Carrying Over Goals to Every Part of Your Students' Day!

Let's chat goals today. The expected (hoped and prayed for) end result for all goals is always carryover into real life situations. We want out student to be able to take what they have learned out of the speech room and into the classroom. Use at lunch. In music class. At baseball practice. But how can we really do our best to make sure that carryover happens?

In 2012 I attended a summer workshop that discussed the idea of an embedded goals chart. The idea behind this is that a child's goals are cross referenced with every activity in their day to see where they can carryover these goals outside of the speech room.

Here is how it works:

A table is created that has all of the child's speech goals listed down the side. Across the top of the table, all of the classes/activities that the child is involved in is listed. Put a check mark or an X in every box that would allow the child to somehow carryover that goal during that activity. This chart is something that can easily and discreetly be kept on a coach's clipboard or in a troop leader's folder. The idea is not for the coach to find ways to address these goals at practice, but just to be aware of what he/she is working on. We don't want to create more work for anyone, just create awareness!

How awesome would it be to pick your daughter up from Girl Scouts and hear, "Oh wow, Kenzie really used great /r/ sounds tonight while sharing with the group about her vacation!" or "Amy came up and independently asked me for more paint during our craft activity tonight." This chart can be so powerful and so helpful to our kids with their progress in real world experiences. There are so many missed opportunities to practice what was learned in the day. Even more missed opportunities to celebrate what has been accomplished!

They say it takes a village to raise a child.  I say we use that village to reach goals!

You can download a FREE copy of my chart, here.