The real March Madness is that it’s March 23 and Chicago’s getting up to 6″ of snow this morning. Are you kidding me??? It’s a good day to sit inside and post a message to you! In case you’re on another planet, we are in the throes of the Big Dance, aka March Madness, aka the NCAA tournament. There are so many acronyms and figures of speech being thrown around that it makes an IEP conference positively easy to understand.
I love the “In de Annapolis” promo on TV this week. Most of our speech kids don’t need a phonemic cue for “Indianapolis,” and likely only a child from Maryland would find Annapolis easier to retrieve than Indianapolis. But it serves as a reminder to choose cues that are meaningful to the individual child. Ask your speech kids the names of their siblings, relatives, and pets. If Joey has an “Aunt Sarah,” then “Sarah” is a good cue for “Sarajevo.” But if he knows no one named “Sarah,” then the cue may not be as helpful. One of my 5th grade friends has an uncle named “Phil,” so the image of his Uncle Phil sucking a fragrant mint is a great cue for “filament.” Remember that retrieval is determined by recency of use and frequency of use. Find cues that are relevant. Then repeat, repeat, repeat.
By the time you come up with cues for the Sweet 16 teams, the tournament will be down to the Elite 8 or the Final Four. Maybe it’s time to focus on curriculum words instead!