Throughout all coloring activities today, I colored items as well, providing a lot of modeling. I colored small things, and verbalized about how I was coloring small and just coloring the specific named item. She really seemed to be paying attention. We played Zingo and Becca echo read "The Ocean" on RAZ Kids.
At the end of the day we enjoyed the book "Mickey's Birthday". We discussed how Mickey was feeling in the story as we went along (sad, surprised, and happy).
Behavioral report: Becca was more compliant today. We had a more productive morning.
Potty status: Becca had been holding herself off and on for about 10 minutes or so. I had asked her several times if she needed to go and she said "no". She finally asked to go to the potty (11:00) and did produce. She searched high and low in the treasure box for play doh, but didn't find any and settled happily on a rubbery finger puppet. I let her have some play-doh time and she integrated the puppet into her play. She started holding herself off and on about 11:45. I asked her several times if she needs to go and she repeatedly declined. Nancy took her to the restroom before leaving the building. I feel comfortable letting her get to the point where she's holding herself and will finally ask to go. If you prefer I take her as soon as I see this behavior, please just let me know.

We started the morning with an assessment of Becca's recognition of lowercase letters. I question the reliability quite a bit as she needed a great deal of encouragement to participate. At that point in time, she recognized all letters except: q, d, m, n, v, t, g, u, and i.
Today we made a lion picture pocket for l words. Becca did a nice job coloring more completely today. We looked up pictures of lions on the Internet and wrote some facts on the back of our lion for continued conversation. I handed Becca her hat picture and the letters h, a, and t. She said "I need glue" as I hadn't gotten her the glue stick yet. I prompted her with "what do we hear first?" and I made an /h/ sound. She replied "h". She then proceeded to glue the h first and put the a in the last spot. She then removed the a and put it in the middle (self corrected), and then finished the word with the t. We sounded out hat, with encouragement and then went through all of the other three words we have done.
Because the negation concept has been difficult, we will take a step back and work on more sorting activities. We will examine how things can be put together. We started today with a sort of foods vs. vehicles (things we can ride in). There were three pictures for each category. She did well with this activity.
We also practiced some CVC word building of the -an family on Starfall today. We will begin really focusing on expanding Becca's help requests. Instead of just "help please", we will work on including the exact request. For ex., Becca needed help opening her cheese bag. Instead of just "open please", she needed to say "open (the) cheese (bag) please" to have her needs met. This will be done within her patience parameters. I would never deny requests for help, however if her tolerance level allows, this is a good opportunity to expand language for more detailed verbalizations. Today it helped to say "open what?" and she then provided the object name. We reviewed our Horses book and performed some fine motor paper tasks. We played a new game called Zingo. Each player receives a card that has 9 simple pictures and words.
A card dispenser sends out two cards at a time. The players take the appropriate cards they need to fill their card (we played that Becca got to pick what she needed of the two and I got the leftovers vs. the competitive version). This activity required Becca to determine what she did and did not need for her card, as well as sharing. Behavioral report: Becca was more defiant in her actions today. We do the picture cards routinely and she has become primarily independent in this activity. She knows she is supposed to choose one crayon and color. She also knows that we write with the pencil and not color with it. Today she grabbed three pencils and started coloring with them. While I keep her work space cleared off, I do try to leave her crayon box open and available, to give her the opportunity to make good choices and have options, etc. She also was grabbing quite a bit throughout the day. For ex., when I laid papers out for her, she was grabbing them and pulling them to her chest. She rarely gave things back on initial command. Most of the time today, I had to count to three for her to hand them back. She also used whining and crying about task completion rewards today (demanding the reward whenever she wanted it). I'll typically offer her a short Mickey song video, a Starfall letter phonics video, or RAZ kids story. On many occasions, she is choosing the Starfall phonics video, which is exciting. Today she needed a lot of reminders that she needed to first complete the task before receiving the reward. On average, I would estimate our tasks are approximately 10 minutes, maybe even less. If it is longer or more tedious, I will offer her a break on the bean bag. Hopefully it was just an off day.

Potty status: Becca had been grabbing herself off and on for about 10 minutes. I decided to see what she'd do. She finally asked to go to the potty (10:00) and did produce. Yay, treasure box! She asked to go again at 10:45, produced, and earned a Hello Kitty hair brush from the treasure box.

Today we tried a tracing letters activity with larger letters and more verbal directives. This was very challenging and will need continued work. We watched the "Big" and "Little" stories on RAZ Kids. We discussed things that are big and little and completed a worksheet to place the pictures in the appropriate column: big or little. Becca also completed an ABC puzzle, but would not say the alphabet with me. We reviewed our kangaroo picture pouch from yesterday. We also reviewed the” a is for alligator” pouch. We looked up pictures of alligators on the Internet and discussed the features we saw. I wrote some facts about alligators on the back of our picture pouch for continued discussion. We reviewed our "Horses" book from yesterday. Becca recalled "mane", and needed reminders for foal and mare. She was singing Old MacDonald throughout the morning. We completed a string lacing activity of looping over and under around the perimeter of a wooden horse. We enjoyed Dr. Seuss' A Book as well. We watched a RAZ Kids story called "The Classroom". She was then tasked with recalling some items listed in the story, that were in the classroom. After 5 viewings of the story, she recalled 4 items to meet the target activity. I tried to repeat the negative concept activity from yesterday, with limited participation. We played Princess Candyland today. We worked quite a bit on possessives, however no 's were produced.
Potty status: I took her at 10:30, despite saying she didn't need to go, she did produce. She was holding herself at 11:25, again said she didn't need to go, put did go.

Today I reassessed Becca's recognition of the uppercase alphabet letters. She consistently named all except J, D, N, K, and G; therefore naming 21 letters. When she arrived in early January, the form in her folder shows she named only 5 letter C, G, L, R, and W. We will be working to get all 26 uppercase letters consistently. We then made our letter k - kangaroo picture pocket. We tried an activity focusing on the concept of negative terminology. I gave her three shapes, two of the same color and one of another. I asked her to give me the one that is NOT the matching color. She couldn't do the task but did really attend to the training of IS vs IS NOT. We will continue to work on this concept of negative. We worked on a h-a-t picture card today. I handed her the materials and she was able to complete without instruction. She began gluing on the letters. She knew the t was sideways and corrected it. She glued them in the order: aht. When I asked her if hat started with the a sound, she said "no" and we then moved the letters. She was able to repeat the three sounds together, two times in a row with only minimal cueing! It was great to see her increased familiarity with the task. We reviewed her "See the animals" reader from the other day. Today she provided more three word responses with "look at ----" and said the animal name.
Today we read a low level reader (simpler language) about "Horses". We will be reviewing the terms mane, mare, and foal throughout the week to see of she can name these items by description (building vocabulary from informational text). We made a paper bag puppet of a horse to go along with this activity. As she played with the puppet, she did hand it me and said "Miss Debbi's turn". I wish now that I had listened closer to hear if she actually got the possessive onto my name. I was excited to see her initiating turn taking.We did our fine motor paper tasks throughout the morning. We completed a worksheet in which she had to tell me if the picture started with the "d" sound. She needed me to repeat the initial sounds of the words that did not start with d. We then traced upper and lowercase letter d with each picture that started with d. In tracing I am trying to focus on using the pencil in the target area, near the dotted lines, and eyes on the paper. I'm not as concerned with her performance in the actual tracing. She typically just starts doodling anywhere on the paper. I am now more so concentrating on her finding the dotted lines and realizing that is the target of the activity. This is similar to our coloring tasks. She is doing better at independently coloring and more so in a target area. We are working now on using different colors for the target areas. For example, today with our paper bag horse puppet we colored the tongue red, the mane black, and the rest of the horse brown. Modeling and hand-over-hand assistance are provided. I'm finding with the tracing with the pencil, she is really letting the work fall to my hand with the hand-over-hand assistance, so I will be working to reduce how much physical assistance is provided and move to more verbal. This will take some time. Additionally, we are working on her posturing. She likes to stand and lean into me. After a short time, she has gotten to a point where she is leaning all of her weight on to me. I've been using cues of gently pulling back and telling her she's going to fall. Those cues usually work quickly to get her to right herself and stand up. (We've been working on this for a while.). I've noticed she is also greeting people in a similar way in the hallway. She often walks up to them, right into their legs. Many are sweet to bend down and hug her, but she is dropping her weight into their arms. We are really starting to focus on standing back and using "our words" to greet and leave others. Because she knows "hi" and "bye", my cues to her are more open ended, such a "what do we say when we see a friend" and "what do we say when some one is leaving". This way I'm not providing her the words, but the prompt of when to use the words she knows. We will continue to work on appropriate greetings and departures. She has improved in walking down the hall. She is needs less reminders to go straight down the hall and not disturb other doors. In a pre-math activity, we used Duplo building blocks to match colored pictures of patterns to stack the Duplos (three to five). Becca typically picked 75% of the correct colors, but needed help to get them in the right order. We then counted the blocks, in which she said some of the numbers.
Potty status: 9:50 she said she needed to potty, but did not produce. I took her at 10:20, 10:55, 11:25, and 11:55. On all occasions she argued with me about going, did not want to sit on the potty, and did not produce. She kept jumping back off the seat and I would slowly count to 10 to try to get her to sit. On the last occasion, I took her in and she wouldn't go for me. I left her with Nana to try for her. She was dry the whole day at school.

This morning began with a team meeting involving Becca’s parents, Educational Advocate Julie, Private Speech-Pathologist Lynn, Ms. Judie, and myself. We primarily discussed current performance as well as her speech and language goals in private therapy. A new curriculum product has been ordered for Becca and we will evaluate its effectiveness as well as determine if there are any necessary modifications or additional supplemental materials needed to maximize our opportunities in servicing Becca.
I presented Becca with a new emergent reader today entitled "See the Animals". Each page features an animal and the words "Look at the ---" with the name of the animal. I asked Becca what fish started with and she said "f". While she was coloring the horse page, she spontaneously said "h says /h/" and provided the h sound. We then had an exchange where I asked "what letter does bear start with?" and she replied, "b". I then asked "what does b say" and she provided the b sound. These exchanges continued throughout the activity. We read 7 pages of the "look at the (animal name)" reader. On the final page she adapted other story knowledge and added the color word too! "Look at the yellow duck"! It was great to see her use applied knowledge and add the detail of the color she had used to color the duck. Unfortunately she wouldn't produce the whole phrase, only the last word on each page as we read through. An uncolored copy of the story was sent home for her to practice as she desires.
We replicated our b-a-t activity today. I presented her with the paper and the three letters in random order. I asked her to help me put the letters where they go for "bat". She worked very hard at gluing the letters on the paper. I provided verbal support in emphasizing the sounds, especially the initial and final consonants. She glued the b on first, but in the final position. She then put on the a in the middle and the t at the beginning. She worked hard to make the letters straight, by herself. When we looked at the sounds and I made the sounds for her, she knew she had it wrong. We took them off and worked on fixing them. She performed very well on this ask, again, with primary goal being the introduction to this process. It took multiple attempts to get her to sound out each segment in repetition. She'd do one, then maybe two, then just one again, etc. We celebrated with big cheers when she finally produced each sound, in a row, all 3 of them! With encouragement, she did echo read “My Family” on RAZ Kids. We enjoyed a fun "Paddington Goes to the Market" book. For her snack, I offered her the banana from her lunch box. For her first bite, she took a very large bite banana into her mouth. I introduced the concept of taking “little bites like a lady” and would complement her as a “lovely lady” when she took smaller bites. I discouraged her from taking “big yucky monster bites” and Becca would say “yuck”. This seem to help, at least at this time.
Potty status: She was taken at 9:00, despite saying "no" and she did go. At 9:55 she asked to go, produced, and got treasure box. At 11:25, she interrupted a free choice time activity to go and produced again. Hooray!

Today was one of those "No, I don't want to....I'm so tired" days. She did complete required tasks, just with more promoting and longer time needed to execute. She was delighted in earning task completion rewards of quick Mickey Mouse songs. Becca colored a jellyfish to make her J pictures pocket. We looked up pictures of jellyfish online and wrote some facts about jellyfish on our pocket. We looked at a few pages of an "Oceans" book that belonged to another student and also read a cute book about a little pig named Olivia that wants to be a ballerina. "Olivia the Ballerina" is a longer story than we usually read, so required more attending skills.

We worked on the next segmenting word for our -at family book. I asked Becca, "what sound do we hear first in b,b,bat?" She replied "b". She had a hard time with "a", but then knew "t". We glued them in order on the paper, sounded out each segment, and then blended the word. She showed increased knowledge of the task today. This is an early introduction to sounding out words. My goal at this time is to just introduce to the process. We completed a worksheet in which she had to tell me if the word started with "b" or not. She was inconsistent on this task and we will continue to work on hearing initial sounds.

We played the children's board game "Candyland" today (designed for ages 3+). Board games provide wonderful language, patience, following directions, and turn taking opportunities. Becca was only mildly interested in the game. We did complete it with a break in the middle.
We did a lot of fine motor work today with paper tearing, crumpling, and opening. We practiced with scissors. She did better with closing and did cut some paper. She also traced letter c and d on worksheets with assistance. We also completed a wooden animal puzzle. We looked at some Sesame Street number cards and Becca did help me count some of the items. We did 1-6.
She sat well in the lunchroom for snack. We then explored the actions of some musical instruments (shake, tap, and hit, etc.) Potty status: Nana took her a little before 9:00 and reported that Becca expressed pain and did not urinate. I took her at 10:30 and she did go. Around 11:40, Becca told me she needed to potty and she did produce. She picked play-doh out of the treasure box. We worked on sharing today with the play-doh. I expressed my feelings of sadness and that my feelings were hurt when she wouldn't share with me. I told her I'd have to put it away if she couldn't share and she quickly handed me the play-doh. We will continue to work on acknowledging of people's feelings instead of having to revert the more negative action of taking something away.

Today we had a meeting with Becca's mother, Ms. Judie, Becca's Behavioral Therapist Heidi, and myself. We reviewed the potty training planning, including that Becca receives tokens for having a bowel movement on the potty. After earning three tokens, she gets a big prize. Ms. Judie requested that tokens be provided to us so that if a BM occurs, Becca can receive an immediate reward. We also discussed current behavior strategies being implemented at home and at school. Copies will be made available for the school to use as a resource. Based on a quick review of the materials, it was determined that similar strategies are being followed at school.
Today we repeated the RAZ Kids "Play Ball" story to see if Becca could more readily recall details of the story on command. Yesterday it took her 4 viewings of the story to name 4 balls. Today it took only one viewing of the story. We made our I is for... Picture pocket pack. The iguana is more abstract in its drawing, and not as common as some other animals. We looked up some pictures of iguanas online and I wrote some facts about them on the back of the iguana that we discussed. We traced letter H and I sheets today with some hand-over-hand assistance. We did a sort of G/H/I is for... pictures from our Starfall pictures. This was a little harder for Becca as some of the nouns for these letters are not as common. We tried an activity which showed an uppercase letter and a lowercase of the same letter and then a third letter which did not match. Becca had a hard time understanding which letter “doesn’t belong”. We will practice this discrimination task more.
Yesterday we started a new activity with segmenting of each sound in CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words, then blending the sounds together to make words. I gave Becca a picture of a cat and the three letters c, a, t. I gave her the letters and assisted in her gluing them in the right order. We then spoke each sound and then blended the sounds together to make the word. Becca demonstrated interest in the activity, but needed a great deal of modeling and encouragement to repeat the sounds with me. Today, I decided we would make a duplicate book so that she could have one at home and repeat the task to condition the process. I did not show her the page from yesterday. I gave her one letter at a time and she glued them in the correct order (from right to left though, she put the t on first, but in the correct spot). She needed a lot of modeling again to say each sound and then blend, however that is my expectation at this time in starting this new complicated task. I was so excited to see her put the letters in the correct spots. We will send the book home when it is completed.
We reviewed the “Counting Butterflies” book and Becca identified “see” on the word wall. She did repeat 1, 3, and 5 on the pages today. She did a good job sitting in her seat in the lunchroom for snack and enjoyed some outside time. Fine motor tasks today: tracing letters and ripping paper.
Her rewards today included: starfall phonics short videos, favorite stories on RAZ Kids, “Let it Go (Libre Soy)” with the high school girls, and Mickey Mouse “Hot Dog” video.